2006-12-19
The Nature of War
I read an article yesterday which seems to reflect a thinking among pro-war right-wingers. Who also simply don't get it. They are railing against the "PC war" that is being waged and comparing it to the war against Japan. In their frustration, they are lobbying for carpet-bombing of "enemy" cities.
The first thing that they are totally missing is that the 3.5 year war against Japan was won in 5 weeks in Afghanistan and 3.5 weeks in Iraq. Both countries effectively surrendered as requested and a friendly government was installed. The fact that the complete and utter victories were followed by an insurgency in Afghanistan/Iraq where none existed in Japan/Germany is simply a reflection of the different mentality people have. That different mentality needs to be analyzed and dealt with. But that's a separate problem from the fact that the military vs military clash was won long ago, with essentially no allied casualties.
It is totally ridiculous that people pine for the days of carpet bombing cities. For what purpose? Killing random civilians or destroying random property? Afghanistan actually came pre-bombed. There was very little we could actually do to Afghanistan that they hadn't already done to themselves. That alone should dispel the inanity of carpet bombing. The Taliban hadn't surrendered even though their country was lying in ruins. What makes you think they would have if they had had some infrastructure we could have bombed before-hand?
Is the purpose to sap the Afghan civilians will to fight? The civilians weren't even IN the fight! With election results (secret ballot) under our belt we know that these people never supported living under an Islamic dictatorship. Carpet bombing civilians in these circumstances would have effectively been terrorism. Even worse than terrorism in fact. Terrorism is killing random enemy civilians in order to make a political point. We would have been killing random allies/neutrals in order to show how much we hated our mutual enemy. With an attitude like that, remind me to stop voting for the right-wing. Oh, wait. Or at least stop buying that newspaper. Oh, wait.
What Bush has ACTUALLY done is totally correct. Even though no-one on the left or right seems to get it. And I haven't seen anyone besides me actually attempt to analyze what Bush's game plan might be. Instead, the right wing is convinced that Bush is so stupid that he thinks Islam is a religion of peace. That in 5 years, neither he nor any of his advisers have actually double-checked the Qur'an to see if it does indeed, promote peace, tolerance and love.
And now to the nature of war. If Bush's ultimate plan is actually to commit genocide against all Arabs and all Muslims, which not even the carpet-bombing-promoters even appear to be advocating, he has not actually done anything to detract from this goal. Hell, even if his ultimate plan was to commit genocide against all non-Americans, even Australians, or to perhaps enslave the world, including Australians, he hasn't actually done anything to detract from this goal. It is unwise to let an ally like Australia know you're coming for them, at this point in history. The ducks aren't in a row to enslave Australia. Far better to leverage into whatever resources Australia is willing to offer, in order to use against armed forces that are still hostile. And this is another part of the nature of war. Civilians don't matter a damn. It is weapon systems that matter. If Bush is waging a world war, no matter how wide the scope, he should hone in on the weapon systems. He also needs to have a deep understanding of the mentality of the people who are in control of those weapon systems, in order to determine whether they are friend/foe/neutral. He needs to be able to predict the behaviour of those weapon systems.
And indeed, as an Australian myself, I need to do something similar for my own security - I need to be able to predict whether America's weapon systems will suddenly be turned on me one day. Fortunately for me, I am inside the Anglophone culture, so I know the mentality of Americans, and thus the government they elected. I can predict the behaviour of their armed forces and their people. The multitude of different opinions expressed allows me to determine that Americans have freedom of speech and I can have a high degree of confidence that they are expressing their views, and I am able to analyze those differing views in order to understand the different motives.
People outside of the Anglophone culture have a different problem. They are unable to understand the anti-racism/anti-subjugator/etc nature of the Anglophones, and instead project their own racism and instinct to subjugate onto the Americans, and perceive that they are in danger from an essentially unstoppable America. And are thus fighting for their lives! And perhaps they think that Saddam was a bulwark against the American advance, and thus his atrocities can be excused. This sort of question can be answered by asking the anti-Americans in an environment of freedom, such that IRC provides. E.g. I was talking to a Brazilian, and his response to America being the most generous nation on the planet was that they were just trying to sell weapons. And that that's what he had been told and everyone agreed. Basically this perverse "logic" has reached a critical mass where people risk being ostracized from the group if they dare to challenge "conventional thought". Anti-Americanism is basically a religion of its own. And all I can say is thank God America is armed to the teeth and can actually respond to this anti-Americanism when the time is right.
