Seize the fish ([info]carpeicthus) wrote,
@ 2004-04-29 00:10:00
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Bastards all in a row
The one sticking point that I'd imagine the right-wingers would come up with about why we can still have moral superiority over the perpetrators of Fallujah are the numbers. If some folk started doing unthinkably horrible things to another, it's not like any portion of the U.S. would be radicalized enough to make excuses or cheer them on, right?

Wrong. Here's the Freepers' reaction. No quotes here, but there's not a shred of remorse for torturing men to death.

It's over. The humanity has been stripped from these people, and so I concede: There is a significant portion of the American public radicalized to the point of dangerous nationalist-fascism.

UPDATE: I give up. One quote, to get the tone. Remember that this is not a troll trying to satirize conservative excesses. This is an actual person with his actual spelling and argument:
What CBS (The 5th Column) is doing is causing more fuel to the fire, which will result in more GI deaths. They need to be STOP ! The religion of peace have there feminist witches
and there 5th column media working against us.

We got to protect our young boys and girls from these demons...If not, we will lose

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[info]cordiloquy
2004-04-29 07:19 pm UTC (link)
It's over. The humanity has been stripped from these people, and so I concede: There is a significant portion of the American public radicalized to the point of dangerous nationalist-fascism.

I'm afraid you're right.

And dear God, WHY does the wingnut response to stories like this always include something along the lines of "yeah, but why aren't they talking about [some previously well-reported and essentially unrelated atrocity that happened to have been committed by Arabs], huh? HUH?" Like this comment from the thread you linked to:

Think there will be ANY mention of Daniel Pearl?

WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING AT ALL?

All right, I'm done trying to understand the surreal depths of Freeper logic. That way lies madness...

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[info]ryanbrenizer
2004-04-29 07:37 pm UTC (link)
Because, you see, the media never mentioned Danny Pearl. Which is why no one's ever heard of him. why does the media hate reporters?

Given that they would never accept even a "yeah, the contractor's deaths were horrible, but …" it's amazing that they aren't even bothering to say that torturing someone to death is, you know, bad.

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[info]skilm
2004-04-30 10:37 am UTC (link)
It's over. The humanity has been stripped from these people, and so I concede: There is a significant portion of the American public radicalized to the point of dangerous nationalist-fascism.

You don't believe that your side is equally as radicalized, only in a different direction?

Here's the problem. This war is being fought (just as the terrorist attacks were carried out) by the few Iraqis that are resisting for an irrational reason: religion. At the very least, thinly veiled religious reasons are involved. You don't have to look any further than the leaders of the prominent resistance groups - religious leaders.

Can you think of how irrational Jerry Fallwell is? Imagine him with an AK47. That is the mindset. Liberals are taught to think that since he is not a) White and b) Christian that his religious beliefs are somewhat quaint (for lack of a better word) and that fanaticism from him is somehow less of a problem than fanaticism from the religious nutballs we have over here. That is purely ridiculous.

Especially a time of war, the party that is willing to go the lowest is going to win. Look at history. We won our own revolutionary war against the British because we were willing to embrace more barbaric guerrilla tactics than they were. The converse is true of our situation in Vietnam. The outcry from the Liberal segment in this country caused us to keep our fighting "high brow" and therefore ineffective against the tunneling through the deep jungle tactics of the North Vietnamese.

I keep seeing a pattern recently of people arguing against things that are not the problem they want solved. The best example is that Bush "stole the election." This is not only untrue, but leads people in the wrong direction. The problem in this case has nothing to do with Bush, it has to do with the American electoral system. That being said:

These are the types of things that you need to accept as happening in a war. It comes with the territory. You can't escape it. Now perhaps if you'd like to argue the merits of going to war, or more specifically, on going to war in this case, you can (and probably should) do that. To argue against an aspect of war is to argue against war in general. Think more in those terms.

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[info]carpeicthus
2004-04-30 12:45 pm UTC (link)
You don't believe that your side is equally as radicalized, only in a different direction?

Equally? No. Relativism is one thing, but I don’t believe in bullshit equivalency just because it would be tactful. Have leftist elements been more radicalized than reactionaries before? Sure – look back about a century or so. Even the Weathermen, though there was a lot of crazy shit going on around then. Is that the case these days? Not hardly. The biggest leftist wackos out there are slashing up SUVs. Give me a call when significant numbers of liberals start hoarding armories with plans to attack government officials and we’ll talk (latest reactionary example)

Furthermore, I consider anyone truly radicalized to be at best a detriment to my side and usually not on my side at all. I’m a mainstream Democrat. The loonies tend to hate me. You’ll notice who I was referring to. Not Republicans. Not conservatives – Freepers, a loathsome and sometimes dangerous bunch with a sizable portion who are thoroughly radicalized. I read Free Republic every day for years before blogs came around, so I can attest. Those who know me better than yourself would know I have many fruitful links with Republicans, from a permalink from a prominent GOP blogger to a good friend who’s a Republican activist. People who would react like this to such horrors are beyond my ken, but so are those who are gladdened by death and destruction anywhere, so don’t project too much when you speak of sides.

