I’m sure most LPers and lurkers would be familiar with George Orwell’s Politics and the English Language, and Don Watson’s Weasel Words. The thrust of the argument is that we should be giving ‘things’ their proper names, not using some obfuscatory delicacy to euphemise the real meaning.
I think it’s time we started doing the same thing with the current global ’50 year’ conflict. I am, from now on, going to refer to the “war of terrorism”, or simply the terror war, rather than the “war on terrorism”. I’m sure this will get me in to trouble with the “no moral equivalence” brigade and it might stir the bampots to indignant explosion. But it has to be argued.
There is in fact some moral equivalence. There is a sense in which both sides are culpable, but there’s also a sense in which one side is more culpable than the other. I’m not talking about a “He started it!”, “No, you did!” argument. Nor is it simply a matter of body counts. Though from what’s been argued recently, the “Coalition of the Willing” is way ahead of the “terrorists”.
There are several reasons why I think this little semantic change is necessary and overdue.
First, the fighting in Iraq. All combatants are using tactics and strategies that fall within the definition of terrorism. There are many ways to defiine terrorism, but no matter how you cut it, this one stands out as simple and sane.
Terrorist activities are illegal and involve the use of coercion including the use of force, intended to intimidate or coerce, and committed in support of political or social objectives.
This is a definition provided in a glossary compiled by the Internal Audit Office at the Austin Community College in Austin, Texas. Does it apply to both sides in the war of terror? IMHO, yes.
Dealing with the easy ones first. Of course, nobody with any capacity for rational thought would deny that suicide bombs are terrorist activities. Kidnapping and executing civilians, whether local or foreign, in Iraq, is an act of terrorism; the arming and mission-tasking of death squads is an act of terrorism. Blowing up the World Trade Center was an act of terrorism.
Now, can we apply the same test to the “allies”, to “our” side? I think we can.
The occupation of Iraq, like the invasion of 2003, is certainly problematic under international law. The actions of American forces at Abu Ghraib were illegal under the rules of engagement. The rendition of prisoners and the use of stress-inducing techniques to elicit confessions are also legally dubious. Guantanamo Bay exists in legal limbo. The tactics of house-to-house searches; the hooding of detainees; sanctioned assassinations; cluster bombs; DU munitions; turning a bind eye to death squads: all of these meet some, if not all of the conditions to be called “terrorist activities”.
And now I’m going to upset the Zionists. Israel is also a terror state. Like I said, I don’t support rocket attacks on civilians, or suicide bombing and the history of Zionism is complex, caught up as it is with what Robert Fisk describes as the “war for civilisation” that has plagued the Middle East for the past 100 or so years. However, the state of Israel was imposed on the region, in the same manner in which Stalinism was imposed on Eastern Europe. it was a convenient card to play in the imperialist division of the spoils after the allied victory.
In the carve up that followed World War II, the British needed a proxy to defend their interests in Arab lands, particularly given the rise of pan-Arab nationalism and anti-British feeling in the post-war period. Israel fit the bill. How does this justify the military and intelligence operations that Israel have launched into Lebanaon? Not just those of recent months, but over a period of 50 years. Some of Israel’s founding fathers were members of terrorist organisations.
I suppose I should say something about culpability too. History will eventually allow us to understand all the complex causes of the terror war, but I am prepared to argue that the capitalist West is in fact more responsible than Iraq, Iran, North Korea, the Taliban and al Qai’da. Imperialism is the problem, not Islamic fundamentalism.
Fundamentalism in the Middle East, Indonesia and other Islamic nations is not the root cause. It is a response (albeit a confused and poltically useless one) to the renewed onslaught of imperialism and globalisation. Suicide bombs are a response to the frustration, anger and impotence felt by a generation of dispossessed. It is impossible to understand what’s really happening if we attempt to shove all of this history and politics behind the word “terrorist”. However, for the moment this is an aside. I won’t shy away from these comments and I’m certainly prepared to take them up later. My argument for a semantic switch from “on” to “of” is part of the program to shift the debate onto this ground and away from the terrorists just hate us line.
The third reason that my suggested linguistic shift is important is because, once we start using it, the tendency to a knee-jerk support for “our” troops and “our” President/Prime Minister is able to be undercut.
If it’s a war “on” terror, it is a war against terrorism and the terrorists. In this construction and with this syntax there is an inbuilt ideological position. A war against terrorism is justified because the unstated ideological assumption is one of “right” versus “wrong”. Or, to use the parlance of the annointed, “Good” versus “Evil”.
Such assumptions make it easier and more “logical” therefore to talk about bringing the terrorists “to justice” and to argue that “freedom-loving peoples” should support such actions.
On the other hand, if it’s a war “of” terror, or simply a “terror war”, the implication is that neither side can claim the moral high ground. The motives of Bush-Blair-Howard are open to question.
Which brings us to the thorny “moral equivalence” argument. It sometimes goes like this: “You might not like the American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, but the terrorists are worse.” That’s a simplification, but even the most sophisticated pro-war argument boils down to this eventually. It has to, because otherwise the pro-war lobby would have to defend atrocities that even they can’t stomach. Sometimes it seems that GWB even buys into this when he says that “God” is on his side in this war.
Bush invokes the Holy Spirit in every speech he makes about the war, usually to a sympathetic audience of men and women in uniform, or in this instance, the veterans of previous wars at the American Legion’s national convention in late August this year:
We believe that freedom is a gift from an almighty God, beyond any power on Earth to take away. (Applause.) …
May God bless our veterans. May God bless our troops. And may God continue to bless the United States of America. (Applause.)
How is this so different from the apocalyptic pronouncements of the Islamic fundamentalists? Personally I prefer Bob Dylan’s ironic rendition of this dubious blessing:
So now as I’m leavin’
I’m weary as Hell
The confusion I’m feelin’
Ain’t no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
If God’s on our side
He’ll stop the next war.
There are many other examples of weasel words and many citations that reinforce Orwell’s arguments about euphemism, double-think and newspeak. “Good” versus “evil” is one that springs to mind. So too is the trippingly awful phrase that GWB uses constantly-rallying the world to confront the ideology of hate-that is dutifully echoed in choral harmonies from London and Canberra.
