By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
I should have a right to destroy that which threatens me with destruction: for, by the fundamental law of nature, man being to be preserved as much as possible, when all cannot be preserved, the safety of the innocent is to be preferred: and one may destroy a man who makes war upon him, or has discovered an enmity to his being, for the same reason that he may kill a wolf or a lion; because such men are not under the ties of the commonlaw of reason, have no other rule, but that of force and violence, and so may be treated as beasts of prey, those dangerous and noxious creatures, that will be sure to destroy him whenever he falls into their power.
~John Locke, Second Treatise on Government, Ch. III, (kudos to Bron)
On the night of February 13th, 773 RAF Avro Lancaster bombers swept in low and fast on the Saxony railway town of Dresden. It was early 1945, The Third Reich was collapsing and some 600,000 people had taken refuge in the city to avoid the Allied onslaught. The presumed target was the military complex on the outskirts of town known as the Albertstadt. Dresden, itself, was riddled with military garrisons intermingled among the civilian population. In two waves, the RAF dropped 650,000 incendiaries and 8,000 lbs of high explosives and hundreds of 4,000 pounds bombs on the city center, all with little to no resistance. The entire city was ablaze. RAF crews reported smoke rising to a height of 15,000 ft. Fires were seen 500 miles away from the target.
The next day, February 14, 1945, as Dresden was trying to cope with the crisis, 450 U.S. B-17 Flying Fortress long-range bombers assigned to the 1st Bombardment Division of the United States VIII Bomber Command arrived at 1230 local time. Guided by the fires, they discharged 771 tons of bombs.
The results on the ground were horrific with an estimated 25,000 killed. Survivor Lothar Metzger recalled:
We saw terrible things: cremated adults shrunk to the size of small children, pieces of arms and legs, dead people, whole families burnt to death, burning people ran to and fro, burnt coaches filled with civilian refugees, dead rescuers and soldiers, many were calling and looking for their children and families, and fire everywhere, everywhere fire, and all the time the hot wind of the firestorm threw people back into the burning houses they were trying to escape from.
I cannot forget these terrible details. I can never forget them.
Some estimates bring the number of those killed to 100,000. Nazi propagandists took the figure to 200,000. RAF recon noted that ” 23 percent of the industrial buildings, and 56 percent of the non-industrial buildings, not counting residential buildings, had been seriously damaged. Around 78,000 dwellings had been completely destroyed; 27,700 were uninhabitable, and 64,500 damaged, but readily repairable.”
The raid, ordered by Churchill, rendered such a blow to Western psyche that he distanced himself from the raid saying, “It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of the so-called ‘area-bombing’ of German cities should be reviewed from the point of view of our own interests. If we come into control of an entirely ruined land, there will be a great shortage of accommodation for ourselves and our allies… We must see to it that our attacks do no more harm to ourselves in the long run than they do to the enemy’s war effort.” Of mention, is no sense of the human cost to the enemy of the raid. Th emphasis seems to be purely egocentric: What kind of country will we have when this is all over?
However British Air Chief Marshal Arthur Harris was not so circumspect:
“Attacks on cities like any other act of war are intolerable unless they are strategically justified. But they are strategically justified in so far as they tend to shorten the war and preserve the lives of Allied soldiers. To my mind we have absolutely no right to give them up unless it is certain that they will not have this effect. I do not personally regard the whole of the remaining cities of Germany as worth the bones of one British Grenadier. The feeling, such as there is, over Dresden, could be easily explained by any psychiatrist. It is connected with German bands and Dresden shepherdesses. Actually Dresden was a mass of munitions works, an intact government centre, and a key transportation point to the East. It is now none of these things.”
“War is hell” seems to claim the Air Marshall, and strategic concerns take precedence over humanitarian ones in a war zone. Is he right, or are both he and Churchill “war criminals” to quote some of the more animated commentary on the blog? Neither were prosecuted or charged with war crimes for the Dresden raid.
