I probably will not have time to reply to your post in full tonight. I have spent the night in the hospital living vicariously from my daughter's Crohns Disease -- something I always wanted but could not have -- so the next best thing is living parasitically on her experience -- all the black, green watery diarrhea mixed with blood and mucus! I am really getting off on that. It is this kind of thing that makes having a child worthwhile.
Aside to this topic: I disagree, Scott. No one is considered off-limits in war. Only the inventive and resourceful emergency clearance specialist-surgeons are prized highly because they get wounded bodies capable of fighting again. They're also leaders, being hard to sway under torture, because of their rational attitude towards bodily processes.
I think most of them are dypsomaniacs though, from lacking the same rational attitude towards mental processes. It is odd that they focus exclusively on physical health, since suffering is intellectual.
I agree with you, but you have to understand that in order to get the injured to the surgeons, medics need to work. A lot of people die within seconds of being hurt. Without someone right there that can do some cool things, the death toll for US soldiers in Iraq would be huge.
Medics also work under the surgeons and are allowed to do anything the surgeons tell them to do. They can play the role of an assistant doctor, if the surgeon needs it.
Saying that they're cannon fodder, and a dime a dozen, isn't true anymore. Not now that we're in a war, and the military actually has to function in the real world.
Ask any small unit, that's been in combat, who the most important person is there. A soldier that can do Infantry, as well as have the skill set of being able to provide emergency trauma care, as well as being able to contribute the most to humanitarian missions, is a good thing to have.
sschaula wrote:Saying that they're cannon fodder, and a dime a dozen, isn't true anymore. Not now that we're in a war, and the military actually has to function in the real world.
All right. We are getting down to petty arguments now. Cool.
I will say this about that. For one thing, Scott, you have not been a medic in the army. I have been a medic in the army. I was a Spec 4 and what was known back then as a 91C. That is a mega-medic.
I was in a company of medics -- nurses and doctors. We were a clearing company. Our outfit would have been stationed close to combat zones and gotten the wounded straight from the field. In the old days, clearing would have sent the wounded to a mash unit. There are no mash units now. Now they are shipped out to a hospital and on and on until Germany and the US.
Yes, the medic is a valuable part of a combat unit. But for every medic, there is another medic to take his place. There are always medics. Being a medic in an infantry unit is just asking for it. Not only are you supposed to go out in the middle of battle and rescue some Joe, you are also expected to do a grunt's job. Being a medic does not exempt you from the fight. You have an M16 and you are expected to know how to use it and to use it. Then, when Jody is out there dying on the field, you have to go out there and pull him to safety. HHHAHAHHAH, etc.
Think your buddy is going to give a shit about your rat's ass when you are low crawling out there under fire? "Go ahead, Scott. We got your back." They got your back all right -- like they might friendly fire your freakin' back. By accident, of course.
"Poor Scott, we hardly knew ye."
The entire time I was in the army, I never got medical training. I got infantry training and, for God's sake, I am female -- I am not supposed to be in combat. I am supposed to be back there in Neverland wearing a white nurse's uniform and acting like Hot Lips Hoolahand. Taking care of our boys.
All I EVER did was train for combat.
Yet, all I ever heard from infantry was how easy the medics had it. Medics never had to go tactical. They don't appreciate you. They think you are wuss. I cannot tell you how many times infantry dudes got into a medical unit and thought life would be easier and transferred back to infantry because the medics infantry training was worse.
It may be the so called duty of the infantryman to sacrifice his life for his country but it is the duty of the army medic to sacrifice his life for the asshole who is stupid enough to die for his country.
Infantry soldiers will not treat you special because you are a medic. They don't give a damn. They are out there to die and you are, too. You are no better. In fact, in my experience, you are not as good. You have to walk the walk but you also have to bite the dust before anyone else.
In short, you are cannon fodder, sucker.
Go ahead. Find out. The army is begging for people. Your whining about waiting is bullshit. The most you might have to wait is a few weeks.
Speaking of things petty. The world really can be a strangely ironic place. Go to Google and type "failure" (without the quotes) and see what the first result to come up is....
George W. I am not surprised. I had the leisure time to read a long article about Bush Baby and Bush Daddy. 41+43=84. Some similarities but a couple of profound differences.
After Iraq I, Bush Daddy revealed that he did not go on to topple Saddam and to invade Iraq because the consequences would be too severe -- that it could lead to world chaos. I cannot give you the exact quote but it was prophetic, considering the current problem.
GW had a wish to avenge his daddy and to please his daddy and to upstage his daddy and defy him -- all in one fell swoop. Well, I think he succeeded in all of the above.
