Joe,

Objective reality means far less to some people than how they feel about a subject.

This is especially true about those secular fundimentalists like the academic post-modernists, who object to the very concept of "objective reality."

Exhibit A, from Andrew Sullivan's blog:

QUOTE OF THE DAY I: "My friend said, 'I'm for the UN and international law, and I think you've become a traitor to the left. A neocon!'

Serious people don't refer to Bush as a fascist. Serious people should deal with the same. I can play the same game, if you want me to go find the extreme right-wing commentary I can then represent as average right-wing thought.

If I do that, nothing gets resolved.

All four of the Marxists left on the planet are inordinately pleased that you've called them out as representatives of the entire left.

Ross,

Serious people don't pretend that 9/11/2001 never happened.

Serious people don't pretend that we are not facing a death cult spawned by a mortally sick, failed culture.

Serious people don't avoid the logical policy conclusions of those first two points.

Unfortunately Ross, you are not a serious person.

This is what I said to Armed Liberal about the America Democratic Party's "best and brightest" on national security, whose faults you share.

A.L.

Record is on the wrong side of the 9/11 divide. He will not accept that 9/11 happened and that it has life or death has policy consequences. What was "acceptable risk" prior to 9/11/2001 is not afterwards. Period. Full Stop.

Like Mr. Record, Ross, so are you.

Mr. Judson,

Please answer the following "yes or no" question. Feel free to elaborate or explain how it cannot be answered by a simple "yes" or "no" if such is your opinion.

I would answer "yes", and will explain, after seeing your response, how the situation was different for Bosnian Muslims in 1993-94.

I think this will illuminate a bright-line distinction between our opinions on evil.

Here's the question:

"Have the Palestinians residing in the West Bank and Gaza, as a group, embraced evil through their tactics against Israel?"

Ross said: "All four of the Marxists left on the planet...."

So you're now claiming that there are hardly any Marxists left around today? Please spare me. I'm familiar with how leftists play word games, changing their labels whenever convenient to confuse critics. I don't care if they call themselves men of the left, progressives, greens, transnationalists, or just liberals. (Note: I know that many liberals are indeed liberals. I'm writing here of leftists who hide their identity.)

Furthermore, we all know that the "Bush=Hitler" rhetoric is shockingly common on the left. There's no point in falsely claiming otherwise. (Granted this should be no surprise, given that leftists have for generations been demonizing all who disagree. Except when they were making excuses and coverups for those who actually killed dissenters.) What's worse, even supposedly moderate liberals of my acquaintance have fallen for this foolishness. (It's always struck me as bizarre that people on the left would call Reagan a fascist warmonger for condemning and fighting Communism, and would praise Castro and Che Guevara as great humanitarians.)

And speaking of unserious people, Ross, just the other day you spent six paragraphs calling one of your critics "psychotic" and a "frothing extremist" who is only fond of "revenge" and "dehumanizing" and was uninterested in providing facts. This after she had presented many facts. Was the evidence insufficiently politically correct? And did your readiness to demonize a critic possibly relate to the left's long history of demonizing?

We seem to keep returning to the importance of facing facts...and of not demonizing those who present facts inconvenient to your ideology.

paul berman is a serious leftist, writing in dissent. When he is talking about the left, he is talking about Marxists and similar radicals, not clintonites being called leftists by rush limbaugh. And even so he is not using leftist to derogate. He wants to know why even a Marxist, in fact particularly a Marxist, would fall for the fuzzy thinking that aflicts some on the left.

Berman is really very good and worth reading.
I suggest his book "liberalism and terror"

Trent, well, Ross is close to suggesting that we begin a policy of assassinating anyone who publicly calls for "death to america" and who provably supports terrorism. He may not be as unserious as you suppose. Ross is (sadly, because he's an otherwise clever guy) a liberal. He's not going to say things the way you or I do. It's going to have the typical liberal waffling around the main point.

Ross, if I'm reading Trent right (through all of the threads that lead up to this) he isn't advocating genocide, he is concerned that it will happen if action isn't taken now. And I agree with him, and we've had this discussion ourselves over beer. Also, the guy Trent just quoted above is a Marxist, and he has a few more than three companions.

I think this is an example of the internet effect. If I got Ross and Trent into the same room, I think they would find that they are a lot closer in opinions than either of them would like to admit right now. I think you both have your back up over things that have been said. Trent, I think you live in the DC area. If you're interested, I'm having a superbowl party Sunday in Alexandria. You're more than welcome to come. Ross will be there, though there will likely be more conservatives than liberals overall.

I'd much rather hash this out over beer, chili and nachos than typing on a keyboard.

buckethead@perfidy.org

Tom: Yes. We need to figure out how to pull them back. You need to change "their tactics" to "their support of terrorism" to be accurate. Would you care to elaborate on evil vs. "non-evil" tactics?

Paul: Those darn-tootin', confoundin' label games. Why won't those soapy critters just stay put? The multitude of labels comes from people who have to keep making up new names for the shit they hate. If Rush Limbaugh talk radio was my only source of information, I'd probably think that the entire "left" (whatever that is) says Bush=Hitler too. I don't know a single person who thinks that way, and I know a fair number of people. I bet I could find one on TV or radio, though. Exactly how many of your neighbors in the sanitarium do you need to talk to until you can find one who thinks Castro was a humanitarian? Please. And for our Mary, I used the words I did before she presented her facts. And if you kept reading, you'll notice things became relatively, I don't know, productive?

Mr. Judson,

Thank you for your response. It was exactly as Trent predicted. You just confirmed what you are. You were set up.

I will explain the difference between the Bosnian Muslims and the Palestinians in a later post.

Have a nice day.

Tom Holsinger

Buckethead,

Ross' invoking of assassinations, as an answer, isn't serious.

I have two words: Mullah Omar

Please explain how much more successful America would be with assassinations of Arab Muslim terrorists than the Israelis are with their "targeted killings" of Palestinian terrorists.

In such things the CIA and the U.S. Military have a repeatedly demonstrated a very bad case of the "slows" -- even after 9/11/2001 and with a much more ruthless than the Clinton Administration wartime Bush Presidency.