At the end of the day I’m not entirely happy with “war of terror”, or “terror war”. I’ve been mulling over things like “Bush the younger’s crusade”, but that’s not quite right either. How about “Daddy’s unfinished business”?
It’s not really about tactics or strategy, which is what using the word “terror” in any combination really draws attention to. I’d like to think of something that captures the war aims. These often get lost in the rhetoric about freedom, God, Allah and so on. In some senses it is a war about territory – the occupation of Iraq (and Afghanistan) and attempts by the other side to get the occupiers out. Current military and political thinking is that this conflict has got at least another decade to run. If so we’re going to have a long time to think about this, to count the cost and consider the fall-out.
In 2003 when the conflict began in Iraq it was seen by many to be a war about controlling the oil reserves of the Middle East and access to lucrative pipelines. This has been successfully pushed off the front-page and out of public consciousness by the focus on terrorism. But this has not made the war any more popular according to most opinion polling in the USA, the UK and Australia. In the sense that all wars have an economic cause, it probably is still a war to conquer territory and control oil.
From the Islamic “side” there’s no doubt some sentiment that this is a war to establish a Sharia-ruled cosmos. This is no different from claims by the western powers that they’re bringing “democracy” to the Middle East. There’s no evidence that either side is morally right on that score. On both sides there is propaganda aimed at building and maintaining public enthusiasm for the fight.
It’s also a conflict about extending US global hegemony and strike power through forward bases and rapid deployment. Maybe we should just settle on “War of the world”.
Orwell was curmudgeonly and pedantic in many things, but he was right about politics and language.
When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases — bestial, atrocities, iron heel, bloodstained tyranny, free peoples of the world, stand shoulder to shoulder — one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy: a feeling which suddenly becomes stronger at moments when the light catches the speaker’s spectacles and turns them into blank discs which seem to have no eyes behind them. [Politics and the English Language, 1946]
When I read this I also see George Bush or Dick Cheney on the platform in front of sympathetic military audiences proclaiming a God-given right to obliterate and maim in the name of some ill-defined and cynically manipulated belief. The call to holy war in the name of a Christian God fills me with as much horror as any video of Osama bin Laden preaching jihad, or ritual beheading in the name of Allah.
Good to see you are using a glossary compiled by the accountants of a Community College (that’s a TAFE in Australian lingo) as an authoritative source for your definition. No doubt the rest of the post was compiled with similar academic rigour.
It’s simple and to the point and (I thought) impartial under the circumstances.
Abridged version: Bush=Hitler.
The fact that you see no moral difference between the imposition of sharia Law and a democracy demonstrates what a complete load of cobblers your opinion is.
I have read in your previous posts that you don’t believe that the Western Democracies are actually democracies, so I am not suprised.
I am frankly suprised that LP allows you to post your grotesque views.
It’s a post on semantics and the best you can do to define your terms is to quote the internal auditors of a TAFE in Texas?
Myself, I couldn’t agree more.
Orwell’s essay is a classic and has much contemporary resonance.
As to that, we’re a broad church here at LP – “left of centre” stretches from Greens through ALPers to non-aligned Lefties and Left libertarians. There’s no “party line”. It’s good to have a well argued Marxist pov in the mix. I’d suggest to critics that they engage with the arguments rather than nitpicking or just signalling dislike of the politics.
Just sayin…
Perhaps Bismark you might prefer this series of definitions from UNDOC
Here’s a discussion from a source you might not like, the Guardian newspaper
You might find this more to your liking. The Institute of Counter-Terrorism
Though you’ll probably argue that this too is unreliable!
Wikipedia
None of them differ substantially from the one I chose, for reasons I’ve already mentioned.
What about the Terror of Warism ? Just sayin…
And if Bush=Hitler, CL, who’s the holocaust denier (note lower case “h”), you or Eric?
1. Great destruction resulting in the extensive loss of life, especially by fire.
2.
a. Holocaust The genocide of European Jews and others by the Nazis during World War II: “Israel emerged from the Holocaust and is defined in relation to that catastrophe” Emanuel Litvinoff.
b. A massive slaughter: “an important document in the so-far sketchy annals of the Cambodian holocaust” Rod Nordland.
3. A sacrificial offering that is consumed entirely by flames.
link
Or
holocaust
n 1: an act of great destruction and loss of life
2: the Nazi program of exterminating Jews under Hitler [syn: Holocaust,
final solution]
link
How do you argue with somebody living in a country where there is universal adult sufferage, three tiers of government, with bicameral westminister parliaments in almost all states, territories and at the federal level who doesn’t think that this is a democracy? And, they can’t see any moral difference between suicide bombing, kidnapping head hackers and fully volunteer militaries that operate according the law of war and punish those that transgress!?
This guy supports people who would be happy to stone to death your mothers, sisters and any other female friends and relatives for wearing make-up in public, even if in a burkha!
If your happy having those sort of members in your broad church, then it isn’t a church I want to even consider going in.
Pax Vobiscum, then, Razor.
Perhaps you could look past the straw-arguments and consider the real ones?
You could make a very good case about the decline of democracy in the US – indeed, some of the most influential conservative ideologues mount arguments which support a Republic which is not governed by “the mob”. And on a more pragmatic level, you could look at vote fraud, the hugely problematic voting system, and the massive gerrymandering and the influence of money. Republicans at the moment are patting themselves on the back that they might just survive the midterms because they’ve got more dosh and more gerrymandered seats.
No difference between the stated goals? I mean you could argue that the western version isn’t sincere, but can you seriously not pick between a democracy (even a relatively illiberal one) and sharia law?
Good question, Steve. I agree with you.
Yes, me too.
The question really is – what is the third term? Yes, waging war in the name of democracy is an ideological crusade which has backfired massively. Yes, the imposition of Sharia law and a fantasy theocracy is a dangerous and delusionally violent politico-religious project.
But I think we need to engage with reality here. What ought to go on in the Middle East?
As soon as the word “terrorism” is used in any juridical sense, all meaning disappears into a slough.
I matters not whether the formulation is on terrorism, against terrorism, or for terrorism.
In its most dangerous form, the Bush Clique convinced Congress that it was possible to declare war on an abstract noun. Now, the US has had “wars on drugs”, “wars on poverty” etc. But none of these misuses of the word “war” entailed triggering an actual constitutional declaration of war. thedeclaration of war is a very serious step, even if the country were only declaring war on Germany, as it did in 1917, or Japan, as it did in 1941.