Unfortunately, American youth, British youth -- others -- and the Iraqi people have had to suffer for this Oedipal failure.
Ignorance of the American people. I can understand fucking up once. It is harder to understand screwing up for another four years. There is no excuse for it. Apathy.
The conservo-Xristians won -- and they do not even like him. That's pretty bad. Michael Savage does not like GW -- probably because GW ain't Jewish. The Savages are looking out for a fiscal conservative Jew candidate. That way, you get to kick the Islamic ass and wipe out medicaid for babies at the same time, while also prohibiting abortion.
I watched a doco last night called Freestyle - The Art of Rhyme. I think Marsha might have been a good rapper - she talks only from her subsconscious already.
Annan booed in Hezbollah strongholdFrom correspondents in Haret Hreik
August 29, 2006 06:00am
UN chief Kofi Annan was booed by a crowd chanting pro-Hezbollah slogans today as he toured Beirut's southern suburbs devastated by Israel's war against the Shiite militant group.
Dozens of men, women and children angrily waved pictures of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and shouted "Allah, Nasrallah and all of the suburbs" as the UN secretary general emerged from his car to survey the destruction in the heart of the Haret Hreik area, a Hezbollah stronghold.
Others booed and shouted "death to Israel" and "long live Syria" as they surrounded Mr Annan's convoy of vehicles which was accompanied by a heavy security detail.
Mr Annan was accompanied by Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, Foreign Minister Fawzi Sallukh as well as Hezbollah MPs.
why would any westerners bother supporting this juvenile activity.
To summarize, let's do a quick emotionless reassessment of the what was lost and what was gained in the conflict with Hizbullah. No one here will admit they were wrong, I expect, but perhaps next time (and there WILL be a next time) they may approach the conflict with a more rational tone of discussion.
Lebanon - a reassessment
By ASHER SUSSER
Anyone following the war in Lebanon in the Israeli media could not but come away engulfed in deep depression. Israelis and their media tend to focus obsessively on themselves, their own losses and failings, remaining largely oblivious to what is happening on the other side of the divide. This is as true about Gaza as it is about Lebanon. In contrast to the uniform and self-centered discussion in Israel, the war with Hizbullah and its consequences are being discussed in Lebanon and the broader Arab world in a more diverse and more sophisticated debate.
In the Arab world, views vary from the one extreme, which sees the ultimate victory of the Arabs in more missiles and rockets that will surely bring Israel to its knees in the not too distant future, to those at the other end of the spectrum, according to whom Hizbullah, Lebanon and the Arabs have, in fact, been defeated.
At the height of the war, as Hizbullah rockets regularly sent hundreds of thousands of Israelis scurrying to the shelters like "rabbits and mice," as some of the Arab media noted with undisguised gratification, the mood tended to be militantly euphoric, buoyed by the widely broadcast images of Israeli suffering and humiliation. But as the war came to its conclusion and life in Israel returned pretty much to normal, opinion in the Arab world has shifted to more sober analysis, as Lebanon, Hizbullah and the Shi'ites face the daunting task of what will probably be years of multi-billion dollar reconstruction.
Even a cursory perusal of the Arab press, will reveal that Hizbullah's status in Lebanon has changed for the worse, as many Lebanese come to the rather shocking realization that the south of their country, unknown to them, had in fact been transformed into an Iranian and Syrian launching pad against Israel posing an existential threat to their own livelihoods and to their entire country. Hizbullah is now on the defensive, trying to protect its political assets against a more assertive Lebanese domestic majority, that seems more determined than ever to contain Hizbullah's "state within a state," so that they are not drawn again into a destructive war with Israel, without as much as a word of consultation.
Many in Lebanon, especially non-Shi'ites, but also some important Shi'ite spokespersons, are calling for an end to the armed phase of Hizbullah's development and its integration into the Lebanese political system, like all other political parties, lest further provocation of Israel will expose Lebanon to even greater devastation in the future. In other words, they are demanding the disarming of Hizbullah.
Muna Fayyad, a Shi'ite professor at the University of Lebanon, and the Mufti of Tyre, Sayyid Ali al-Amin, for example, both questioned the right of Hizbullah to bring disaster on the Shi'ites of Lebanon, by dragging them into an ill considered adventure they never wanted, in the interests of a foreign power like Iran, about whom they were never consulted.