There is no way that a Democratic Kerry Administration, for example, could make those institutions act faster and ruthlessly. So Ross calling for them is pure P.R. gesture. Just like the rest of the Democrats national security positions.

Ross’ problem is like that of the Left in general. Neither he nor the majority of the Left want to go anywhere near the true nature of our enemy. It will do too much damage to their self-image and general worldview.

So they are in the position Sun-Tzu describe thusly:

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."

That is why people like Ross should and will never be let near any policy making decisions in this war.

>"You just confirmed what you are. You were set up."

That was seriously ruthless...remind me later to take notes.

Tom & Trent,

See, I'm a smart guy, but I'm scratching my head over this ninja-ness. I was expecting a rhetorical trap, but I think I'm missing some of the nuances here. Care to explain, for the sake of your slower kin, here?

Ross, you'd be stunned at the number of unserious people out there.

References to President Bush as a fascist are not exactly rare these days... and they come from a pool that's much larger than just the neo-marxist set. Which is, in and of itself, a hell of a lot larger than "4 people".

Talk to Roger Simon, Michael Totten, Sean LaFreniere, Armed Liberal, and quite a few other liberals and even leftists (incl. Paul Berman, michael Walzer, et. al.) who are more than slightly distressed by how commonthis has become. It's not a rare or isolated phenomenon, and I'm more than surprised that you think it is.

Tom, you've managed to confirm what you are: A sanctimonious ass. I set you up to reveal that. Put up or shut up.

Being confirmed as "what I am" is probably a good thing. You should try it some time.

Trent, I mention an assassination policy because I view the "death to america" types as serious criminals, on the world stage. They do more damage to their own people than to us. It's a signal, more than anything else -- if that's your public stance, as a private person (not a head of state, necessarily), don't be surprised if we take offense, and don't be surprised if something happens. You're telling me there isn't a shoot-to-kill for Osama Bin Laden? Or for any of a hundred other Al Qaeda members? Or some of Hamas' "spiritual leaders"? There are some really, really bad individuals out there. It doesn't hurt to recognize that.

Israel's failures are not due to its assassination policy. Israel's failures are due to its inability to combine demographic realities, its essential humanity, and policies driven by religious, expansionist forces within. Israel has always had the capability to wipe out every last one of its enemies, and it has not.

Trent, if your belief system was applied at the end of WWII, would there be any Germans alive today?

You casually toss in, "the true nature of our enemy". Tell me what that is, and how you react to that kind of Evil.

p.s. FYI, I am not sitting here angry. I am actually quite intrigued by the whole discussion; I like seeing where things go. The assassination policy was intended more as an entree and policy vis-a-vis the designation of enemy individuals.

Ross – I thought you were trying to be more civil. Again with the name calling. Did you learn early in life that that being rude will get you what you want?

I know, I’m psychoanalyzing. My mom’s a therapist, it's second nature.

Are there only 4 Marxists out there? Can you provide links to prove it? If you don't, I'll call you names.

Personally, I know more than 20, just in my neighborhood. I hang out with Unitarians, though, so it may not be an unbiased statistical sampling.

Trent, since my efforts at conciliation are pointless, I'd just like to say that while I wouldn't vote for Ross, he's a good friend. The disagreements never bothered me much, he and I have arguments all the time. About the only thing we agree on is that the old are trying to screw everyone under forty.

The left, generally speaking is having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that while we are trying to be nice, a significant chunk of the world has declared war on us and will not be mollified by more niceness or multilateralism or rolling over for the UN. The current crop of Democratic candidates demonstrates this more clearly than I would have hoped. Not everyone gets on board at once. Look how long Churchill was a voice in the wilderness before everyone realized he was right. I think it really will take losing a city before a lot of our citizens get on board. Hopefully, we can win without having to go that far, over their resistance.

I have always wondered why many who approve of our actions in Afghanistan or even Iraq feel that the Israelis shouldn't do exactly the same in Palestine. While it is more intense, their current policy is more or less the same scheme as Clinton lobbing tomahawks at semi-random targets.

What we did in Germany and Japan was to kick the crap out of them and then impose, with force, a democratic, constitutional government. Which is what we're doing in Iraq, and which is probably the only thing that will work for the Palestinians and most of the rest of the Middle East. The Palestinians can start living normal lives after a program of de-Yassirification.

There is a real difference between criminals and enemies. For one, you don't assassinate criminals. But completely different mindsets are involved. The people we are fighting are completely outside modern liberal soceity, not merely breaking its laws. Sure, we'd pop the people Ross mentions, but not because they've broken our laws - some of them haven't. It's because they are our enemies. Heydrich and Yamamoto hadn't broken our laws either.

Anyway, the invitation still stands.

WHY THE PALESTINIANS ARE EVIL

My yes/no question to Ross Judson was a trick question to which a yes/no answer would still have been fully responsive. It was crafted to elicit the responder's opinion about the nature of political evil, and to serve as a vehicle for me to then explain how slippery the concept is.

The tricky part was my reference to "tactics", because the suicide bomber tactics employed by the Palestinians, even against Israeli women & children, are not evil of themselves. Rather it is that such tactics are disproportionate to any rational objective which makes them evil. Ability and intent enters into this too. I am saying flat out that evil and good in a group context are contextual (pun intended). In my opinion, the distinction can be pointless in extreme situations.

As an example, it would be evil for the U.S. to make genocidal attacks on our enemies at this point in the war on terror. We can all envisage situations, though, in which that would not merely not be evil, but our failure to inflict nuclear genocide would itself be immoral.

Our use of nuclear weapons on Japan, and General LeMay's far more horrible fire-bombing campaign earlier, are also examples. Those averted far greater evils - one of my columns elsewhere explained how those saved more lives than had been lost in all of World War Two. In hindsight. At the time we knew only that an invasion of Japan would probably result in millions of dead - almost all Japanese - and that nuking the place was the only way to avert that, though our major concern was for our own expected 50,000 - 90,000 dead & 3-4 times that injured. LeMay's fire-bombing campaign put the Japanese in a frame of mind whereby nuclear attack could have the necessary shock effect.

I telegraphed a great deal with my reference to Bosnian Muslims 1993-95, because they did use tactics which many considered to be evil, notably by having snipers shoot their own women and children as fabricated Serb atrocities for the purpose of influencing foreign opinion. I mention this in particular because the Palestinians do the same thing of which one notable instance was filmed by a French camera crew.