Such a declaration of war looks forward to a successful conclusion when an instrument of armistice (as in 1918) or instruments of capitulation (as in 1945) could be signed by representatives of the enemy power.
The problem with the so-called “war on terrorism” is that it cannot imagine an armistice or capitulation moment. There can be no representative of the enemy power to sign them.
At this point, RWDBs and others inveigled into their quaint ways, respond wth something impressively macho like, “well we’ll kill every last one of them and then it’ll be over”. But, as the humiliating example of Iraq shows, it doesn’t work that way.
And in any case, this perfectionist end-point for the so-called “war on terrorism” allows the executive power to insist that a state of war continues to exist, tipping the balance of the constitution much too far in favour of the executive.
The alternative is an entirely unedifying spectacle of the war dwindling away as the legislature uses its one remaining power to tighten the purse-strings on the executive’s ambition.
This is indeed what happened on the last day of sitting in the Congress before it rose for the mid-term elections. The Senate unanimously confiscated the funds that Bush wanted to build permanent bases in Iraq and to take control of Iraqi oil. That Congress unanimpusly beleived that such measures were necessary is remarkable enough, but that is OT.
Instead, what we have here is Congress redefining the nature and scope of this so-called “war on terrorism”, taking back piecemeal the licence that they so negligently gave the Bush Clque in the first place.
When a war is so ill-conceived, these are the natural consequences. The alternative is national exhaustion and collapse.
Big tip: stand by for more and more congressional whittling of the Bush Clique, as Chimpo’s scope of actions are miniaturised to the size of his intellect.
Steve E
My point is not that the limited democracy of the west, buggerized by the free market, is the same as Sharia law. I was trying to tease out the argument that as a stated “war aim” of the neo-cons, the bringing of democracy to Iraq has the same zero-level of sincerity and possibility as the militant Islamic goal of ShariaNation.
IF (deliberate caps) the allies were able to impose some normalcy on Iraq and Afghanistan and some modestly functioning version of free market democracy, that would be preferable to ShariaNation from the pov of universalist human rights. One might even argue it would be the completion of the bourgeois revolution in Iraq, similarly if an invasion brought down the theocracy in Iran. However, I honestly don’t think it’s possible under present conditions.
As I mentioned in a different thread, under the rules of mutually-assured-destruction, or whatever the current military doctrine is for a winnable nuke-ller war, the toxic clouds and DU dust pretty much win. The US is not going to allow ShariaNation to exist, unless the current war becomes so draining on both human and capital resources that the American public calls “Enough” and can force the government to concede.
On the other hand to *impose* a solution acceptable to the capitalist democracies is going to cost a lot more lives on both sides and a huge devestation of Iraqi infrastructure, let alone further invasions or pre-emptive strikes.
The current strategy from both sides is ultimately “lose-lose”.
“The question really is – what is the third term? Yes, waging war in the name of democracy is an ideological crusade which has backfired massively. Yes, the imposition of Sharia law and a fantasy theocracy is a dangerous and delusionally violent politico-religious project.”
Why do you keep SAYING this shit Mark.
You know whats happened.
No Global war has ever been won by restricting your soldiers within a known advertised area of operations.
Now you KNOW this.
I’v told you guys this shit before.
So these recent efforts PRETENDING not to be a hardcore marxist will always fall flat.
Leave the DU out of it! Ferchristsake, the Du myth has been debunked enough – and the implied contention that DU exists after a nuclear strike is a load of dribble.
Argue the politics for your hearts content but don’t confuse the science.
To compare the efforts of the coalition and the insurgents and name them all terrorists is misleading at best. Here’s a question, which actually highlights the restraint needed by the coallition to continue in Iraq, and still be able to hold their head up as democratic defenders of the human right to gather and vote for the government they want in Iraq: if the insurgents had the same firepower at their disposal as the coallition, do you think the war would be over yet?
Which brings us to a second question: If they had the same firepower at their disposal do you think there would be a major threat to world security for all nations but those who are willing to opt for Shariah? And do you think that the focus of their attentions would remain in the Middler East (once Israel was obliterated, of course)?
You say, let’s not quibble over who started the war, then you say that fundamentalism is a response, not a cause. So you turn terrorsists into freedom fighters, playing into the hands of fundamentalism, simply driven by your very apparent political hatred of George Bush, by the way!
In so doing you validate the suicide bombings, the Twin Towers massacre, and the Bali destructions. If fundamentalism is a response, it’s not to war, but to the lifestyle of the West as percieved through the eyes of Shariah, which wants to destroy it from the top down, or from the bottom up, doesn’t matter really.
Yes, and you validate the insurgents’ war against Iraqi shoppers in the marketplaces they turn into blood baths day after day. No military targets here. The numbers of dead are rising, yes, but not at the ands of the coalition, but at the hands of islamic fanatics from others nationss, other worlds, driven by one word – kill! And you validate the London bombers’ angst against civilians on the way to work, the Madrid train bombings, and every other styupid act off vengeance and mayhem we’ll see in the next ten years.
And what do you want to do with Israel now that you’ve declared it an imposition on the Middlee East? In 1948 they weren’t expected to last more than a few hours once the Israeli state was officially sanctioned, and the world watched and waited as the might of the surrounding Arab nations rained down on them immediately. But to everyone’s shock, horror or surprise they not only survived this vicious onslaught, but they took ground. And they still exist, and still have the right to exist.
Your cowardly conclusion is that if it weren’t for Israel the Arab M***ms wouldn’t have such a cause and we’d have a peaceful Middle East. So now after several attempts to batter Israel off the map and the subsequent rewriting of Palestinian history we have a UN which actually does leave them off the map when talking to Arabs!!! Astonishing! And you agree, in kind. Just how many indignant voices did we hear when rockets were raining down on Israel before they went into Lebanon? Again, I see in Israel a nation with the power to terrorise in a merciless way, yet exercising a degree of restraint without looking weak in front of her enemies, and doing it all with a different mindset to the West.
Again, if the Palestinians had the same firepower, do you think Israel would exist today? Do you care?
Invoking god and blessing America fall into the category of weazle words now? Perhaps you should have taken more time to understand the concept of the death of language.
[Damned good thing no-one ever invokes Allah, or some of those points could have been verging on the silly.]