Which brings us to David Drumm’s fine posting yesterday about a claim of double-tapping Drone strikes in Pakistan and elsewhere in support of the war against the terrorists. The evidence published by the 18-month-old Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) claims that 6 instances of double-tapping have occurred with rescuers being targeted with second strikes. A review of 5 of those sources (ABC’s article was not easily retrievable) reveals that one arguably involved an attack on civilians, one was unclear on the status of the rescuers, and three reported second attacks on militants and extremists.
In response to my query on this point, David correctly pointed out that the Obama Administration does consider fighting age men in the strike zone “militants.” That fact was disclosed in a long New York Times article:
It is also because Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.
Counterterrorism officials insist this approach is one of simple logic: people in an area of known terrorist activity, or found with a top Qaeda operative, are probably up to no good. “Al Qaeda is an insular, paranoid organization — innocent neighbors don’t hitchhike rides in the back of trucks headed for the border with guns and bombs,” said one official, who requested anonymity to speak about what is still a classified program.
But does six instances of secondary attacks obscured by the fog of war prove that the US has a policy of targeting innocent rescuers? Can it even be said that we are indifferent to the humanitarian concerns of rescuers even as we attack our enemies on their home turf?
From a legal perspective, targeting killing of persons who present an imminent threat to a country is permissible. Obama himself has insisted on such evidence before authorizing the strikes though there are trade-offs, according to the New York Times. The CIA’s man in the White House, John Brennan, a crusty Irishman who has spoken in defense of civil liberties and to close Guantanamo but who has faced withering criticism for his role in post 9/11 interrogations, explains Obama’s analysis:
The purpose of these actions is to mitigate threats to U.S. persons’ lives. It is the option of last recourse. So the president, and I think all of us here, don’t like the fact that people have to die. And so he wants to make sure that we go through a rigorous checklist: The infeasibility of capture, the certainty of the intelligence base, the imminence of the threat, all of these things.
Assassination of persons is generally regarded as murder although, by executive order, the US President may order the killing of foreign leaders who represent an imminent threat to the US.
Former U.S. District Judge (S.D. NY) Abraham Sofaer explains the difference:
When people call a targeted killing an “assassination,” they are attempting to preclude debate on the merits of the action. Assassination is widely defined as murder, and is for that reason prohibited in the United States…. U.S. officials may not kill people merely because their policies are seen as detrimental to our interests…. But killings in self-defense are no more “assassinations” in international affairs than they are murders when undertaken by our police forces against domestic killers. Targeted killings in self-defense have been authoritatively determined by the federal government to fall outside the assassination prohibition.
Likewise, Harold Hongju Koh, Legal Adviser US Department of State, defends the use of drones as ” part of “responsibility of US to its citizens, to use force, including lethal force, to defend itself, including by targeting persons such as high-level al-Qaeda leaders who are planning attacks.”
But what then about rescuers killed trying to aid militants?
Georgetown Law Professor Gary Solis, author The Law of Armed Conflict: International Humanitarian Law in War, and no friend of the US drone policy concedes that “Legal guilt does not always accompany innocent death.” In an example, published by Harper’s Magazine, Solis comments on a US helicopter attack on civilians rendering aid to combatants. “Can a van picking up wounded victims be fired upon? If the helicopter personnel reasonably associated the unmarked van with the presumed enemy personnel, yes. An “enemy” vehicle without red cross, red crescent, or white flag receives no special protection, even if wounded personnel are on board.”
Thus, even critics of the drone program conclude that trying to render humanitarian aid to injured militants affords no protection unless they are clearly visible as such. There is nothing in any of the articles cited by the BIJ indicating that rescuers were so denominated.