I deem the Palestinians doing this to be evil, but said on the late GEnie BBS at the time that the Bosnians doing it was not evil or even wrong. I'd have said the same even had the Bosnians resorted to suicide bomber tactics a la the Palestinians.

The difference is that the Bosnians were victims of on-going genocide by the Serbs, and the West was helping the Serbs. ANY tactics are permissible for such victims, even when they know they have no chance of survival. I believe President Clinton deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for reversing U.S. policy and saving the Bosnians.

The Palestinians are not victims of anything remotely genocidal, and never were. Their suicide bombing campaign against Israel is a form of strategic attack. They were on the verge of obtaining limited statehood through negotiations when they started the present campaign.

And the overt goal of the suicide bombing campaign is total victory over Israel.

The covert goal of the campaign, in my opinion, is political dominance by competing Palestinian factions over all the other Palestinians, i.e., the Palestinian people are intended victims too. Saudi Wahabbis get into this also - they are supporting it for their own purposes.

That the Palestinian people are to a significant extent victims of the evil tactics used by some does not, however, make them "innocent" victims. The German people were the Nazis' willing accomplices. The Japanese people were the willing accomplices of their homicidal militarists 1930-45 (consider the use of whole Korean villages for sword practice by Japanese troops, who were never disciplined for such atrocities, during the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War, i.e., long before the Home Islands were dominated by the militarists). There are such things as national and ethnic cultures. Their dominance by a faction which uses exaggerated elements of such cultures to secure and further such dominance does not mean that such exaggerations are anything less than true expressions of those cultures.

In the Palestinians' case, the evil tactics used against Israelis are true expressions of major tendencies in Arabic culture of more than a thousand years' standing. It is not necessary to go into the details of how they got to this point.

Palestinian culture has become evil and psychotic. It is a threat to everyone around it as well as to itself. The latter merely means they will destroy themselves if no one else destroys them first, but the latter will be their fate.

Ross Judson's answer was telling - he asked how to draw the Palestinians "back" from evil, i.e., he can't accept that, as a group, they are evil now. In the most charitable light to him (I am not so charitable), this would be because accepting that they are evil as a group means they can be considered, and treated, as objects rather than people with souls - considered and treated as dangerous vermin.

And the Palestinians are not the only Arabs, or the only Muslims, like that. They're just both the most identifiable, and the most vulnerable to genocide.

Consider what it took to burn out most of the Nazi/Imperial Japanese evil from their respective cultures. 5-10% of the 1939 population of Nazi Germany were killed during World War Two - at least half being Prussian civilians killed in January & February 1945. Japan was starved, fire-bombed AND NUKED.

How can it take any less to burn evil from Palestinian culture? They must know in their bones that they are beaten and fear that any hostile action by them will result in extermination.

But getting an outside force into the frame of mind necessary to slaughter Palestinians in enough numbers to adjust the survivors' attitudes so drastically entails getting that outside force into the frame of mind to kill them all. And the Palestinians are so concentrated in Gaza and the West Bank that killing all of them there is actually possible.

I explained elsewhere on this board that attempted nuclear genocide of the Arabs would just move the problem around. That might be a necessary stop-gap if we are hit with WMD at home, but would not be a long-term solution to a group Arab psychosis of which the Palestinians are only the most homicidal example. I mention this to demonstrate my familiarity with weapons of mass destruction.

It is possible to kill 95-99% of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza without significant material damage to Israel (the moral cost would be horrendous, and the political/economic cost very high). Things are getting to the point where doing so would be merely wrong, not evil. IMO it's not there yet, but it's close.

The Israelis are nowhere near the necessary frame of mind to do this, but IMO it has become possible to envisage such an eventuality.

Trent, of all people, has practical ideas on use of cutting-edge population control technology to adjust Palestinian attitudes by non-lethal means, but IMO the political obstacles to this will be too great until large groups of Arabs elsewhere start committing genocide on each other, at which point genocide of the Palestinians will be both faster and diplomatically feasible. IMO the determinative issue then will be Israel's self-conception.

If you think I'm gloomy here, read Lee Harris' Civilization and Its Enemies - The Next Stage of History. Lots of people are thinking about such things now (look at the posts uptopic), but Harris expresses them better than anyone.

Tom Holsinger,

Your comments point out how sometimes there doesn't "have to be a better way." At least for large values of "better." It is only true that we remain morally obligated to do everything we reasonably can to find the best practical solution. Bitter truth is no less true for being terrible.

On the subject of nuking Japan, I believe that the battle of Okinawa played a role in the decision to drop the bomb. It was so shockingly bloody and involved so many kamikaze attacks that the American leadership had visions of having to fight many millions of suicide fighters on the Japanese mainland. I have also read that the trauma on our military leadership had a great deal to do with some of the mistaken strategies employed in Vietnam.

Ross:

First, the multitude of labels that I am talking about comes from people who want to conceal their true allegiances and intentions. I don't know what you mean about people making up names for what they hate. The left has been making up new names for itself all on its own. The right has been pretty much content to stick with the same names for the left.

Second, I didn't reach these conclusions by listening to Rush Limbaugh or any other talk radio pundit. (In fact, I've heard a total of 30 minutes of Rush and 2 hours of Hannity in my entire life.) I reached those conclusions after decades of dealing with countless leftists. I used to be over on the left, and knew a lot of people like that. I took classes from leftists, went to marches, attended seminars, subscribed to journals, corresponded, and got in innumerable discussions, debates and arguments. After a while I started to notice various things. Among them: First, people who were Stalinists, Maoists, Trotskyites, Spartacists and Wobblies to each other were "progressives" and "liberals" and "concerned citizens" to non-leftists. Second, even the smallest deviation from ideological orthodoxy was met with demonization. Pointing out inconvenient facts or expressing concern about the practicality of a policy was completely unacceptable and putting credence in reports of oppression and mass-murder were taken as proof of fascist tendencies. Likewise, objecting to deception, lies and demonization was utterly unacceptable. Sometimes the games were overt and heavy-handed, and sometimes they were more subtle, but this was a current running through the left for decade after decade. If you doubt this, there is a growing library of autobiography by disillusioned former leftists.