NASRALLAH NOW has to contend with his newly constructed image as the destroyer of Lebanon rather than its protector, as he himself regularly claimed before the war, as a main justification for the very existence of his militia. His recent interview (explaining that he would not have ordered the abduction of the two Israeli soldiers had he expected such a ferocious Israeli response) is indicative of this new predicament.
Arab commentators are considerably less impressed with Nasrallah's strategic genius than some of their Israeli counterparts seem to be in their moments of self-critical excess. They question the wisdom of his decision-making, as they wryly ridicule his claims of victory. A poll conducted in Lebanon in late August revealed that two thirds of the non-Shi'ite public believed that Hizbullah had actually been defeated in the war.
Hazim Saghiya, writing in Al-Hayat, questioned whether victory could be celebrated on the ruins of Lebanon by a leader who had to remain in hiding. Another commentator in Al-Hayat, Hasan Haydar, compared Nasrallah's interview of apology to Egyptian president Gamal Nasser's admission of defeat in 1967. The Arabs, he noted, were still paying for the defeat in 1967, and he wondered for how long the Lebanese and the Arabs would be paying for Nasrallah's "ill-considered 'victory.'"
Abd al-Mun'im Sa'id, the Director of the Al-Ahram's Center for Political and Strategic Studies, urged the Arabs to follow Israel's example and set up a commission of inquiry to establish how Nasrallah could have dragged Lebanon into war without the country and the home front having being at all prepared. He dismissed Nasrallah's contention that preparation of the home front was the responsibility of the state, arguing that the state could hardly prepare for a war about which it had no advance knowledge. As opposed to Israeli journalists, who tended to glorify Nasrallah's credibility, Abd al-Mun'im questioned why Hizbullah had failed to fire its long-range rockets after Israel had repeatedly bombed Beirut, even though Nasrallah had vowed to do so. And what about the relative ineffectiveness of the short range rockets? The damage they caused was limited, and a significant proportion of the Israeli casualties were actually Arabs.
ALL OF the above have emboldened the Lebanese government to deploy its army in the South, which it had not done for over 30 years, and to accept the stationing of a more robust international force there as well. Neither of these had hitherto been acceptable to Hizbullah. These forces will not disarm Hizbullah, which will no doubt make every effort to rearm and replenish its depleted stocks. All the same, they do serve the purpose of reasserting the sovereignty of the Lebanese state in all of its territory. This in turn adds to all the other factors seeking to reduce Hizbullah's freedom of action to operate militarily against Israel from the South.
None of this would have happened had it not been for the severe damage Israel inflicted upon Hizbullah's civilian, political and military infrastructure. The civilian backbone of Hizbullah, the Shi'ite community of Lebanon, has incurred heavy loss of life and enormous property damage, which will take years to repair. The period of reconstruction might not be free of criticism for the leadership that led the community to this disaster.
And once rehabilitated would the Shi'ites of Beirut and the South be ready to endanger everything and go through their recent ordeal all over again, for what Hizbullah might feel required to do in the service of Iran and Syria? Moreover, a new Shi'ite middle class has emerged during the last generation and they are eager to integrate into the mainstream if Lebanese politics, something they might not be able to achieve as long as Hizbullah is perceived to be serving the interests of foreign powers.
IN DIRECT military terms Hizbullah's losses were heavy and will not be easily replenished either. Key installations and command and control centers were totally destroyed in the Dahiya area of Southern Beirut and in the South of the country. Fortified positions, bunkers and stores in close proximity to the border with Israel have been demolished, and it is highly unlikely that Israel will allow their reconstruction under any circumstances.
The organization lost between a quarter to a third of its fighting men. Bravado aside, in numerous encounters Hizbullah fighters fled the field of battle, leaving their equipment behind, to avoid direct confrontation with Israeli ground forces.
Much of Hizbullah's long and medium range rocketry has been destroyed. They still have large stocks of the short-range rockets, which were the great majority of the over 4,000 rockets fired during the war into Northern Israel. But their effectiveness is limited. It is true that the North of the country was almost brought to a standstill and the trauma of hundreds of thousands of Israelis in shelters or living as internal refuges in other parts of the country will not be forgotten. But in terms of loss of life the thousands of rockets were less effective than a pair of suicide bombers.
The Iranian strategic outpost that had been built up for future use against Israel has been defanged, at least for the meantime. It must have cost hundreds of millions to construct and has been lost prematurely, spent not very effectively and not at a time of Iran's choosing. Moreover if intended to deter Israel from taking action, it achieved quite the opposite result.