Here's the problem. This war is being fought (just as the terrorist attacks were carried out) by the few Iraqis that are resisting for an irrational reason: religion. At the very least, thinly veiled religious reasons are involved. You don't have to look any further than the leaders of the prominent resistance groups - religious leaders.

Which war would that be? The terrorism threat certainly had religious ties, but I think you’d want to be careful saying that a war started by the U.S. against a secular – murderous fuckhead, but as secular as they come in the non-Turkish Arab world – government was started because of religion.

Can you think of how irrational Jerry Fallwell is? Imagine him with an AK47. That is the mindset. Liberals are taught to think that since he is not a) White and b) Christian that his religious beliefs are somewhat quaint (for lack of a better word) and that fanaticism from him is somehow less of a problem than fanaticism from the religious nutballs we have over here. That is purely ridiculous.

Who are you talking about? Sadr? Um … yeah, I agree that he’s irrational, to say the least. Hell, I’d one-up you and say he’s more irrational than Falwell. I’m just waiting for this to get material. Your smear against liberals, however, is purely false. See, I used to do this little thing before 9/11 called “going outside.” And occasionally, upon going outside, I would be confronted by people telling me how awful the Taliban was, the atrocities that radicalized Islam worked upon its people, women in particular. Know what the funny thing is? They weren’t College Republicans. They were liberal feminists, and they hated Saddam and the Taliban before it was cool.

(cont.)

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Part II
[info]carpeicthus
2004-04-30 12:45 pm UTC (link)
Now, I will admit that most liberals don’t hate all Islam, as we’re not much into applying universal negatives against one billion people, but your mileage may vary.

Especially a time of war, the party that is willing to go the lowest is going to win. Look at history. We won our own revolutionary war against the British because we were willing to embrace more barbaric guerrilla tactics than they were. The converse is true of our situation in Vietnam. The outcry from the Liberal segment in this country caused us to keep our fighting "high brow" and therefore ineffective against the tunneling through the deep jungle tactics of the North Vietnamese.

The lowest? Look, kid: (a) that’s a hell of a simplication of Revolutionary War history, but we’ll leave that aside. Even the example you site is an example of superior tactics for the situation, not losing moral constraints. We didn’t win the war because we were better torturers. (b) You really want to go lower than Saddam? You really want to fucking go lower than fucking Saddam? I’m going to give you a free pass and pretend you didn’t say that because (c) this isn’t a zero-sum war. We’re here to make Iraq a better, safer place, remember? I’d love to see you give me an example of going lower than terrorists that would make the country a stable place on June 30.

I keep seeing a pattern recently of people arguing against things that are not the problem they want solved. The best example is that Bush "stole the election." This is not only untrue, but leads people in the wrong direction. The problem in this case has nothing to do with Bush, it has to do with the American electoral system.

Well, specifically the only case that I’ve seen have any merit for that is against the other Bush, and then there’s those Supreme Court folk, but that’s a hell of a non sequitur in any case.

These are the types of things that you need to accept as happening in a war. It comes with the territory. You can't escape it. Now perhaps if you'd like to argue the merits of going to war, or more specifically, on going to war in this case, you can (and probably should) do that. To argue against an aspect of war is to argue against war in general. Think more in those terms.

No. Wrong. WRONG. First of all, I did argue against this war, but your point is still bullshit. Let’s take a war I supported: Afghanistan. I wanted us to win there, capture bin Laden, sweep out bin Laden and then expend real effort to make the country a stable place so we don’t see a repeat of the post-Soviet occupation that got us here in the first place. Is there any part of that which says I must blind myself to war crimes? No – that’s why they’re called war crimes. Now, yes, I agree that not everything is happy and fun in war. People die. Others’ lives are torn apart. War is the last of all possible options, a sledgehammer in foreign policy, an art which usually requires a surgeon’s knife. But nowhere, nowhen, nohow will I support my government violently torturing someone. Nor do I think we need to. Did we win WWII because we decided to be less moral than the Nazis and Japanese imperialists? No. We did a lot of nasty shit, but we didn’t kill the people in our concentration camps, and there was no rape of Nanking. Tell me how this helps. Tell me how torturing prisoners in Saddam’s old prison helps us win hearts and minds. Tell me how it stabilizes Iraq. Tell me how it makes American hostages safer. Tell me how it’s going to give Sadr and others less following when they see the shit that we’ve done pumped through the Arab media. This is not how we win; this is how we fall apart, literally and in terms of American values. You are not only wrong, but you desperately need to check your assumptions.

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