I repeat: I've had long exposure to leftists, and have endured far more abuse than I care to recall. Reading your comments is unpleasantly reminiscent.

Do you really not know anybody who thinks that way? I don't willingly travel in leftist circles anymore, and I still run into such people--and if I worked in academia I'd meet a whole lot more. Since you are once again so quick to get with the insults ("neighbors in the sanitarium") it's awfully easy for me to wonder if in addition to a lack of civility you also lack insight or honesty. In other words, is it possible that you do know people like that, but either haven't noticed or prefer for debating purposes to pretend they don't exist? This thought would not have occurred to me if you hadn't been so uncivil. It is certainly possible that you know nobody like that (I am reminded of the New York critic who couldn't believe that Ronald Reagan won the presidential election, much less by such a margin--"But nobody I know voted for him!") but I'd be more receptive if you were more reasonable.

Finally, I went back and checked the comments, and in addition to the arguments Mary advanced before you insulted her, she also mentioned Qtub more than once. And whether or not you agree with the Glucksman essay she linked to, it in turn links to various other interesting and relevant articles. You may not have liked her reasoning, but that was no excuse to abuse her. And to such a degree. And since she hadn't called you such vile names, what made you try to start a flame war? The same question goes for how you address me. Do you feel more free to be abusive because this debate is on the net rather than in person? Surely you are aware, even if it is not something you take note of, that it's a lot harder to get away with abuse when you're face-to-face, which is to say that it's easier to get away with bad behavior when there's nobody right there to impose consequences. For instance, if this had occurred in my home I would have told you to either clean it up or clear out. I recommend more civility. As you said, things might become more productive.

Ross,

The long post Tom just laid here is the essence of a conversation he and I have been having since the 1998 Africa Embassy bombings. That is when we both realized that the WTC 93 attack wasn't a fluke, but rather that it was the future. That the people that were attacking us were not constrained by any concerns of political effectiveness. They just wanted us dead for reasons independent of any objective reality. In short, these terrorists were flat, chaotic, evil.

Saying things like this:

>Trent, I mention an assassination policy
>because I view the "death to america" types as
>serious criminals, on the world stage.

That is also why you and others like you go out of your way to obstruct and tear down the efforts of those willing to do what is necessary to win.

The chill that entered my soul after reading Tom's comment means, I believe, that we have at last arrived at the heart of the matter.

I apologize for any insults I've rendered on the way here.

I needed one of you to say that we could, or would, or should, kill them all. And now that's done.

Telenko argues inductively for the elimination of the other, where the permissible degree of otherness is inversely proportional to the capability of weapons.

Holsinger advises the methodical elimination of millions of men and women and children as an experiment in mass psychology, intending control by fear and death over nascent anger.

Both positions are predicated on a survival war of cultures. Are we in such a war? Radical Islam is a harsh enemy, but not the only seed. The march of technology will multiply capability across ever smaller groups.

Perhaps we must take some stand...any stand, while we still can, and that is justification for...what kind of action?

I leave tonight with this conjecture: The survival of Israel has never been at stake; terrorism has caused her intense pain, but has never been a real threat. There is no conventional capability for the terrorists to succeed in eliminating Israel. Unconventional weapons are the only path; there, separation of cultures removes an essential deterrent to their use -- the commingling of populations.

Paul,

Just to be precise, the New York critic was Pauline Kael, but she was talking about Nixon's landslide in '72, not about Reagan.

It still works fine for your point, of course!

Maybe you should murder the stupid sack of shit?

After all, you disagree with him politically, and anyway, it's not murder if you really, reeeeeally think your cause is just.

Buckethead's point (1/29/04, 9:50pm) bears repeating.

Best to keep the focus on the issues and away from the presumed personal shortcomings of the other debaters.

Only the webmaster knows how many people beyond the posters actually read these threads, but presumably we are as interested in proselytizing to them as to each other. An ad hominem attack (or an odd-homonym attack, as my son described an HL Mencken obituary) isn't helpful very often.

Tom and Trent,

No offense, but are you guys nuts? There are over a billion muslims. Regardless of its morality, genocide against that many people is not feasible. Even if you reduce that to just Arab, Persian, and some Central Asian Muslims, you're still talking about a whole lot of folks. And they're breeding like flies even as we speak. Those numbers make nukes the only practical way of committing genocide against those people, but that's not workable either. What are we supposed to do for oil for the next hundred thousand years or so while we wait for the half-life of the fallout to expire in the fields the oil comes from? Not to mention the spike in our own cancer rates when the fallout in the atmosphere blows from the Middle East to the civilized world. I agree that Arab culture is psychotic, but nuking it is not- and I doubt will ever be- an option.

Buckethead and AMac,

I agree about civility (notice I asked nicely if Tom and Trent were nuts rather than simply accusing them of being nuts). Namecalling is the last refuge of those who have run out of arguments.

Kirk,

Thanks for the correction. I'll try to remember it.

Fred,

No offense, but are you guys nuts?...notice I asked nicely
Well, "asked somewhat more civilly than how I worded it in my first draft" might catch it more exactly.

And they're breeding like flies
Er, "having many children" is the term of art, I believe.

As far as substance, you may be missing the awful ifs that are the predicates to Trent's nightmare posts. If the militant Qutbists' fondest plans come to pass, and if they force non-Muslims and the non-Qutbist Muslim world to address their demands--what then?

Their demands:

--Give up your secular and tolerant vision of society for Qutbism. No coexistence.

--Convert, or submit to dhimmitude, or die.

The bloodspattered history of the 20th century--instances ably recounted earlier in this thread--doesn't fill me with confidence that these things will just work themselves out.

So, much as I hate their questions, no, I don't think they are nuts for asking.

>Telenko argues inductively for the elimination of the other, where the permissible degree of otherness is inversely proportional to the capability of weapons.