What then to make of the double-tap policy and the humanitarian toll. I see no proof that US drone masters are “targeting civilians.” Targeting implies intention and given the Administration’s definition of militants in a strike area it is unlikely that there is the intention to harm civilians rescuers where proof of such status exists. The Administration argues that its definition is based on its decade long experience with al-Qaeda. One certainly can argue with the definition of “militant” given its breadth, but does this definition make us any more culpable that acknowledged WWII heroes Winston Churchill or Air Chief Marshall Harris in arguing that our prime responsibility in war is to deny the enemy the ability to wage war against us even as civilians are maimed or killed?
What do you think?
Sources: linked throughout
~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
mespo,
mespo727272 1, June 11, 2012 at 2:19 pm
Elaine:
You have every right to hold out for the better angels of our nature. In most international affairs with like-minded Western countries who share our values that can work. The question becomes what do we do when our opponent demonstrates his utter repugnance at our rights,our way of life, and our life itself? Do we owe morality to the beast of prey as Locke might say?
*****
I responded with the following:
I don’t really care what Locke or Hobbes might say. I live by my own standards of morality. I don’t assume that all those who live in Pakistan and Afghanistan and Yemen and Somalia are jihadists/religious warriors/beasts of prey. I assume there are many people in those countries who don’t hate us or our way of life. I fear many of them may begin to hate our country for killing their innocent relatives and friends and villagers in drone strikes. I believe I would become the enemy of a country who killed my husband or daughter or granddaughter or sister or dear friends.
Over the years, like-minded Western countries killed, subjugated, enslaved, and discriminated against millions of people.
*****
You addressed the following comment to Blouise. I don’t know if you meant to address it to me.
Blouise:
“I don’t assume that all those who live in Pakistan and Afghanistan and Yemen and Somalia are jihadists/religious warriors/beasts of prey.”
I don’t either. That was your assimilation. I said militant theocrats like al-Qaeda. What about them?
*****
You didn’t write anything about militant theocrats in the comment that you addressed to me. BTW, we’ve killed innocent people while going after the militant theocrats.
mespo,
Hiroshima and Nagasaki are a poor corollary. The war with Japan was a war against an intractable state, not bands of criminals. It is also a poor corollary because as a student of history you well know that the ethical merits of both bombing, but especially the second at Nagasaki, are hotly debated to this day. Also consider impressive amount of annihilationist propaganda that was spread in preparation of the atomic strikes. The Truman administration knew this was a questionable act even though the cold calculus rendered by planning a traditional invasion made military sense. By the time of the attacks, the Japanese Navy was effectively neutralized in the South Pacific (admittedly at a very high cost) and Japan was preparing for siege – effectively broken and hiding behind their walls. Hiroshima was hit on August 6. Although more time was originally slated, weather forced the Nagasaki strike up to August 9. Three days for a nation to consider the ultimatums of the Allies. Three days for a nation to fully appreciate an attack on scale unprecedented in human history using a force that was so incomprehensible to some it must have seemed like magic rather than science. And the second attack came on the very day Russia attacked Japanese forces in Manchuria in violation of their treaties. Hiroshima can be rationalized and even then many of the men attached to the project – even at low levels – could not accept the civilian deaths. They were soldiers who had signed on to kill other soldiers, not civilians. A great many of them (and you know I know this from personal experience) carried that burden for a very long time. Nagasaki is even more problematic ethically.
Three days and reeling from the first military deployment of an atomic weapon in human history.
The argument that Japan wasn’t given time to get their wits about themselves to decide which way was up let alone surrender and that Nagasaki was not (yet) necessary is quite easy to make. In martial arts terms, Hiroshima was the controlling technique – the joint lock that says “surrender or I will break this limb”. Nagasaki was the killing blow – the strike to the throat. The problem here is that time to respond was not adequately given after Hiroshima and it is compounded that a less civilian dense target could have been selected than Nagasaki if the mere intent was to ratchet up pressure from the controlling technique.
