I have been reading the postings on DailyKos for some time and this site has made me much more politically conscious - enough so that I have made campaign contributions (to Howard Dean and Ned Lamont) for the first time. The tenor of many recent diaries, however, has had me wondering just how much history and/or common sense some of the people writing here have. Sometimes I flat disagree with the opinion(s) expressed but can certainly understand the viewpoint expressed. Other times I disagree and can't begin to understand the logic (or lack of logic) behind them. I decided, therefore to write this diary as a series of questions and points for Kossaks to answer and think about:
War always visits horrors upon civilian populations - innocent men, women and children suffer dislocation, disfigurement and death. So do dogs and cats and cows and horses and all other living things. This is what war is and that is the reason that it is generally a good idea to avoid it. Damage to helpless bystanders has happened in every conflict and will continue to happen in every future conflict. It has happened in every war that this Country has fought. It will happen in wars that are fought for spurious reasons, wars that are fought badly, wars that are necessary, and wars that are fought well. What is nauseatingly called "collateral damage" is a given in any conflict. The only difference between the Iraq War and WWII is terms of this issue is that reporters and photojournalists were not crawling through the ruins of German population centers and sending back horrifying images of dead, dying and wounded children. But they were there. So why do people seem surprised to see and read about terrible consequences of war on civilian populations? What else do people expect? The question isn't whether it is happening - if there is a war, it is. The question isn't whether it's awful - it is. The question is whether the causes and aims of the war justify the inevitable.
War is terrible, but there is a big difference between those that are justified and those that aren't. All people everywhere agree on that fact. The only difference is that one culture/religion may feel that a Crusade or a Jihad is perfectly justifiable and the damage done to innocents is therefore justified. We might not agree, but it all comes down to a mere difference of opinion. So... in terms of our own moral guidelines, which of the following wars would you have picketed against? The (U.S.) Revolutionary War? The (U.S.) Civil War? World War II? The Afghanistan conflict? All of them resulted in death and destruction to innocents - that is an indisputable fact. But I would assume that the vast majority of us would see some of those wars as justified - even though we know that they have produced the types of damage that now horrifies us. Like I said, the only real question concerns justification.
I read that Israel fired a rocket into a training camp in the Gaza and killed some gunmen and a few toddlers. The emphasis of the story was on the innocent children killed by the rocket. My question is this: Where in the U.S. or England or Germany or France could you fire a rocket into a military training camp and kill soldiers and two-year olds? How do you deal with an enemy that puts children in training camps, or rocket batteries in population centers, or munitions storage facilities in mosques? If I knew that U.S. soldiers were taking fire from enemy combatants fighting from the holiest of holy shrines I would see only two possibilities. Either reduce the shrine to a pile of bricks about two feet high, or retreat. If you are not willing to do so, you are playing chess with an opponent who has taken away your Queen, both rooks, a knight, and a bishop. If you want to fight under those rules, that's fine - enlist and go for it. I just don't want to see anyone who doesn't like those rules forced to adhere to them.
I repeatedly read that Israel "has gone too far" and that they should be more "patient". So I have a question for those who feel that way: Suppose that there was a group of terrorists in Canada that occasionally lobbed rockets into North Dakota or Washington or Michigan or New York, or perhaps kidnapped U.S. citizens. Nothing major - just that uncomfortable uncertainty of not knowing when some rocket will come down on your head, or when you'll see video footage of John Doe, a U.S. citizen, being beheaded. So how long do you wait - how patient do you stay - how much time do you give diplomacy before you just say "Since the Canadian Government is too incompetent to effectively police their own border, we're going to cross over the border, find these people, and either kill them or render them impotent". How many rockets does it take? How many kidnappings? How much value do we choose to put on the lives of our citizens? How much time before we cross the border in justifiable anger and kill?
While we're on the subject of kidnapping, has anyone discussed the question of why Hezbollah didn't simply return the Israeli soldiers it kidnapped? If they love their people as much as they say they do, why didn't they just return the pair of soldiers and prevent all of this carnage? Did they think that Israel was just going to say "Hey that's tough - but who cares if a couple of our guys get killed?" You think that Israel's response took them by surprise? You think that they're that stupid?
And then there's the rockets themselves. I don't know exactly how many have been fired at Israel, but it's well into the 1000's. So while I do understand that Hezbollah loves the persecuted Palestinians so much they are willing to go to these lengths to attack Israel, I am curious about one thing. The last time I checked at Walmart, I discovered that rockets like the ones flying into Israel are kind of expensive. I mean, they are definitely not stocked in the "Under $9.99 Aisle". So has anyone had the temerity to suggest that all of the money expended in firing those rockets might have been better used to improve the infrastructure in Gaza - or to build a factory making shoes (or refrigerators, or screwdrivers, etc.) that might have provided much needed jobs? Did they think that the random hits on civilian targets would significantly increase the terror level in Israel and bring the Government to its knees? Did they think that the rockets' terror was much greater than the terror associated with sitting in a café and not knowing whether some person is going to blow himself/herself up and take you with them?