AMac,

Your opener was a great shot. Actually, my question was rhetorical. I don't really think Trent and Tom are nuts. I do, however, stick to my guns that nuking the Middle East would be nuts even assuming some terrorist group manages to nuke one of our cities. A) My question about the oil fields and blowback of nuclear fallout hasn't really been answered and B) We wouldn't really need to. I do agree that we're in a life and death struggle with lunatics with whom we cannot negotiate and who we cannot deter. But if we got truly serious, I think our conventional capability is able to kill enough of them to make a repeat performance most unlikely without the horrendous consequences, both moral and practical, of resorting to nukes. No doubt we'd have to do things no civilized people would like to do: torture, racial profiling, reducing sovereign nations to satrapies, proceeding without the regard we'd like to have for innocent life, but that's still better than genocide.

PS: It may not be the term of art, but I still like "breeding like flies." At the very least it's more colorful.

Well, I just purchased "Civilization and its Enemies" and read about 30 pages of it at lunch. Damn, but that guy is smart. Just about every other paragraph has a mindblowing thought that changes the way you look at the problems we face in the Middle East. And I already thought we were in a life and death struggle with Islamism and shared the worries of Trent and Tom about the terrible potential - the awful ifs of escalating conflict with them. I also picked up Bernard Lewis' history of the Middle East. While I'm on a book buying spree; Trent, Tom, AMac, do you have any other suggestions? Either links or books?

I suddenly feel a great need to know a lot, lot more.

Buckethead

The Closed Circle by David Pryce-Jones.

Fred said:

>No offense, but are you guys nuts? There are over a billion muslims. Regardless of its morality, genocide against that many people is not feasible. Even if you reduce that to just Arab, Persian, and some Central Asian Muslims, you're still talking about a whole lot of folks. And they're breeding like flies even as we speak. Those numbers make nukes the only practical way of committing genocide against those people, but that's not workable either. What are we supposed to do for oil for the next hundred thousand years or so while we wait for the half-life of the fallout to expire in the fields the oil comes from? Not to mention the spike in our own cancer rates when the fallout in the atmosphere blows from the Middle East to the civilized world. I agree that Arab culture is psychotic, but nuking it is not- and I doubt will ever be- an option.

This is something Andrew Sullivan posted July 20th 2003. It seems to capture much of Ross' mindset about the War:

http://www.andrewsullivan.com/index.php?dish_inc=archives/2003_07_20_dish_archive.html#105893464231917639

THE PRE-9/11 MIND: The more I read emails or talk to anti-war types, I get a sense that 9/11 never really happened. Or if it happened, it meant nothing more than a discrete crime with discrete criminals who alone deserved justice. The notion that it meant that we were and are actually at war with a series of terrorist entities and the tyrannies that support them never truly took hold on the far left (or right). As the months have passed, their complacency and denial have undoubtedly metastasized among others as 9/11 recedes from our collective consciousness and its emotional wound begins to heal. These people, it's worth remembering, believe that the exercise of American military power is almost always more morally problematic than any foreign tyranny or even a serious security threat to the homeland. They can only justify American military power if it is wielded under imminent, grave danger that can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. That's why they are so exercised about tiny pieces of evidence today. They still believe we were wrong to remove Saddam from power without incontrovertible proof of WMDs of a type unobtainable in police states; they still believe America had no moral sanction for such an action; and they are even more determined to prove the superiority of their case now that the war was such a military success. So they have to turn the fallible evidence before the war into "lies"; and they have to turn the difficult but worthy post-war reconstruction into a "quagmire." They know the only chance they have is to turn American public opinion against the war so as to prevent any such exercise of military power again. In that sense, they really cannot simply be mocked. They must be challenged at every turn. For they are engaged in a process that will not only stymie efforts at reforming the Middle East but will make Americans and others more vulnerable to the designs of the Islamofascists and their terrorist allies. The war abroad cannot therefore be extricated from the debate at home. We will not win the former without winning the latter.

Trent:

You wrote “Nothing but force can break them from their illusion”: I believe that Victor Davis Hanson has written on this very point when discussing Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan: They had to be utterly defeated and humiliated in order to discredit in their own minds the ideology they had hoped would bring them glory and riches.

Ross:

You wrote: “The survival of Israel has never been at stake….” In a sense that is true, but in another sense I disagree. Terrorism in itself cannot destroy Israel but it can be, has been, and is being used as a tool to attempt to force concessions. Take, for instance, demands that Israel give up territory, concessions that would make Israel even more vulnerable to attack, and which seem foolhardy given that her neighbors have not given up their desire to destroy her. (The obviousness of those intentions explains why I so strongly condemn European “peacemakers” who would toy with Israel’s survival.)

You wrote “Telenko argues inductively for the elimination of the other, where the permissible degree of otherness is inversely proportional to the capability of weapons.”

Would you care to explain?

First, the phrase “elimination of the other” is familiar to me. I have encountered many variations from leftists and postmodernists intent on portraying the West as an evil civilization the defining characteristics of which are racism, sexism, chauvinism, domination, exploitation and slavery. The expression is an invention of the academic left to describe the Westerner’s supposed fear of ALL who are different. (Off-hand I cannot remember ever hearing a non-leftist use it except when quoting a leftist.) So why do you assert that Trent wants to commit genocide on all who are different? Trent has written nothing to support such a claim. Trent has not even advocated genocide against Muslims and Arabs. On the contrary, he has on at least one occasion explicitly said the opposite. (Something to the effect that the Palestinians have chosen an ideology of fanaticism and genocide which is likely to bring a bloodbath upon them, but that Trent sees this as merely likely, not desirable.)

Second, why do you claim that Trent regards “otherness” as unacceptable in direct proportion to being powerful? India has a large military and nuclear weapons, but Trent has not argued eliminating them, just as he has not shown any desire to exterminate the comparatively powerless Nuba of Sudan. The issue is not power but intention. Israel also has a sizable nuclear arsenal but I do not fear Israel because it does not wish to enslave us or force us all to convert to Judaism. France has a large stockpile but seems unlikely to smuggle a nuke into Chicago because too few of us cowboy flatlanders eat at French restaurants.

In summary, you misrepresent Trent’s position from beginning to end, and do so in a way that demonizes him as a typical leftist caricature of the evil Westerner.

And by extension you misrepresent me, as I find myself frequently agreeing with Trent.

If this is a misunderstanding rather than a misrepresentation, please point explicitly to the statements and sequences of arguments that support your assertions, carefully noting the precise language he uses.