You don’t need to put up with this or any other appalling shoddy, capitalistic democracy you know: oodles of non-democratic countries for you to choose from.
Ooooh, looky, you can all choose from countries that already have Sharia law! Yippee! Off you go now, and however old you are at the moment, that’s how many years you have to stay there.
Do send post cards from time to time, just to let us know how that’s all working out for you, ‘kay?
BTW – when you try to shoot down moral equivalence, you need to step very carefully so as not to be seen as morally equivocating, or worse, morally bankrupt.
That’s a meaningless counterfactual, Facelift, as you’d realise if you thought about it for a second.
And you sound like you’re admiring the Israeli state’s “merciless” terrorism. That’s unlike you.
Arguments about whether Western societies are “democracies” are mostly semantic. For instance, there was an earlier charge: “Is the US really a democracy? Is Australia?”
I can’t speak for Australia, but in the instance of the US, the answer is, No, of course not, nor was it ever claimed to be. The US is a republic, with a bunch of fixed democratic institutions and a theory of government that derives sovereignty from the governed. But it’s not a ‘democracy,’ strictly speaking, and never was. The terms are easily confused, especially by illiterates like Mr. Bush, and more cynical propagandists like the rest of Bush’s team.
[btw, things like vote fraud and gerrymandering can be looked at from a variety of perspectives. "Vote fraud" --whoa, I bet JFK's Democratic party *never* heard of such a thing! Just like they nevah hoid of da Mafia!-- can't realistically be used to "steal" an amount of votes much greater than what woulda been the statistical margin of error anyway. If the Dems had really had a substantive majority, no amount of fraud could have taken it from them. It's useful to look at the 1960 election, where the massed dead of Cook County evidently *rose from their graves* to vote for JFK, who still only won by the slimmest of margins, right? Do you think you could falsify, say, one of Reagan's landslide elections? Why didn't the GOP "steal" elections from Clinton, if they're so all-powerful and all-diabolical? I'm not at all impressed by the Bush/Baker GOP's respect for democracy, to be quite sure (in fact I think their record is disgraceful); but I still don't view it as the equivalent of a coup. The call was a close one to make; sometimes that's just how things roll. Careful inspection at any given moment probably reveals abuses on all sides, at all levels. ...Gerrymandering, too, while not terribly palatable, can still in a certain light be seen as part of the rough-and-tumble of the greater process. You don't like the way the district was rigged? Then find a way to rig it yourself! You can, ya know... (and the fact that there are districts to be rigged in the first place tells you something about the overall health of the system...) That's quite crude, to be sure, but not entirely insane, from a sufficiently broad perspective...]
But that wasn’t my original purpose here. A lot of Katz’s post of 5:46 pm is quite astute, in terms of the nitty-gritty and the day-to-day, which is how big things like wars always shake out anyway, regardless of the grandiosity of the original claims. So I’m not quarrelling with that aspect.
Back to the war… I don’t think there’s one clear origin for it; but you have to remember certain aspects of salesmanship. To claim that one has “seen through” tissue-paper rhetorical devices like “war on terror” or “war for democracy/freedom/buzzword of the week” is not to claim all that much, really. These things are fronts, although not entirely dishonest fronts. No one serious could think these catch-phrases are the actual basis of the thing.
Allow me to advance a claim which doesn’t come close to explaining *fully* what’s going on, but which may add a bit more light to a certain angle of it (there are aspects of this thing which certainly pre-date 9/11; Bush’s team had a hard-on for Iraq before they even ever took office, so that’s a whole other angle that adds a percentage to the whole — not the whole itself, but indeed a percentage).
Here’s the heart of what I mean. (sorry for all the digressions.) “War on terror”? Only rhetorically. In a certain way, I think this is just a “war to uphold the Monroe Doctrine.” In the crudest terms, the US was attacked on its home soil, which it really, really, REALLY does not like to see happen; these wars in their broadest sense are about trying to provide a massive disincentive to the people worldwide who think doing things like that is a plausible activity. Look what happened to Japan, for instance. Notice too that throughout all this business, the US is not even mobilized. You can go about your business here, and not realize at all that two wars are being fought.
“War to promote democracy”? Not on your life. Not many people here really care about ‘promoting democracy in the ME’ for its own sake; who would give a shit? People have been told that it’s a good long-term security strategy (see above). We’ve re-made our old enemies into allies before. I don’t think it’s a terribly smart strategy in this instance, but I guess the thinking was, Hey, it worked before. Chalk that up to the human tendency to always fight the present war in terms of the last one. I’m quite unhappy about this war, but the only ‘real’ way to have prevented it would have been for those against to play smarter meaner politics than the pro-war crowd; and this, unhappily, failed.
Like I say, it’s not a grand unified field theory, but I think it’s one that is too little considered. Makes more sense to me than “war to control oil” — I mean, shit, we *already* controlled the oil, in so many words. Main thing is, don’t confuse politics with salesmanship. “War on Terror”, regrettable as it is, is just necessary political salesmanship. It’s part of the ugly craft of politics as a skilled trade. Deconstructing the phrase doesn’t make anyone much of a clairvoyant.
Well it wasn’t only JFK era Democrats!
Kim, I said Israel had the ‘power’ to be a merciless terror state, but chose not to. You miss the point of the restraint being used. And you miss the point that the evidence is that in the hands of insurgents this power would be misused in a cataclismic way.
Apologies for the misreading, FaceLift.
But you don’t consider bombing refugee camps, collective vengeance, etc. terrorism?
Seems like all of you need to go back to early high school to re-learn the history of democracy before you continue to pontificate on what democracy is or isn’t.
Sheesh, democracy permitted only men and elites to vote, and everyone (within the chosen classess and gender group) even got a rotating chance at being a pollie.
So, on that basis, no there are no democracies remaining on earth. None. Haven’t been for a very, very long time. But feel free to push for a reversion to true democracy. Go ahead. See how many votes you get in this here little democracy, which you insist is not a democracy.
Thanks for the etymology, Ck.
So you don’t think anything can evolve beyond its origins?
I don’t like the eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth philosophy of reprisal, and I don’t support everything Israel has done in its defence, but I do support its right to exist and defend itself, and consider it a great cowardice to wish them away so we can have a peaceful resolution through their absence. Declaring them historically a misfit is the first step in the journey to anihilation.