While we're on to interesting IRC conversations, I was talking to a Kuwaiti, and after some initial talk I simply asked him "what would you like America to do?". And his response? "Kill all the Shiites". Like wow, man! No wonder we have sectarian violence in Iraq. I told him I didn't think that "we" could do that for him, but we could probably replace Iran's dictatorship with a democracy, would that be good enough?
And on the subject of IRC conversations, why am I the only one who appears to be using this opportunity to study human psychology? I'm not even a psychologist. Finding out what is inspiring some people to violence, some people to human rights abuses, is the question of our time. The entire scientific community should be attempting to solve this puzzle, which is the key to security. We need to thoroughly understand all humans so that we can e.g. predict whether America's guns will ever be turned on Australia. Indeed, I can remember reading something on a cannon located in Sydney that a US warship turned up unannounced some centuries ago, so the cannon was installed (or something like that, I didn't take that much interest in what is ancient history).
Anyway, it's all happening right here on this blog. This is the only place I know of where you can see this sort of analysis. Places like Little Green Footballs and Jihad Watch are reporting the violence, and making very amusing sarcastic comments, but they're not actually doing analysis. They're trying to make the US public aware of the threat, which is certainly a good thing, but that's all they're doing. If you want to see the results of incessant probing of hundreds or thousands of people via IRC, this is the place to be. Tell your friends!!!
Oh, and one more surprising thing to report. From our friend Ali Abbas. He was talking about the "puppet" (as reported by Al Jazeera) Iraqi government being "handcuffed" by the Americans. I asked him why the alleged puppets were whinging about the US, instead of just obeying the super-secret orders that Bush sends them every morning, and it seemed like the cogs started turning. There's hope yet. :-) If not, there's always genocide.
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The first thing that they are totally missing is that the 3.5 year war against Japan was won in 5 weeks in Afghanistan and 3.5 weeks in Iraq. Both countries effectively surrendered as requested and a friendly government was installed. The fact that the complete and utter victories were followed by an insurgency in Afghanistan/Iraq where none existed in Japan/Germany is simply a reflection of the different mentality people have. That different mentality needs to be analyzed and dealt with. But that's a separate problem from the fact that the military vs military clash was won long ago, with essentially no allied casualties.
It is totally ridiculous that people pine for the days of carpet bombing cities. For what purpose? Killing random civilians or destroying random property? Afghanistan actually came pre-bombed. There was very little we could actually do to Afghanistan that they hadn't already done to themselves. That alone should dispel the inanity of carpet bombing. The Taliban hadn't surrendered even though their country was lying in ruins. What makes you think they would have if they had had some infrastructure we could have bombed before-hand?
Is the purpose to sap the Afghan civilians will to fight? The civilians weren't even IN the fight! With election results (secret ballot) under our belt we know that these people never supported living under an Islamic dictatorship. Carpet bombing civilians in these circumstances would have effectively been terrorism. Even worse than terrorism in fact. Terrorism is killing random enemy civilians in order to make a political point. We would have been killing random allies/neutrals in order to show how much we hated our mutual enemy. With an attitude like that, remind me to stop voting for the right-wing. Oh, wait. Or at least stop buying that newspaper. Oh, wait.
What Bush has ACTUALLY done is totally correct. Even though no-one on the left or right seems to get it. And I haven't seen anyone besides me actually attempt to analyze what Bush's game plan might be. Instead, the right wing is convinced that Bush is so stupid that he thinks Islam is a religion of peace. That in 5 years, neither he nor any of his advisers have actually double-checked the Qur'an to see if it does indeed, promote peace, tolerance and love.