Tom:

Wow. I wish I’d never gone away. This is one hell of an interesting comments threat.

So, anyway. Let me get try and get what you’ve said straight, so that if I misrepresent you, you can say so up front. I’m taking this argument from what you said at 1.57AM on 30th Jan.

You say that it was acceptable for Bosnian Mulsims to kill their own women & children because they were, at the time, victims of Western sponsored Serbian genocide. There are no limits to the tactics the Bosnian Muslims could have used, as they were victims of Serbian aggression and their survival was truly at stake. However, it is not acceptable for Palestinians to use those tactics because at this point in time they are not victims of genocide. Their survival is not truly at stake, therefore they are limited in the tactics they can use. You don’t explicitly go on to the logical conclusion of this argument, but I assume that you believe that if the Palestinians really were under threat of destruction they would be legitimately able to use whatever tactics they deemed necessary in their defence. Including shooting their own women & children to reduce support for their enemies. But you believe that they are not at this point. The opposite, in fact, they are the aggressors in this conflict. Therefore what they are doing is evil.

I guess another parallel to this would be the KLA in Kosovo provoking Serbian massacres in order to provoke a NATO response?

So, switching this around, and using the logic of your argument, the Israelis, should there be sufficient threat to their very survival, are also entitled to use unlimited tactics in their defence. You say, rightly, that they are not at that position yet. But that they are very close to being in a position where, if Israel were to kill 90% plus of the Palestinians, it would be wrong. But not evil. Presumably, the more desperate the Israeli situation gets, the less wrong killing 90% of Palestinians would be.

I’d love to add some stunningly well written, and witty, comments here to blow down your argument, but right now my mind is still trying to get my head around the fact that you seem to be advocating killing civilians on your own side. In a war, you have to see civilians on your own side as (relatively) innocent, right? You are, effectively, fighting to defend them. Certainly, that was the case in Bosnia. You are in effect saying that, when the situation is desperate enough, it is acceptable to kill any civilians, regardless of their innocence or otherwise.

Am I right? To me, that seems to be a pretty fair summation of your argument. If I’ve misread you, or I’m missing some subtlety, I apologize.

Also, I have some questions: If it is acceptable to do literally anything when you are under threat of destruction, does that threat have to be ‘objectively’ real, or can it be a perceived threat of destruction? Who decides if it is objectively real? Do the same rules apply to a group that was originally the oppressor, but now is under threat of destruction? For example, if the Bosnian Muslims had turned the tables on the Serbs towards the end of their war, and been in a position to eliminate the Serbs, would it have been acceptable for the Serbs to then use any tactics in their defence?

Fred & Ross,

It's called pre-emption. I did to Ross what he did to Mary. First. "Twice armed is he whose cause is just, and thrice-armed is he who gets his blow in fust" - Nathan Bedford Forrest. If Ross doesn't suck it up and smile, he will prove that he can't take his own medicine.

It was planned offensive clipping, i.e., malicious all the way. Ross did absolutely nothing to me to deserve what I did to him. He did it to Mary. He was polite to me. His response to my question was on point and he smelled the trap. It could have been a productive discussion.

But this comment of his above on his flame of Mary elsewhere - "And for our Mary, I used the words I did before she presented her facts. And if you kept reading, you'll notice things became relatively, I don't know, productive?" - invited "deterrence by denial" aka "pre-emptive annihilation".

Ross pretends he can flame people and still have a productive discussion with them afterwards. Right.

So come on, Ross, SMILE! I'll even make it easy for you.

Your flame of Mary was verbose to the point of My Eyes Glaze Over. One wonders why you bothered with punctuation and paragraph breaks. Note that my flame of you was succinct, because I wanted people to actually read it. Brevity is critical to proper flaming.

Andy,

Tom answered your question in his post here:

The tricky part was my reference to "tactics", because the suicide bomber tactics employed by the Palestinians, even against Israeli women & children, are not evil of themselves. Rather it is that such tactics are disproportionate to any rational objective which makes them evil. Ability and intent enters into this too. I am saying flat out that evil and good in a group context are contextual (pun intended). In my opinion, the distinction can be pointless in extreme situations.

That particular example is the one Tom used in his discussions with me.

Paul, Trent: I was unnecessarily opaque with the "argues inductively" statement. I wrote:

“Telenko argues inductively for the elimination of the other, where the permissible degree of otherness is inversely proportional to the capability of weapons.”

Let me supply the underlying thinking. I'd like to note that I do not imply that Trent is directly arguing that we should commit genocide; this is why I use the term inductive.

An inductive proof is a weak form of mathematical proof. You prove a base case, then prove that it holds true for a successor to the base. You might then conclude that it holds true for all cases (a bit more definition can be had at http://scom.hud.ac.uk/scomtlm/book/node125.html).

It is imperative that I note I am not well-read in military science. My co-blogger Buckethead is; with any luck he'll chime in at some point. I just work with the facts I have.

We are discussing the notion of a survival war with Islamic radicals and their support network. There are two avenues by which danger can arrive on our shores: First, by the projection of conventional force. Second, by the use of weapons of mass destruction.

Conventional force is a conceivable survival threat, but only in the very long term. Radical islamic economies would have to develop to the point where they could compete with western economies, if conventional war is to be attempted. Certain tenets of radical islam make its competitiveness in this area highly unlikely (anti-woman, dictatorial, corrupt). It is possible that a huge decline in western capabilities coupled with best-case rise in Islamic cultures might one day yield conventional military capabilities that could harm us, but I find it pretty unlikely.

WMD: Chemical won't do any significant damage. Nuclear is bad, but localized. Biological is the scariest, theoretically.

An isolated nuclear attack (a bomb in a city) is not a survival-level problem. If such an attack is committed the retribution will be terrible. The US will not allow a radical islamic state to achieve substantial missile capability; a MAD rerun is not likely to occur.

Biological weapons are quite terrifying. I really don't know what the state of the art is; I will simply assume that it's bad, and it's going to get a lot worse.

Trent believes (or I perceive him to believe) that deliberate action now is necessary to assure or increase the safety level of our culture. Both the urgency of that action and the severity of its effects are coupled to the nature of WMD -- because WMD can cause so much damage, there are certain forms of freedom of thought and action that we have greatly reduced tolerance for. I do not use the word "freedom" here in anything other than its strictest literal sense; freedom here is referring to activites that are more or less psychotic and evil.