The Middle Eastern mindset is thoroughly different to the West’s. There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of diplomacy to to their methodology. Which may be why the UN isn’t really a great solution finder to the problems there.
I agree with j_p_z that the main thrust of American interests has been to take the war offshore and say hands off America, if that’s what he’s saying.
j_p_z, I acknowledge the thought and reflection in your last post. Nice one. Thanks.
Weak.
At least attack the argument and not your own strawman. I don’t think the author ever mentioned that he wanted to live in a non-democracy, let alone a sharia state.
Sigh. I wish people like Comrade Blair would try to use terms with some precision.
Terrorism is a tactic aimed at an entire civilian population with the intent, as the Austin CC put it, to “intimidate or coerce” that population. Deliberately detonating a bomb in a crowded civilian area is the classic example of terrorism.
Try to understand that terrorism is not just a general catch-all term for unsavoury things done in the course of war. Mistreating prisoners may be illegal, it may be morally wrong, but it is not “terrorism” per se. I would like to see the US adopt a clear and strong position against the physical coercion of prisoners — but even if it does not, I will not accuse the US of being a “terrorist”.
The other things on your list are not terrorism either:
house-to-house searches (aren’t they sometimes necessary and legitimate in this sort of warfare?);
sanctioned assassinations (eg killing Zarkawi? you have a problem with that?);
cluster bombs (depends where and how they’re used);
health effects of DU munitions (a myth, as Razor said);
turning a blind eye to death squads (oh yes, all the death squads in Iraq wander over to the Green Zone each night to get their death lists from their CIA handler).
Oh dear, the poor old strawman gets dragged out yet again. *Yawn*
There WERE no arguments, only warped opinion. I’m not going to invent arguments that weren’t there.
Kim – that’s the point, democracy however it’s conceived has evolved. Duh. Which version/s don’t people like, the ones that have never existed, perhaps?
Yes, yes, democracy is the worst form of government, except for all of the others …
Unless people are conceptualising a whole new form of democratic government, and have a platform upon which to implement it, it’s just pissing in the wind. It’s the equivalent of passing comments about the weather, oh, er, yes, isn’t democracy so awful. Ho hum.
Sorry – that should have been … which democracies DO people like … (rather than don’t)
Again, Eric, in your quote, notice GB said ‘freedom’ is a gift from God, not war, as you imply. Presumabley this includes the right to defend freedom, and to assist others in their defence of freedom. I think the applause came from the veterans because they sensed he was giving affirmation for their efforts in upholding what they see as freedom when they served their country. I think freedom is worth defending, particularly the freedom to choose whether I want to be a marxist, a musl*m, a liberal, a socialist or a democrat, or whatever.
As a marxist you may have a different concept of freedom to the Rebublican Bush, or even the Shariah proponent, and it may mean that one day we’ll face off for the right to establish our brand of freedom, but I hope, against history, that the place we face off is in the ballot box, and not on the field of war. That’s what I mean by defence of democracy.
Changing terms from ‘war on terror’ to ‘war of terror’ means nothing to the relatives of those killed or maimed by terrorists. They have another word – justice. And the rest of us, we just want peace.
This is a thread ostensibly about semantics.
Any debate about moral equivalences that may branch off from a beginning point of semantics simply runs the thread into the well travelled ruts of entrenched positions.
Surely the most interesting feature of semantics was the way in which Bush was capable of mobilising the awesome military power of the United States against an unidentifiable enemy.
This was a case of the irresistable force not striking the non-existent object. The irresistability of the force (the US military) can be proven only in relation to an object that claims incorrectly to be immovable. The power of the US military has been dissipated on this futile quest for a worthy/compatible enemy.
Bush was allowed to follow this self-destructive course of action because Congress negligently voted him the right to do it.
As j_p_z suggested, Congress’s vote may have been motivated by a desire to reinforce the Monroe Doctrine after the mortal shock of 9/11.
But Congress’s motives, whatever they were, do not explain how they fitted Bush’s plans into the constitutional framework of the United States.
Bush invited Congress to conceive of their vote of support as voting for a war, as if it were a war against a Germany or a Japan.
This was the semantic trick that Bush played. A war on “terrorism” can never be the same as a war against a regime, for reasons outlined above.
Congress failed to perform its necessary constitutional functions. Bush convinced Congress to abdicate those responsibilities with a semantic trick.
Using the term ‘war on terror’ was actually a nice sidestep from having to use the more explicit truism, ‘war on Islamic militants’, which would have better identified the enemy, but stirred a bigger hornets nest than desired, and his inclusion of North Korea in the ‘axis of evil’ similarly evaded the religious connotations.
Amorphous evil is a feature learnt in childhood, and adults never grow out of it. Itâs not a semantic trick, itâs not clever, and itâs not even original.
Generalised fear (the boogey man under the bed) has been a feature of childrenâs literature and politics alike since recorded time.
The only difference now is that there are the occasional funny quirks thrown up, such as adults everywhere in the Western world being collectively and meekly complicit in supporting the lunatic belief that keeping hair gel and toothpaste of planes will keep them and us safe. Not THATâS new, and THATâS clever, in a transparently manipulative smoke screen kinda way.
Problem with this assertion, CK, is that most times adults, especially astute adults who are guardians of the public trust, don’t behave in the way you describe.
Otherwise, I might assert that is was some unspeakable “amorphous evil” which drove you to make the above assertion.
And that’d be a silly assertion wouldn’t it, unless I had some actual proof to support my observation about your state of mind.
So, have you questioned many US Members of Congress on their susceptibility to “amorphous evil”?
Would you be able to identify “amorphous evil” if it bit you on the bum?
If you’re arguing in public wether or not your country is a democracy…
… you do the math.
Leinad – beautiful.
Katz – not sure what planet you live on, but here on planet earth, fear and the creation of it is a core feature of all societies. My points were not “assertion” they are demonstrabliy true, you blithering ignorant fool. Obviously didn’t get any bed time stories when you were little, don’t follow the rhetoric of the MSM, nor of politics, have no inkling of psychology or sociology, nor understanding of myths and legends, old and modern. Nope, nothing to see here.