Consider the words of Emperor Hirohito on accepting the terms of surrender outlined in the Potsdam Declaration. “Moreover, the enemy now possesses a new and terrible weapon with the power to destroy many innocent lives and do incalculable damage. Should we continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization.” They knew what kind of horror we’d unleashed. And they were afraid. It would have cost us nothing to wait another week for them to get their act together vis a vis surrender.
That was also a totally different situation than dealing with criminal organizations and non-state actors.
Apples and oranges ethically speaking.
Even then, the case for Hiroshima and Nagasaki is not as clear cut as you present it.
Blouise:
” I don’t assume that all those who live in Pakistan and Afghanistan and Yemen and Somalia are jihadists/religious warriors/beasts of prey.”
************************
I don’t either. That was your assimilation. I said militant theocrats like al-Qaeda. What about them?
If you want some stats on the sentiments of people living in Muslim countries about the US, here they are from Gallup taken 7 years after 9/11:
‘Politics, not piety’ dictate radicals in Muslim world: poll
Submitted by Anonymous on 27 February 2008 – 12:17am
Muslim World News
By DPA
Washington : One of the largest-ever opinion polls conducted in the Islamic world found that seven percent of Muslims condoned the Sep 11, 2001, attacks on the US, but none of them gave religious justification for their beliefs, according to the figures released Tuesday.
The Gallup organisation’s poll of some 50,000 people in over 35 predominantly Muslim countries found that what motivated those considered “politically radicalised” was their fear of occupation by the West and the US, though most even admired and hoped for democratic principles.
“Politics, not piety, differentiate moderates from radicals” in the Islamic world, said Dalia Mogahed, executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim studies. “Terrorism sympathisers don’t hate our freedom, they want our freedom.”
The overwhelming majority of Muslims – 93 percent – condemned the Sep 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, and most said the biggest obstacle to better relations with the West was the latter’s lack of respect for Islam.
Substantial majorities in all Muslim countries said they supported bringing democratic principles to their own countries and admired the US primarily for its technological innovation and liberal democracy, but less than 50 percent believed the US was serious about bringing that democracy to the Islamic world.
The Gallup poll found that Muslims were most bothered by a perceived “moral decay” in the US and the West, but that their explanations and views were similar to concerns expressed by those in the West itself.
Among the seven percent who viewed the Sep 11 attacks as “completely justified”, Mogahed said that “not one gave religious justification” for their views, instead expressing their fear of US plans for occupation and domination of the Muslim world.
“What we have here is the ability to get beyond the battle of the experts” and let “the data lead the discourse” on beliefs in the Muslim world, said John L. Esposito, a professor of international affairs and Islamic studies at Georgetown University.
Mogahed and Esposito co-authored a book, “Who Speaks for Islam”, that explains the Gallup figures.
Michael Murry:
“First, if you enjoy “correcting” my “many factual errors,” then I will happily give you all you can handle.”
************************
Well, you’ve amply demonstrated that ability. How about when I called you our on slurring the place of your birth as an outlaw and rogue nation. Wanna back off that there, Nathan Hale?
Btw thanks for your service, I think.
Here’s primer for Bob,Esq on Kant’s “Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch” starting with this passage:
“SECTION II
CONTAINING THE DEFINITIVE ARTICLES
FOR PERPETUAL PEACE AMONG STATES
The state of peace among men living side by side is not the natural state (status naturalis); the natural state is one of war. This does not always mean open hostilities, but at least an unceasing threat of war. A state of peace, therefore, must be established, for in order to be secured against hostility it is not sufficient that hostilities simply be not committed; and, unless this security is pledged to each by his neighbor (a thing that can occur only in a civil state), each may treat his neighbor, from whom he demands this security, as an enemy.”
See, Bob, if your neighbor doesn’t want to promise your security, you may regard him as your enemy. Now let me take you by the hand and show you some of the promises our “neighbor” Al-Qaeda has made to us:
From Adam Gadahn:
We love nothing better than the heat of battle, the echo of explosions, and slitting the throats of the infidels”.
“September 11 was but the opening salvo of the global war on America.”