The inductive part of this comes together as weapon power increases. The imminence and capability of the WMD threat to our culture increases over time. In order to maintain some perceived level of safety, we must engage tighter and tighter control over the freedoms of other cultures, and over individuals. As WMD technology improves, the resources required to marshal and deliver such an attack become within the capabilities of smaller and smaller groups.

Thus, the use of oppressive force to counter technology-driven WMD is, over the long run, likely to fail unless increasingly rigid control and suppression of opposition is executed.

Circling back around to the beginning, what this means is that using force to counter hate and prevent hate's access to WMD will require ever more effort and severity over time. We will place those resources efficiently, which means focusing on those cultures that are most different (least understandable, least trustworthy). The farthest extents of those target cultures will be eliminated over time; they will be evolved, via forceful methods to be closer to our own. Simultaneously, as reduction of the overt cultural enemy is performed, two things happen. First, the targets become progressive more difficult to identify (smaller clusters, too similar to "us"). Second, repressive forces will necessarily produce some level of backlash. These "internal" forces can become exceedingly dangerous.

At some point it gets hard to tell the difference between friend and foe.

I hope that's shed a little light on my thinking. It's not that I disagree, necessarily, with Trent's position that a hard pre-emptive strike can "teach a lesson". It can, and it will probably succeed on some levels. I remain more concerned over the long run with the evolution of technology.

I also remain convinced that a maximally successful, peaceful, and reasonably honorable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis will substantially reduce tensions and hatred in the Islamic world, thereby reducing danger to us. I hope I'm not wrong about this; otherwise, the problem is going to be very tough.

As far as the phrase "elimination of the other" goes, it didn't come from a book -- it just came out that way when I wrote that comment. I hope my use of the phrase is clearer, now.

On a related topic: If Israel were directly attacked by conventional military force today, wouldn't the US step in and defend her? I am quite sure we would, as would a good chunk of the rest of the world.

As far as I know, in the six day war, the US did not intervene. US forces were repositioned to express neutrality. The Liberty incident may have clouded the situation. Why, during this engagement, was US support of Israel not a given?

Ross,

When you say damned fool things like this:

>WMD: Chemical won't do any significant damage.
>Nuclear is bad, but localized. Biological is the
>scariest, theoretically.

and this:

>I also remain convinced that a maximally
>successful, peaceful, and reasonably honorable
>solution to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis will
>substantially reduce tensions and hatred in the
>Islamic world, thereby reducing danger to us. I
>hope I'm not wrong about this; otherwise, the
>problem is going to be very tough.

Why should ANYONE take you seriously?

From the top:

1) Chemicals are not a threat to prepared troops in the field or emergency responders in hazmat moon suits. Unprepared civilians and emergency first responders are as vulnerable as the Kurds were to Saddam's genocidal gas attacks.

There have been a number of terrorist attack plans broken up in Europe that involved Muslim terrorist using lethal chemicals in enclosed spaces like the European parliment.

2) Libya's "turning states evidence" -- after we caught them red handed with the goods -- showed we have a world wide illict nuclear weapons component bazaar. One that would never have come to light without both 9/11/2001 and the war in Iraq.

3) As for biological weapons being "theoretical," tell that to Washington D.C. postal workers and the mail staffers at the networks and Senator Daschle's office.

Or in the first case, the relatives of dead postal workers.

The anthrax that hit Daschle's office was the product of an industrial weapons laboritory, not some "lone gunman" mad scientist. However much the FBI chants that to a gullible press corps.

4) David Kay was on today's Fox News Sunday speaking today of the breakdown of Iraq's internal order, via corruption, that was turning it into a "WMD market phenomina" where buyers and sellers were meeting. That exact thing is my leading theory for the fall 2001 anthrax mailing attack. What we are seeing of the Pakistani connection to Libya's nukes may already be just that.

5) It does not matter what you believe about the Israeli-Palestinian situation. What matters is the Palestinians won't settle for less than a total victory which involves genocide of the male Jews of Israel and Dhimminitude for the women and children survivors.

That you are chanting about a "reasonably honorable solution" doesn't adress the facts on the ground. It shows you are operating from religious conviction and not reality.

The Palestinians have chosen evil of their own free will. Deal with it or be damned for it.

The anthrax that hit Daschle's office was the product of an industrial weapons laboritory, not some "lone gunman" mad scientist. However much the FBI chants that to a gullible press corps.

Of course, I'm pretty gullible, too. I even think Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK.

Ross:

After reading your most recent posting, and remembering your earlier comments, I am not impressed.

I'll let Trent address the various points of your latest argument and your errors regarding his beliefs and confine myself to your rhetoric. (Otherwise this comment would become twice as long, and besides, there is justice and good sense in letting Trent speak for himself.)

You say the phrase "elimination of the other" didn't come out of a book, but "just came out that way." Well, I never said it came out of a book. After all, leftists not only write that way, they also talk that way, and that particular rhetorical trope has been around long enough to thoroughly pervade the discourse of the left from professors of "cultural studies" to, I suppose, people who just like "Rage Against the Machine." And that phrase means genocide. Genocide motivated by racism, intolerance, bigotry and paranoia. That's what it means now, and that's what it meant when it was coined. However you picked it up, you surely knew its meaning and nonetheless used it to mischaracterize Trent's opinions. You cannot use such language and then credibly claim lack of responsibility for such libel. I gave you an opportunity to apologize and repudiate your inexcusable language, but you instead chose to weasel out.

By characterizing your earlier comments as merely "unnecessarily opaque" you show no awareness that there was something fundamentally wrong with what you wrote, which bodes ill for the likelihood of, as you say, "productive" discourse.

Are you in the long habit of throwing hand grenades into conversations? Do you think this serves knowledge and understanding? Or do you do it to provoke a reaction or perhaps overreaction which you can then take advantage of in the subsequent debate? Do you perhaps do it to derail the conversation into a direction more pleasing to you? Or just to get attention? Darned if I know for sure, but regardless of what Buckethead says I wouldn't have you in my home. Dishonesty, incivility and bad faith are not the habits of a person worth knowing.

