dagblog - Comments for "When is War Not a War?"

Sure. Find some people like

kgb999 — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 02:26:11 +0000

In reply to Actually, the burden of proof

Sure. Find some people like that and ask them for an explanation.

We're talking about if the anti-war folks are able to provide justification for favoring the slaughter of men women and childern in Bengazi - rebel and civilian alike - and being against having saved them.

Those of us in support of intervention have made our case. I take it nobody on the anti-war front has managed to yet? Don't worry. Sooner or later there will be a civilian casualty confirmed and then anti-war folks can ingore the thousands saved and hang their hat on that.

Hey, kgb; sorry, but I bailed

we are stardust — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 02:18:21 +0000

In reply to Awww man. Sorry you lost your

Hey, kgb; sorry, but I bailed and wrote at Doc Cleveland's blog. Wore myself plum out, too! ;o)

Might not have been the 'intellectual argument' you were looking for, nor was it the reasons Iraq and Libya are alike, but I hadn't actually said I would participate in that, though several similarities are obvious.

Er, who was it in this

artappraiser — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 02:01:37 +0000

In reply to Actually, the burden of proof

Er, who was it in this situation that was (blatantly) saying he wanted to deliberately kill other people? The UN resolution was actually mainly about stopping that from happening.

Actually, the burden of proof

acanuck — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 01:54:49 +0000

In reply to Awww man. Sorry you lost your

Actually, the burden of proof should be on those who want to deliberately kill people, no?

Awww man. Sorry you lost your

kgb999 — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 23:01:48 +0000

In reply to Bugger! I just lost half an

Awww man. Sorry you lost your post. And yeah, no community is a monolith. I had to roll with what I see as the prevailing/dominant consensus ... FDL just happens to be where I've gotten my feel for the anti-war position because that's where I'm a member (some core members of the movement actually do participate there). I can't see creating an opinion matrix for every participant in the forum so individuals don't feel improperly generalized.

That Juan Cole post is one of the links in my comment. Since I agree with the points he made and can see having generated that post myself, I'm kind of internalizing your compliant he didn't provide the counter-argument.

I really don't think there ARE ten non-superficial ways in which this is just like Iraq. It seems unfair to ask those who think you are wrong to engage in a faux-balance game. Isn't it kind of incumbent on those asserting this is much like Iraq to make the list that supports their assertion? (recognizing that just such a list may have been in the links you lost). That would go a long way to making the anti-war case.

Bugger! I just lost half an

we are stardust — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 21:39:17 +0000

In reply to That post doesn't really make

Bugger! I just lost half an hour's worth of writing while I was chasing links. Shorter for now, because I have work to do: he put part of his speech from Cairo upside-down because he thinks Obama has been doing the upside-down (reverse, converse, whatever) of what he said. I will try to rewrite some later, but FDL isn't monolithic, even though I don't really care for much of the repetetive grousing there. Juan Cole has a piece up listing the ten ways Iraq is not like Libya; he doesn't say in which ways they ARE alike, sadly.

Unless you are counting stuff

kgb999 — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 20:50:45 +0000

In reply to I'm not really focused on

Unless you are counting stuff like taking out Noriega (which was an act of war/coup against Panama ... Noriega was an official POW) or our cooperation with the Colombian government at a state level, the military hasn't really been used in the war on drugs domestically. That was the whole justification for turning our domestic police forces into paramilitary operations. And yes, our "War on Drugs" represents the seminal moment at which "war" became a meaningless political construct to justify any damn fool thing law enforcement wanted to do.

Also, without AQ achieving state status somehow (acquired recognized territory, formed government, etc.), Clinton sending Tomahawk missiles constituted war against what ever nation those missiles hit.

I'm not really focused on

Elusive Trope — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 20:34:14 +0000

In reply to I've lived in America a long

I'm not really focused on tactics at all in terms of judging which is better approach, but how people talk about and perceive what being talked about. The "War on Drugs" is a case in point. It wasn't the "Struggle Against Drugs" or "The Effort to Stop the Flow of Drugs into the Country." The military was used in many cases, along with law enforcement.

And if the military sending tomahawk missles constitutes a war, then isn't what Clinton did back in the 90s to AQ constitute meaning we are war with them, regardless of whatever legal approaches we might do after that?

That post doesn't really make

kgb999 — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 20:02:54 +0000

In reply to I'm not sure I saw the answer

That post doesn't really make any sense. I mean ... I can't figure out WTF he's trying to say. Maybe there is meta-significance I'm not getting with the upside-down bit or something?

Conflation to Iraq is what I see as the essential intellectual fallacy underlying their entire position over at FDL (and apparently within the wider anti-war movement; but I haven't done an extensive roundup to verify this ... Michael Moore is pretty much all I've got). This isn't Iraq. Any analysis - even from an impassioned Iraqi - that starts from the basic premise this is just "another Iraq invasion" ("another invasion of an Arab/Muslim nation", etc.) is demonstratively wrong. There are almost zero similarities between the two ... our military *was* involved in both; we *did* use Tomahawks in both; and there *is* oil in both countries. Those three spurious and trivial facts does not an equivalence make.

The anti-war movement basically walked on to a baseball diamond, pulled out a playbook for the Chicago bears, put down a football, and started trying to make a drive for a non-existent end-zone. Until observations like these are acknowledged and accounted for, there really has not been a intellectual case made against the actions we're undertaking. It's as if the holiness of opposition to US military action is so self-evident that a coherent explanation for why that is true in any given instance is not only unnecessary, the request for such is insulting.

I've lived in America a long

kgb999 — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 18:59:25 +0000

In reply to Many moons ago the house next

I've lived in America a long time. I'm quite aware of the full implications in advocating a "law enforcement" approach in the WOT vs. a military one. You are focused on one tactic, but the entire approach is different.

There have been wars fought entirely on the high seas - no invasion necessary. The distinction is two states with the CAPACITY to negotiate an equitable outcome or ultimately suffer defeat. In my mind a state is an organized political apparatus formed to service/rule a distinct geographical region and all the people who live within it. It is ultimately an issue of the competing interests of the geopolitical adversaries and is resolved through wide-ranging negotiations with near limitless flexibility as to the provisions.

In law enforcement the objective is to build a case against a criminal and hold that individual accountable based on the non-negotiable legal structures of states and the international community as they exist. There isn't a place where America doesn't have legal jurisdiction in relation to the crimes AQ accused of. At least not according to our laws.

It is the support of various states for these laws where the breakdown occurs. Which is what happened in Afghanistan. A state apparatus refused to enforce the law and hand Bin Laden over for prosecution. At that point the conflict becomes a conflict between states and you end up with war. But the war is with the STATE protecting AQ, not AQ itself. The objective vis a vis AQ is STILL to hold members accountable for individual violations of law.