Strictly Politics

A CU Debate

A CU debate

[QUOTE=DumbAss Tanker]I have tried to derive some meaning from that word collision, and as best as I can tell, you mean that moral equivalency is never the proper standard to use in war.
In the first place, you're wrong, since even under international law, reprisal is to some degree acceptable as a justification for use of weapons (like WMDs) which are otherwise proscribed, though of course with due care to minimize damage to nonmilitary objects and personnel in the target area to the extent feasible and consistent with the weapon. What is reprisal if not moral equivalency? And yet it is enshrined in international law. Go figure.
In the second place, it is not "moral equivalency" to recognize that your enemy simply does not care about your view of your own side's morality, and will proceed to do repugnant things because they WANT to and it is entirely permissible under the 'morality' which governs their actions, be it radical Islam or Bushido. Further, that all our own moral constraints will accomplish in such a situation is to operate as self-imposed limits, though to be sure there are such limits we would not and should not reach. Fighting down to those limits against such an enemy is not a matter of moral equivalency, it is a matter of moral irrelevancy. The only difference your moral view of such a battle makes is the degree to which we choose to tie our own hands through worrying about that view, and thus provide safe harbors to avail the enemy. In fact, no course of conduct we could adopt would be able to get over the sliding moral bar Leftists would set, since their goal is to create failure in the policy arena, not to see a successful but morally-sufficient conflict resolution. Your view of moral equvalency is therefore irrelevant to the conflict, since it is merely a stalking horse to impose so many conditions that it will ultimately induce failure in the conduct of operations. The proper standard is to determine what basic moral lines do we refrain from crossing, and the proper answer from a military operational point of view is simply basic compliance with Geneva/Hague.
Therefore the extent to which we need to adhere to moral principles in this is a matter of cleaving to basic principles of the Law of War, e.g. refraining from wantonly annihilating villages and killing men, women, and children for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or outrages of that sort. Unlawful combatants (i.e. under arms against us and behaving in contravention of the Geneva/Hague treaties) are another story entirely, and we would be well within international law to kill every one of them as soon as we properly determined they were indeed unlawful combatants. Except to the extent they have intelligence value, I'm all for that option, which is both moral and legal. Unfortunately, we are choosing to tie our own hands in dealing with them, under some misguided idea that if we let them violate the Law of War long enough, they will get tired of it, adopt some Canadian version of Pixieland morality, and start complying with Western standards. Which is stupid, immorally stupid, since that transformation obviously isn't going to happen, and pretending it will is costing young Soldiers and Marines their lives.[/QUOTE]I think we are on the same page here. What I am saying, is that although there may be no absolute right or wrong in this conflict and there is blame enough to go around, the world still saw Bin Laden as the "evil" force and America as the "good" vis-a-vis September 11th.
No one I know condones the 9-11 attacks, no one I know saw it as an act of "good." Everyone I know felt that America had every right to respond against the perpetrators. No one I know felt that America was in any way culpable for the attack, nor would be indicted harshly for any appropriate response.
Most everyone I know feels that Afghanistan was an appropriate response. Most everyone I know feels Iraq was not. For me there is no moral equivalency here; America simply did not deserve Sept 11.
Bin Laden had completely ceded the moral high ground to America and damaged Islam in the process. But with her actions, America is slowly giving up the moral high ground not necessarily to Bin Laden but to anyone who feels justified in using whatever means they need to fight what they feel is a beast that has grown too large, too corrupt, too influential in their lives.
Today, by not trying to maintain that moral high ground- by rushing into a war, by lying/deceiving or even mistakenly believing it was necessary- America is where it is at. Namely at war with an enemy that did not attack, did not threaten to attack, and had no means by which to attack. America is in a foreign country and will forever be known as the invaders vs liberators- though opinions on that may change 100 years from now.

posted by Garfield Jones @ 12:07 PM