Oh, and on the matter of another instance of your persistent incivility: It would appear that civil libertarian Nat Hentoff is one of my "neighbors in the sanitarium" who has noticed that there are still people who like and support Castro. He has a column in the latest Village Voice on the continuing reluctance of the leadership of the ALA to condemn Castro's oppression of dissenters, in this case the imprisonment of independent librarians and the burning of their books. (I know and have known professional librarians who confirm the ideological problems of the ALA leadership.) You can find the article here:

The Abandoned Librarians: Castro's Judges Burn Books 'Lacking Usefulness'
by Nat Hentoff, Village Voice, January 29, 2004

And Reuters must be the official news service of that sanitarium, because it quotes various public figures praising Castro:
Robert Redford meets with Castro

Jack Nicholson called him "a genius"
Oliver Stone said he was "one of the Earth's wisest people."
Steven Spielberg said he spent "the eight most important hours of his life" with Castro

Robert Redford must be my cellmate, as he is the producer of "The Motorcycle Diaries," an adulatory film about the early life of Che Guevara:
Robert Redford shows movie about Che Guevara to his family in Cuba

Don't hold your breath waiting for Redford to produce a similiar film about the early life of, say, Nathan Bedford Forrest. Robert only loves murdererous tyrants of the Stalinist variety.

We can talk about Ed Asner another day.

These extended threads can go in many directions, getting hard to follow and harder to comment on succinctly.

Tom Holsinger (2/1/04, 02:22am)

I don’t see how particulars of debating techniques or rhetorical devices gets to any of the core issues under discussion.

Ross Judson (2/1/04 5:41am)

I can’t come up with a succinct summary of your main points. Two comments from me.

Trent Talenko
A main point of his has been (my summary, also see of course his posts):

--"We", the WW2 Western Allies, imposed collective responsibility on Axis societies in the context of Total War. We chose to pursue our war aims by killing hundreds of thousands of civilians in area bombing campaigns. We were willing to do even more.

--Our leaders justified these actions on the basis of the rightness of our war aims, and on the absence of alternatives. These justifications are hard to dismiss, even with hindsight.

--Militant Islam’s current campaign against the West pushes us towards the point where we must decide between acceding to their war aims, or imposing collective responsibility on the societies that nurture Qutbism.

I hope you can point out, succinctly, where you think this analysis is flawed, and where these concerns for the future (which I share) are misplaced. Neither Andy's post (2/1/04 1:59am nor yours (2/1/04 5:41am) does these things. Discussion of "elimination of the other" and inductive reasoning hasn't yet provided much clarity.

The vulnerability of US civil society

Regarding the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, Steven den Beste's most recent post raises many of the points that have been made in this thread. Check it out.

>Of course, we haven't found the eensiest trace
>of any weaponized anthrax in Iraq, nor of any
>laboratory to produce it.
>
>Of course, I'm pretty gullible, too. I even
>think Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK.

Andrew,

What part of "our enemies cooperate" don't you understand?

You don't pick up 2-5 micron, non-static cling anthrax spores as your local five and dime.

We know what the Soviet stuff was like from their collapse and defection of their bioweapons scientists to the West.

We know what our stuff was before we shut down the program in 1969.

Daschle's spores were neither and the only other know successful weaponized anthrax spore program was Saddam's.

Whether the laboritory that made this anthrax exists anymore is a moot point besides the fact what was made once can be made again given nation-state class support and the will to obtain it. Especially if the same scientists are around to replicate the work and maybe have sample of their product to reverse engineer from in places like Syria and Iran.

Chew really hard on the fact that our anthrax spore program ended 34 years ago. What was marginally possible for the resources of a super power nation-state in 1969 is reachable by 21st century 3rd world city-state. That is the bottom line result of all the technological change since then.

In certain circles, "9/11 changed everything" is a license to indulge paranoid fantasies. These same people call for repeal of any traditions that allegedly stand in the way of the War on Terror, like habeas corpus and traditional notions of casus belli.

Some prefer an epistemology still related to evidence, and a structure for the War on Terror that does not devolve into arbitrary, potentially-despotic rule by whoever is the President of the United States (and this, not the possibility of a Democrat who will somehow let terrorists attack us with impunity, is the real reason the election matters to all of us so much).

Trent's last post is as good an example of the paranoid approach as any. In the same breath that he admits any third-world city-state could produce weaponized anthrax (I'm not at all sure this is so), he nevertheless ties the 2001 attacks to Iraq. Evidence? We don't need no stinkin' evidence. Nor, I might add, do I see why his very own argument about how much easier anthrax production has become does not support the FBI's view, that it has become easy enough that one well-connected rogue American scientist can do it. To recap, Trent says production of anthrax is at just hard enough that the FBI's view must be wrong, but nevertheless easy enough that Saddam was able to refine a much stronger and more dangerous strain of anthrax than Iraq had before, without leaving any trace of evidence or any scientist willing to confess. Amazing!

Almost any possibility, even interning all American Muslims in relocation camps, could be justified in this "9/11 changed everything" way. How about you guys look at the utter inaccuracy of our presumptions about Iraq (Fareed Zakaria, Chris Dickey) and mark your beliefs to market? Or is it not so much 9/11 as 007 that motivates you?

Another thought, composed offline before reading Andrew J. Lazarus' comment immediately above. (He unwittingly seconds my point from the other side of the fence.)

It’s counterproductive for "our" (the foreign-policy-hawk) side to make assumptions about undesirable personality traits of the people who post here with different opinions. Terms like "idiotarian" and "apologist for terror*" should be used once the correspondent has made it clear that they are rooting for the other side, for a million Mogadishus. That’s Chomsky and Moore, not the liberals writing here. E.g., Ross Judson’s opinions on the Mideast can be challenged without assuming that he is a Bad Person (*hence, my apology for this insult, earlier in the thread).

In the meantime, us hawks would do well to remember the nature of this thread’s back-and-forth. It’s a debate about means as much as about ends, and one we are having with fellow citizens who are potential friends and potential allies. Opinions do change over time, a process facilitated by logic and hyperlinks more than by harsh accusations.

Buckethead -

Milestones, by Qutb...more on this thread later.

A.L.

I like this site.