Ck, before you call anyone a “blithering ignorant fool” again, please read the comments policy, including this bit:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/about-larvatus-prodeo/comments-policy/
“.. . before you call anyone …”
Err, you don’t think that ship may have come and gone?
I’m tired. Insert the word “again”. The meaning should have been pretty plain, even on a thread about semantics.
The problem with the so-called “war on terrorism” is that it cannot imagine an armistice or capitulation moment. There can be no representative of the enemy power to sign them.
People could never imagine an “armistice or capitulation moment” in the so-called Cold War.
For the record: we won.
Shorter CK:
“No, I would know if anything bit me on the bum.”
Nah, C.L., the fifth column of Maoist school teachers had the true victory.
To add to the record:
The Cold War was a semantical war like the War on Drugs or the War on Poverty.
No war was ever declared by US Congress called the “Cold War”.
The only war associated with the so-called Cold War ever declared, by means of the mendacious “Tonkin Resolution”, resulted in a loss.
Remember Vietnam?
Those who can’t recognise the difference between a declared war and a state of armed but peaceful hostility are as stupid as they are rash in exposing their stupidity.
There are very close similarities between the lies that drove the Tonkin Resolution and the lies that drove the US debacle in Iraq.
Never heard of “reds under the bed” Katz, never studied history? Present day scenarios are within the same fear generating paradigm. (Just as modern day children’s books carry the same tales to instil fear as in olden day bed time stories.)
You don’t recognise that this post is equally (well, only very mildly, to be fair) about generating fear, about boogey men called Howard and Bush, for example, or about our own political systems? The left and the right each play exactly the same big evil / fear generating game. As do societies radically different from our own, with entirely different political systems. Except that their targets of fear and evil are us – including you and me.
Funny thing about the Cold War. We won without ever declaring war. We won with soft power when the people of the soviet Union rose up against their tyrants.
Good model.
If only Chimpo had thought to adapt it to his puerile GWOT.
Chimpo loses.
We won with soft power when the people of the soviet Union rose up against their tyrants.
Lol.
…as stupid as they are rash in exposing their stupidity.
By the way Youie, speaking of holocausts, Saddam Hussein is under indictment for genocide and war crimes. He is accused of killing 100,000 Kurds and – ball-park – about a half-million other people besides. The left believes this monster was “unlawfully” removed from office; that hypothetically, in fact, he is the preferred “strong man” for keeping “order” in Iraq – via state terrorism. He hosted terrorists, financed terrorists, invaded neighbours and sought to acquire nuclear weapons. He used weapons of mass destruction – on multiple occasions. The left’s outrageously stupid lie: he was no threat, no threat at all.
And they say Bush is dumb.
So incredibly mendacious has this argument become that some people conveniently forget that most US Democrats supported the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Yesterday, before Kim Beazley could speak to a theatrical censure motion against the Howard government for “taking us to war on a lie”, the PM produced a Kevin Rudd quote evidencing SWAT Womble’s pre-war belief that it was an “empirical” fact that Saddam had WMD. Labor frontbenchers tried to get the Speaker to rule the PM’s quotation out of order so it wouldn’t be read into Hansard. Oops, Labor censures its own wannabe foreign minister! Kev lied, people died! With a tactics committee this incompetent, Bomber’s ability to wage a war on Al Qaeda is questionable. We have already seen a Beazley proposal to illegally invade New Orleans.
Anyway, the left’s bottom line is this: the above-mentioned holocaust is the holocaust Iraqis had to have. Why? Because – there is no other reason – to the left, Iraqis aren’t white people and therefore do not really “deserve” democracy or a rule of law. The truth about the Iraq War is that it was easily and swiftly won as a conventional military-on-military campaign; the initiation of democracy was extremely popular amongst the people and the state is now sovereign according to the “international law” the left allegedly believes in. What we have is an illegal campaign – a terrorist campaign – being waged against democracy and stability in Iraq. Unfortunately, that means the West has to stay and fight. From the invasion to now is a period of about ONE Australian parliamentary term – that’s all. This compares to the half-century of squabbling it took for national sovereignty to be concretised in Australia. But the Chamberlain left wants to quit. Like that will achieve anything.
The left’s view of Saddam Hussein is always in a state of expedient flux, of course. First they criticised unilateralism – a “unilateralism” involving many more countries than have bothered to sign up for Kofi “We Can’t Help The Sudanese Till They Ask Us” Annan’s Hezbollah facilitation mission in southern Lebanon. Now lefties demand unilateralism from the US vis-a-vis talks with North Korea. When the US allowed the Europeans to run the show vis-a-vis Iran, the EU morons botched it and the moral moveable feast merchants of the left then criticised American aloofness. Hilariously, one of the earliest criticisms from the BDS brigade in relation to Iraq was that the Pentagon had not equipped GIs with sufficiently robust gear to protect themselves against the WMD attacks! Lefties opposed war in Afghanistan because of the Soviet precedent, the “harsh Afghan winter” and because it would become “another Vietnam”. Then the photos and the footage and the features on the Taliban’s reign of puritanical terror entered the Western ken so Afghanistan was re-packaged on the left as the “good war”. When Gulf War I turned out not to be the Gulf War of the Elder Bush, they then decided the whole war was a “lie” and now insist it is a “fiasco”.
They further argue – despite terrorist attacks or thwarted mass murders in countries not involved in Iraq – that if we leave Iraq, the world will become safer. The Bali Bombing victims wouldn’t agree; they were murdered before the Iraq War and they were murdered because Australia had played a leadership role in ending Jakarta’s Saddam-level genocide in East Timor. When he was FM, Labor’s Gareth Evans went to NYT HQ and berated its editors for suggesting anything untoward was happening in East Timor. So much for the wisdom of lefty spin and surrender.
The left has never stopped telling lies regarding Iraq and on the war against terrorism. Its putrid moral relativism is displayed plainly with this post and with Kim’s weird argument in another post that the key to convincing her NoKo namesake and Tehran to retreat from nuclearisation is for AmeriKKKa to beat a nuclear retreat on Caldicottian lines.
The right rules the Anglosphere and the reason for that felicitous reality is that the left is morally deranged.
Sorry, who, C.L.? Simon Crean, wasn’t it?
Do you just have that bit in a word file that you can cut and paste into comments for about 3 or 4 years’ worth of rhetoric?
I predict C.L. vs. Katz for about another 50 comments… bath time for moi, though.