And now to the nature of war. If Bush's ultimate plan is actually to commit genocide against all Arabs and all Muslims, which not even the carpet-bombing-promoters even appear to be advocating, he has not actually done anything to detract from this goal. Hell, even if his ultimate plan was to commit genocide against all non-Americans, even Australians, or to perhaps enslave the world, including Australians, he hasn't actually done anything to detract from this goal. It is unwise to let an ally like Australia know you're coming for them, at this point in history. The ducks aren't in a row to enslave Australia. Far better to leverage into whatever resources Australia is willing to offer, in order to use against armed forces that are still hostile. And this is another part of the nature of war. Civilians don't matter a damn. It is weapon systems that matter. If Bush is waging a world war, no matter how wide the scope, he should hone in on the weapon systems. He also needs to have a deep understanding of the mentality of the people who are in control of those weapon systems, in order to determine whether they are friend/foe/neutral. He needs to be able to predict the behaviour of those weapon systems.
And indeed, as an Australian myself, I need to do something similar for my own security - I need to be able to predict whether America's weapon systems will suddenly be turned on me one day. Fortunately for me, I am inside the Anglophone culture, so I know the mentality of Americans, and thus the government they elected. I can predict the behaviour of their armed forces and their people. The multitude of different opinions expressed allows me to determine that Americans have freedom of speech and I can have a high degree of confidence that they are expressing their views, and I am able to analyze those differing views in order to understand the different motives.
People outside of the Anglophone culture have a different problem. They are unable to understand the anti-racism/anti-subjugator/etc nature of the Anglophones, and instead project their own racism and instinct to subjugate onto the Americans, and perceive that they are in danger from an essentially unstoppable America. And are thus fighting for their lives! And perhaps they think that Saddam was a bulwark against the American advance, and thus his atrocities can be excused. This sort of question can be answered by asking the anti-Americans in an environment of freedom, such that IRC provides. E.g. I was talking to a Brazilian, and his response to America being the most generous nation on the planet was that they were just trying to sell weapons. And that that's what he had been told and everyone agreed. Basically this perverse "logic" has reached a critical mass where people risk being ostracized from the group if they dare to challenge "conventional thought". Anti-Americanism is basically a religion of its own. And all I can say is thank God America is armed to the teeth and can actually respond to this anti-Americanism when the time is right.
While we're on to interesting IRC conversations, I was talking to a Kuwaiti, and after some initial talk I simply asked him "what would you like America to do?". And his response? "Kill all the Shiites". Like wow, man! No wonder we have sectarian violence in Iraq. I told him I didn't think that "we" could do that for him, but we could probably replace Iran's dictatorship with a democracy, would that be good enough?
And on the subject of IRC conversations, why am I the only one who appears to be using this opportunity to study human psychology? I'm not even a psychologist. Finding out what is inspiring some people to violence, some people to human rights abuses, is the question of our time. The entire scientific community should be attempting to solve this puzzle, which is the key to security. We need to thoroughly understand all humans so that we can e.g. predict whether America's guns will ever be turned on Australia. Indeed, I can remember reading something on a cannon located in Sydney that a US warship turned up unannounced some centuries ago, so the cannon was installed (or something like that, I didn't take that much interest in what is ancient history).
Anyway, it's all happening right here on this blog. This is the only place I know of where you can see this sort of analysis. Places like Little Green Footballs and Jihad Watch are reporting the violence, and making very amusing sarcastic comments, but they're not actually doing analysis. They're trying to make the US public aware of the threat, which is certainly a good thing, but that's all they're doing. If you want to see the results of incessant probing of hundreds or thousands of people via IRC, this is the place to be. Tell your friends!!!
Oh, and one more surprising thing to report. From our friend Ali Abbas. He was talking about the "puppet" (as reported by Al Jazeera) Iraqi government being "handcuffed" by the Americans. I asked him why the alleged puppets were whinging about the US, instead of just obeying the super-secret orders that Bush sends them every morning, and it seemed like the cogs started turning. There's hope yet. :-) If not, there's always genocide.
# posted by Paul Edwards @ 08:52 