Hizbullah, at this stage, is observing the cease-fire. They do not want a second round now. Nasrallah needs a breather, and has no choice but to accept the hitherto unacceptable in the form of the restoration of Lebanese state sovereignty to the South. The euphoria in the Arab media has also subsided. The "rabbits and mice" have left the shelters and it is the Lebanese and Hizbullah who must now survey the damage wrought unto them. Nasrallah's references to Israel as a society as flimsy as "cobwebs" seem somewhat less appropriate from the ruins of South Beirut.
AN EGYPTIAN commentator, Ali al-Ibrahim, noted recently that the Arabs had learned to differentiate between victories on television and real victories in the field. How long will it take the Israelis to do likewise?
Israel's achievements in the war should not be underestimated, all the more so because they were attained despite the unbelievably incompetent and indecisive handling of the military campaign by the triumvirate of Olmert, Peretz and Halutz. They have failed us miserably and must go.
The courageous citizens if this country, who endured patiently in the shelters, and the brave and resourceful fighting men and women of the IDF, regulars and reservists, who put their lives on the line, deserve much better.
Whether the achievements of the war prove lasting or not is another question. Can the Lebanese led by Fuad Seniora's government build on the new political realities that the war has created? Will they be able to withstand the pressure that is bound to come from the Iran-Syria-Hizbullah axis that will seek to undo the consequences of the war and reestablish the status quo ante? Only time will tell, but these are questions that would not even have been asked had it not been for the war against Hizbullah.
Middle Eastern leaders and analysts warned today of a potentially violent backlash in the region to Pope Benedict XVI's remarks implicity linking Islam to violence .....
They think we hate them. They think one day we might send suicide bombers to kill some children in a pizza parlor so that the business legislators of Friday chest-thumping might realize the suffering of their profit, or the profit in the glory of suffering. So any slight, might become something as drastic as targeting compliant "innocents." There are fighters and non-fighters, correct? Who is innocent?
With Women's Liberation, there also came equal punishment. We should grant the Jihadis the same retribution as we grant the "liberated" women of USA.
The truth - even when half baked - hurts. Religions like Islam, or where its extremes devolved into over the centuries - have everything to do with violence - channeling violence and killing energy into rationalized forms. Classical hypocrisy.
But these things are way more easy to see in the other than it is closer to home. The Pope of course is the last who should open his mouth. There's a special hell reserved for hypocrites like him.
War itself doesn't accomplish anything like advertised, in all cases. The best reason one can give for war is also the most simplest and mind-numbing: we have war so people can be killed violently, the other as well as our owns. I suspect a psychological reason for that. Perhaps to release pressure building in a civilized society caused by the many grave contradictions it's build upon - all to retain unity and coherence. The less stable a state, the more violence, the more sacrifice is needed to keep it from collapsing.
But this is not noble and is hardly talked about. Lets talk about pre-emptive strikes, spreading freedom, battling dictators, security and so on. Anyone can tell me the difference between Saddam gassing thousands of Kurds in their villages, and the Israeli dropping a million cluster-bombs on similar villages for similar reasons? Oh yeah, I forgot, the Israeli are like us and the Iraqi people not as much. And so we value history's actors accordingly.
The best reason one can give for war is also the most simplest and mind-numbing: we have war so people can be killed violently, the other as well as our owns. I suspect a psychological reason for that.
Dierbert, I would be interested to know what you think of the following small except from Beauvoir, related to your comments above:
Early man's activity had another dimension that gave it supreme dignity: it was often dangerous. If blood were but a nourishing fluid, it would be valued no higher than milk; but the hunter was no butcher, for in the struggle against wild animals he ran grave risks. The warrior put his life in jeopardy to elevate the prestige of the horde, the clan to which he belonged. And in this he proved dramatically that life is not the supreme value for men, but on the contrary that it should be made to serve ends more important than itself . . . . For it is not in giving life that man is raised above the animal; that is why superiority has been accorded in humanity not to the sex which brings forth [life] but to that which kills.
Here we have the key to the whole mystery. On the biological level a species is maintained only by creating itself anew; but this creation results only in repeating the same Life in more individuals. But man assures the repetition of Life while transcending Life through [his projects]; by this transcendence he creates values that deprive pure repetition [pure animal life] of all value.
This I place not to raise up men/women issues yet again, but to ask what you think of the psychology of Beauvoir's analysis. After all, the phrase oft repeated in human history -- that there are things worth dying for -- appears to bear this out.