CL – you effing rock!!
I rate you up there with Steyn.
Please get back to blogging.
Cheers
Man CL, if you’d just mentioned Clinton and “fucking vietnamese Balts” it would have been your entire repertoire in one comment.
Don’t forget Whitlam and Keating, Steve.
Oh sorry, the first is subsumed under “fucking Vietnamese balts”.
He could also have mentioned unemployment under Keating.
Just sayin…
Hey Razor, what is D.U.?
Shorter CL:
Bragging like a winner proves I’m not a loser … doesn’t it?
Nah, CL now has a third trick up his sleeve: when the going gets really tough he links to grotesque pictures of aborted fetuses.
I had that unpleasant experience with him on Catallaxy. The poor old luvvie is surely losing it.
Oh, and Eric, you should really submit that article to Green Left Weekly. A bampot such as youself is right up their alley. As to the substance of your rant, it is about as objective as a Dr Goebels speech. I really can’t be bothered wasting my time pointing out the litany of clangers, deceptions and outright lies. Hopefully you’ll grow out of this phase in the not too distant future.
I sense CL’s rant lacked conviction. Is he trying to reassure himself?
Anyhoo, what I really wanted to know, Eric, is: what’s a bampot?
“This guy supports people who would be happy to stone to death your mothers, sisters and any other female friends and relatives for wearing make-up in public, even if in a burkha!”
How very Ann Coulter – ‘This guy supports the enemy! Traitor! He wants to hoist up the white flag!! He’s a friend of the terrorists!!! Cut and run!!!!’
Katz: “The Cold War was a semantical war like the War on Drugs or the War on Poverty… No war was ever declared by US Congress called the âCold Warâ?.
“…Those who canât recognise the difference between a declared war and a state of armed but peaceful hostility are as stupid as they are rash…
“…Funny thing about the Cold War. We won without ever declaring war. We won with soft power when the people of the soviet Union rose up against their tyrants.”
Oh come now, bud, this is rubbish of an astonishing degree. I can’t imagine that you don’t actually know better. The ‘Cold War’ is merely a term of convenience for historians and policy-makers, referring to a byzantine class of miniature conflicts, massive strategic efforts and massive clandestine struggles, all of which fall under the same general rubric. Of *course* there wasn’t a declared ‘Cold War’ — in a way, that was rather the point. It didn’t become ‘hot,’ viz., didn’t turn into either a conventional WWIII or a nuclear war, whether intentional or not, because those involved (on both sides) had such reserves of discipline and wariness. It’s a actually quite an astonishing chapter of human history, when you pause to think about it.
While much respect is due to the restrained seriousness of Soviet nuclear doctrine, the reality is that, more or less, the Cold War was won, –and quite deliberately, purposefully won,– by the tenacity, resolve, and strategic brilliance of the United States. Sorry, but it’s just true. Life’s too short to walk you through the details; in point of fact, I bet you know them well. Maybe you’re just repressing them.
Come on, bud. Get back to being a grown-up. When you’re on, you’re really pretty interesting to read.
US strategy provided the necessary conditions for the eventual collapse of Soviet Communism.
The sufficient conditions were provided by Soviet citizens.
I’ll return the compliment, j_p_z, and distinguish you from the usual droids of the Right.
According to your fantasy counterfactual, the 101st Airborne fought their way to the Kremlin, against the last-ditch fanaticism of the Russian volksturm, over the self-immolated bodies of the Soviet leadership, to plant the Flag of Freedom atop the onion dome of St Basil’s.
Newflash. It didn’t happen that way.
Instead, ordinary Soviet citizens, some members of the Communist Party, protested peacefully in their millions, convincing just about everyone in power that defence of the regime was pointless and stupid.
Communism collapsed to a moral revolution, not a military assault.
I trust you, j_p_z, not to go off half-cocked over this.
Note the distinction between necessary and sufficient conditions.
What’s a bampot?
Yes, I want to know too. What’s a bampot?
You ladies haven’t put the Urban Dictionary in your firefox search box yet, have yas?
It either means a “Glaswegian word for a “Headcase”, eg Away ye go ya “Bampot” ye!” or (my favourite) “A fierce looking scottish guy called Alex, eg “Och aye ya wee toaley-headed bampot ye, ….. och!”"
Phil – DU stands for Depleted Uranium. Eric Blair referred to it in a point about a Nuclear strike. Nuclear explosions don’t produce DU. Nuclear reactors produce DU. DU is another straw man of the enviro-lefties. It is not radioactive (that is why it is called depleted!). It is poisonous in the same way other heavy metals are. There is some target specific contamination where it is used, but it doesn’t turn the area into a toxic waste land.
The cute Katz commie poster-art version of the Soviet Union’s collapse – titled “People of The Soviet Union Rise Up Against Their Tyrants!” – is intended to keep Reagan and Wojtyla, aggressive containment and superior capitalist defence spending at the margins of the story. The lunatic left’s support for unilateral disarmament in Europe during the 70s and its longstanding aw-shucks fondness for communism would have kept the most bloodthirsty of history’s tyrannies extant for another hundred years. This template lives on in Kofi Annan’s ‘Wait Till They’re All Dead – Then We’ll Talk’ policy on genocide in West Africa. Thanks Comrade Artist Katz for the “fantasy counterfactual”.
I’m glad you’re familiar with my repertoire, Steve. I have no idea what you write about but feel free to use anything of mine that takes your fancy, my son. Yes, I do frequently and purposefully repeat the same arguments when I speak to the subject of the left’s increasingly stupid lies about Iraq and the War on Terrorism. Speaking of repertoires, Kim and Katz could work in an Evil George Bush reference in a post on the tartan dacks of the Bay City Rollers. Happily, Steve Munn could participate cheerfully in such a thread because the lads were non “greasy” Anglos!
PS: I’m heartened to know Munn is now sensitive about abortion. This is a welcome change from the days when he gave LP commenters the “unpleasant experience” of expressing a desire to have an abortion himself to “celebrate” the RU 486 decision. As all of us knew, though, any one of his attempts at intellectuality would have sufficed for that symbolic purpose.
Actually its a by-product of the enrichment process rather than a reactor. Most reactors require enriched uranium, (more U235 than occurs naturally), so you are left behind with uranium that is less radioactive, about 60% less than naturally occuring.