Before WWII there were many people who felt that Hitler could be reasoned with and appeased. The British statesman, Neville Chamberlain came back from the Munich Conference where the Sudetenland was ceded to Nazi Germany and said the equivalent of "We have preserved peace in our times". I think that history is fairly conclusive that he misjudged the fanaticism and duplicity of Hitler who was an individual who did not see himself as bound by the rules of "ordinary people" that he defined as everyone who wasn't like he was. Ditto for Pol Pot or Joseph Stalin. Does Hunter or anyone else really think that these leaders were capable of compromise or tolerance? If your answer is "yes" skip the rest of the diary and go on to the next one. If the answer is "no", then consider this: What is the difference between the "holy men" who head organizations like Hezbollah and the people I've just referred to? Is it possible to reason with these rabid Imams? How do you convince James Dobson or some Imam in Iran that gays are not the work of the devil? If reasoning is not possible, and if these people are advocating killing, and if they are obtaining the means for accomplishing this on a grand scale, how do you deal with the problem? Hunter recently criticized Lieberman for stating that the Islamic fundamentalists are
"more evil, or as evil, as Nazism and probably more dangerous than the Soviet Communists we fought during the long Cold War."
Hunter was incredulous and he wrote
"More evil than the guys who gassed 6 million Jews? More dangerous than the guys who had thousands of nuclear warheads pointed at us and could've snuffed out all life on the planet at the press of a button? Lieberman has lost it. Completely and utterly. He is insane."
Would Hunter would have said the same about someone in 1936 who compared Hitler to Ivan the Terrible. Would Hunter have referred to that person as "insane" for comparing Hitler to a madman - before Hitler did what he did? It seems obvious to me that Lieberman was not talking about
what had happened in the past - he was talking about what could happen in the future. Perhaps Hunter sees no difference in the threat posed to us by the U.S.S.R. pointing all of those nuclear warheads at us, and a group of fundamentalist Islamic nations doing it. If he doesn't see a difference, I suppose that we're coming to different conclusions based on the same set of data. The question for those who agree with Hunter is: what will it take for you to realize that the enemy we are facing now is potentially far more dangerous than any other we have had, because they are as, or more, fanatical than any others. They have, or will have, nuclear bombs and unlike those atheists in the U.S.S.R. during the Cold War, they may not be afraid of mutual destruction because they know that they are going to a glorious heaven while we infidels are doomed to some sort of Muslim hell. Would you agree with Lieberman about the potential threat only after the fact - only after a nuclear bomb is exploded by an Islamicist Government in Iran or Pakistan? Do you think that Hitler would have hesitated using a nuclear bomb if he had one? Do you think that some fundamentalist Ayatollah will be more reasonable than Hitler? What set of historical facts do you base your assumptions on? Lieberman may very well be correct - I think that he is - and people who don't understand that are either ignorant of history or self delusional. The Ayatollahs do not think like us. One more time for emphasis - the product of a Madrassah school does not think like us. He is not tolerant nor, short of some miraculous life-altering event, will he ever become tolerant. This isn't bigotry on my part - this is fact. If you doubt it, take a trip to some fundamentalist Islamic Country and look around - talk to people. Read the Quran. Get a history book about these regions and see what kinds of societies and cultures have existed and still exist in that part of the world. Check into the history of the recent war between Iraq and Iran. Do some reading about the situation in Darfur. Learn about the status of slavery in Mauritania. Stop assuming that your thought patterns are identical to people whose backgrounds and philosophies bear no resemblance to yours. Start using your heads and your intelligence - not your wishful thinking. And above all, don't follow in the footsteps of Neville Chamberlain and think that Ahmadinejad, bin Laden and other fundamentalist leaders are more reasonable than Hitler.
Where Lieberman has it all wrong - and why I contributed to Lamont, and will contribute to any Democrat who runs for the Presidency, and think that Bush is the worst President in recent history, is because I am convinced that the Republicans (with the neocons pulling the strings) are utterly incapable of developing a viable strategy to fight the enemy we are facing. Looking for someone to protect our Nation, I would trust a Wes Clark, John Kerry, Al Gore, Russ Feingold or Brian Schweitzer infinitely more than the pack of idiots currently attempting to do so. Only a cretin could believe that invading Iraq would allow us to bring democracy and the "American way of life" to a part of the world that is mired somewhere in the Middle Ages. Only the most ignorant of morons would not have foreseen the current situation in Iraq - not realized that the Sunnis and the Shiites and the Kurds have a hatred of one another that is as real and as fresh as a broken arm two minutes after it happened. To have embarked on our current path 'to fight terrorism', and in the process weaken our military, bankrupt our Country and alienate the rest of the world, is to give aid and comfort to the very enemy that we are supposedly fighting. I am not against the Republicans because they are incapable of recognizing the enemy - I am against them because their leadership doesn't have a clue as to how to develop a viable strategy to neutralize the threat posed by the Islamic barbarians. This Administration has also proven itself incapable of changing positions as events around them change. "Stay the course" might sometimes be a good policy - but it is irresponsible and disastrous when you're piloting the Titanic and heading for an iceberg. So don't criticize Lieberman because he recognizes the threat - criticize him because he doesn't know how to go about fighting it. Don't criticize Lieberman because he is frightened by the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran - criticize him because he is advocating a policy that will strengthen the fundamentalist leaders of that Country. Don't criticize Israel for losing patience with a system that places little value on human life - don't criticize unless you are sure that under the same circumstances you would do differently - and while you're assuring yourself that you wouldn't behave similarly, remember that we went to war half way across the globe (in Afghanistan) because some fundamentalists killed .0015% of our citizens. And we were right to do so.