Pye, my own definition of religion is similar: that what one would be willing to die for. Or let others die for (sacrifice). The nation and as such nationalism is clearly a religion. Our own survival is, or that with what we identify most strongly. In many cases our own family and larger entities supporting them. Sometimes a whole culture, or civilisation might form such entity (the 'holy empire', christendom, consumer capitalism etc). Some even might consider the whole human race, its development, reason or even the spreading of some universal truth or wisdom as such things to sacrifice oneself to.
Anything what doesn't have such importance I can hardly consider a true religion. It's more a fleeting fancy in comparison; a whim of the mind, a collective dream.
I agree there is a cult of death and violence, but it doesn't yet seem to want to realize or admit it. It is in both cultures, USA and Middle Eastern. The only slight difference is that Americans don't particularly want to die, though they can, but they enjoy the killing as much (or more) than anyone.
The stupidity of Islam is a given. It has always been a no-brainer in this thread as far as I'm concerned; but this thread has not been about that. It's been about war and the politics of war. David and Kevin don't care about such matters it seems so their contributions have been puzzling and platitudinous at best, asinine at worst.
For those who can digest philosophy and politics at the same time, this is an interesting video:
It very much seemed to me that Kevin was delving into the politics of the war. I found his approach to be the best. I suspect his comments will stand the test of time.
Oh, well, I found Kevin's contributions to this discussion mostly absurd and ad hoc, frankly. You can't in one post state that you don't believe anything you see or read in the media and then in other posts express opinions that cannot be based on anything other than that in which one has expressed in principle disbelief.
The issue is not whether militant Islam is idiotic and a threat, but rather how and why is it thus. Ordinarily I could care less about politics and mid-east matters, but the current state of affairs is such that it warrants analysis, and that analysis demands more than trite, simplistic observations about the evils of a particular religion.
drowden wrote:Oh, well, I found Kevin's contributions to this discussion mostly absurd and ad hoc, frankly. You can't in one post state that you don't believe anything you see or read in the media and then in other posts express opinions that cannot be based on anything other than that in which one has expressed in principle disbelief.
It is possible to disbelieve the opinions expressed by the media at the same time as derive valuable information from it.
The issue is not whether militant Islam is idiotic and a threat, but rather how and why is it thus. Ordinarily I could care less about politics and mid-east matters, but the current state of affairs is such that it warrants analysis, and that analysis demands more than trite, simplistic observations about the evils of a particular religion.
As you well know, the core belief in egotism has an overbearing influence on individual and collective affairs. Similarly, but of a lesser effect, core religious beliefs have an overbearing influence on individual and collective affairs.
Oh, well, I found Kevin's contributions to this discussion mostly absurd and ad hoc, frankly. You can't in one post state that you don't believe anything you see or read in the media and then in other posts express opinions that cannot be based on anything other than that in which one has expressed in principle disbelief.
The issue is not whether militant Islam is idiotic and a threat, but rather how and why is it thus. Ordinarily I could care less about politics and mid-east matters, but the current state of affairs is such that it warrants analysis, and that analysis demands more than trite, simplistic observations about the evils of a particular religion.
So what exactly do you want Dan – an apology from the West for being part of this mess? Will that right the situation?
In the seventh conversation edited by professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the jihad. The emperor must have known that sura 2:256 reads: "There is no compulsion in religion." It is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under [threat]. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Koran, concerning holy war.
Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the "Book" and the "infidels," he turns to his interlocutor somewhat brusquely with the central question on the relationship between religion and violence in general, in these words: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."
The emperor goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. "God is not pleased by blood, and not acting reasonably ("syn logo") is contrary to God's nature.
One could wonder of course, which kind of nature exactly coincides with 'acting unreasonably' or violently. The Devil's? Here God is equaled with peace, reason, the 'good'. In a nutshell the confusion of the Christian church and the corruption of Christianity compared to the more Taoist or transcendent approach of early Judaism and the Islam.
The pope himself refers to this with
The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: Not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazn went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God's will, we would even have to practice idolatry.
The Islamic view here seems into accordance with a more rational understanding of God's nature. So it's no wonder the Islamic world complains about the earlier statement that Mohammed brought only 'evil and inhumane things' when the very person claiming that doesn't even understand the nature of God, while still being the pope. How ironic.
But the pope's dedication to reason is of course something to admire
The West has long been endangered by this aversion to the questions which underlie its rationality, and can only suffer great harm thereby. The courage to engage the whole breadth of reason, and not the denial of its grandeur -- this is the program with which a theology grounded in biblical faith enters into the debates of our time.
But what about his and the Western aversion to the questions which underlie their (supposed) rationality? When the pope hints to this marriage of Greek Reason and the Christian faith, doesn't he describe the corruption of this very reason?