Razor is correct though, its chemically quite toxic, but its really not much of a radiation issue.
Sorry, but it is radioactive at somewhere between 60 and 70% of the radioactivity of natural uranium – depending on who you believe – WHO, these guys or Wiki.
And the reason it’s called depleted has nothing to do with its radioactivity – it’s because it’s what’s left after you’ve taken out the enriched uranium you propose to use in your nuclear reactor or other nukular devices. If it weren’t radioactive, we’d be justified in calling it inert (or radiologically inert) uranium, which we don’t.
But hey, why let a little scientific fact stand in the way of a substantially correct assertion?
CL loses it.
He fails to be amusingly loopy, merely fixated and obsessed.
So sad.
BTW, my schtik is “Stupid George Bush”, not “Evil George Bush”. I doubt that CL is capable of grinding a different tune on his hand-cranked organ.
Time to give the Chimp a shot at turning the handle CL. Can you handle a begging cup?
Katz called Bush “the Chimp”!
Ha ha ha ha ha!
Oh goodness Lordy me, now that’s funny!
[*wipes teary eyes*]
Give up CL. What was once mildly amusing is now just pathetic. Come to think of it, it was never even mildly amusing.
Is it the hundreds of thousands of deaths resulting from the monumental stuff up called the Iraq war that you advocated (and presumably still do) that has causes you to ‘lose it’ more than usual?
OK, I was being a bit simplistic – DU is a result of the enrichment process.
It is not radioactive in the sense that it is dangerous radioactive waste that is going to make you have radiation illnesses from extended exposure to it. The glow in the dark stuff on my watch probably produces more radation than DU but we don’t call my watch radioactive, do we. I think the graphite in my pencil is radioactive, too, but I could be wrong on that.
Look what you’ve done Phil! Although that was a semantics issue wasn’t it!!
Razor
Several respected international scientific surveys say otherwise. As does the evidence of birth defects, deaths of soldiers involved in cleaning up this sh!te and the US military’s own protocols for the handling of DU-contiminated hardware. For a sober assessment you can go to WHO
The Campaign Against Depleted Uranium [CADU] has a stronger view:
I’m sure it’s not news to our American friends, but SBS last night screened an interesting documentary from Frontline called *The Darkside of Democracy* about how Cheney and Rumsfeld were able to manipulate the data about WMDs etc in the build up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
These two and their supporters in the Bush cabinet are very keen to manage the semantics of the terror war (I actually like the terror of warism suggested about 40 posts ago). You can read about it and watch the doco here
As for the crazy stuff about the Left supporting Saddam Hussein, nuff said.
Thanks to Zoe for the explanation of “bampot”, saved me the trouble.
Razor,
that was a graphite description
Sorry Katz. That’s the comic book version of the end of the Soviet Union, happy images though it conjures up of the joyful and peace-loving peoples assembling in Red Square with jolly folk-dancing, just as they used to on May Day, the sight of which leads their leaders peering down from the walls of the Kremlin to see the errors of their ways and to pull down the Red Banner then join them in their rustic but jolly artistic folk displays whilst burly but honest members of the Red Army Choir sing inspirational and stirring songs about Volga boatmen and the gathering of the harvest.
The ordinary Soviet citizen were protesting because their economy had collapsed and their faith in the ideology and institutions of their State had failed, not that they’d ever had much faith in either.
As j_p_z points out this all happened in a context of fifty years of resolute Western, and particularly US, defence against the avowed aim of the Soviet Union’s leaders to spread their rule and their ideology beyond the borders of their empire, and the failure of the Soviet Union to be able to compete with Western economies either in terms of giving their people a decent life or in expenditure on defence to preserve that way of life.
If you ignore, as you apparently do, the context in which the Soviet people lost faith in their system of government, then you are ignoring reality and it is you, rather than j_p_z, who is living in a world of fantasy.
Here is a nice picture for you to look at of the flag of the Soviet Union being lowered over the Kremlin for the last time.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/66/Soviet_flag_lowered_over_Kremlin_for_last_time.jpg
Proof positive of GregM’s inability to read for meaning:
The facts:
1. Katz:
2. GregM
Essential difference between 1 and 2? Zero.
Learn to read GregM.
And you can conjure up from j_p_z’s very moderate and sensible post the following nonsense:
As Gorbachev used to say and, who knows, probably still does, don’t try to hang noodles from my ears Katz.
Cocking a snoot at the maxim that says the best thing to do when you’re in a hole is to stop digging, Katz shovels on, emerges in Beijing and wonders if the Chimp will prevent the Chinese from rising up against their tyrants.
Ever heard of monocausal explanation GregM?
Point to the section in j_p_z’s argument where he gives any weight at all to domestic factors in the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Can’t?
Gosh, must mean you’re wrong again, and take those noodles off your ears when I’m talking to you.
Ever heard of cause and effect Katz? Apparently not, it seems.
Keep shovelling.
Please point to where j_p_z mentions cause and effect.
Can’t?
I win again. This is getting monotonous. Challenge me GregM.
And keep the remedial reading going, it’s a useful skill, you know.
Can you point to me where j_p_z said anything about the United States invading the Soviet Union, which is your little fantasy, not his, Katz?
Though I think that my little fantasy of the burly but honest Red Army choristers, inspired by your facile understanding of Soviet history is a lot more fun.
Eric – read your post – what I wrote and what the extremists from CADU wrote are almost word for word. There is no scientific evidence directly linking DU to birth deformities. Having protocols for dealing with equipment contaminated by DU after being hit by a projectile is entirely reasonable, but is not evidence that it is a ‘terrible’ thing. The CADU view is an extremist enviromentalist position that ignores the science, over-emphasises the risks, and ignores the marvellous benefits of DU as a penetrator round and armour.
GregM folds.
Unless you’re on the receiving end, eh Razor?
Similar denials circulated about Agent Orange and other defoliants used in Vietnam, though they were marvellous for clearing the jungle cover used by the enemy.
Today there is overwhelming evidence that the defoliants caused birth defects, cancers, etc, graphically illustrated in a photo-essay in Vanity Fair recently, which, if memory serves me well, was actually written by Christopher Hitchen.
Time will tell.
Razor, a.k.a Occam, you are sharp,I think i will use you in my Gillette.