“The magnitude and ferocity of what is coming your way will make you forget all about September 11th”
“Your failure to heed our demands and the demands of reason means that you and your people will – Allah willing – experience things”
From OBL:
It is very important to concentrate on hitting the US economy through all possible means.”
“God willing, the end of America is imminent.”
“Hostility toward America is a religious duty, and we hope to be rewarded for it by God…
I am confident that Muslims will be able to end the legend of the so-called superpower that is America.”
“We should fully understand our religion. Fighting is part of our religion and our shari’a (Islamic law). Those who love God and his Prophet and this religion cannot deny that. Whoever denies even a minor tenet of our religion commits the gravest sin in Islam.”
“The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies — civilians and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim.”
From Abu Hamza al Masri:
“What makes Allah happy? Allah is happy when kaffir (infidel) gets killed.”
“It’s only a matter of time until we rule Earth, until we control Earth.”
“In the end of the day, Islam must control Earth, whether we like it or not. It’s a promise of Allah, it’s a promise from the prophet.”
“America is a blackmailing nation. Nothing but that. A drunk blackmailing superpower which will stake power until there is nobody in the planet out of its order. The new God of the planet. And Allah will destroy America…”
“Jews, until now they know, they know from the hadith of [Mohammed] that they gonna be all killed in Palestine. But they still collect themselves in big number to go to Palestine… And the Jews will die in this area in great number, and it will be the greatest and the largest graveyard for Jews all over Earth, for them, because they will have nowhere to go.”
From Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri:
“Jihad for the sake of Allah is greater than any individual or organization. It is a struggle between Truth and Falsehood, until Allah inherits the earth and all who live on it.”
“Oh peoples of the crusader coalition, we have warned you, but it appears that you want us to make you taste the horrors of death. So taste some of what you made us taste.”
“Oh Americans, what you have seen in New York and Washington, and the casualties you witness in Afghanistan and in Iraq, despite all the media blackout, are nothing but the casualties of the initial clashes.”
“There is no solution without jihad”
Draw your own conclusions.
“Though I do enjoy correcting your many factual errors, I’m getting tired of all the fun. We were talking about Pakistan and WW2 not Afghanistan, but please continue I enjoy hearing how my country is a “rogue and outlaw” nation from an off-shore “patriot” with an ax to grind.” — Mespo.
First, if you enjoy “correcting” my “many factual errors,” then I will happily give you all you can handle. You haven’t corrected any errors yet, but the exercise might in time teach you something of value.
Second, you cannot separate Afghanistan from Pakistan if you wish to have any understanding of the topic under discussion (and I don’t claim that you do). You have apparently not heard of the term “AF-PAK” used by the U.S. political and military establishments to describe an undifferentiated free-fire zone blanketing the Pashtun tribesmen who live on both sides of the Durand Line and who do not care what lines a British imperialist once drew on a map.
In fact, though, the U.S. military and political class has — once again — trotted out the old slippery-slope “no enemy sanctuary” dogma to justify starting a war of aggression on one country — say Vietnam — and then extending it to a neighboring country — say Cambodia — on the specious grounds that an illegal war on one country immediately justifies war on neighboring countries, as well. And since neighboring countries have neighboring countries (all with “enemy sanctuaries” in them), the United States quickly finds itself at war in multiple countries. The ultimate slippery slope. Substitute Afghanistan for Vietnam and Pakistan for Cambodia and you have precisely the mental framework required for understanding what needs discussion here.
World War II has no relevance to the discussion of America’s extra-judicial murders in the so-called “AF/PAK” “theater of war.” You may wish to discuss a fraudulent digression upon an irrelevancy, but I will continue pointing out the error of doing so — because I know how and because I can.
Third, countries that act like rogue, outlaw nations deserve the title. If the shoe fits, wear it. The United States has acted this way before and has suffered much real damage as a consequence. I simply do not want to see the self-inflicted damage continue. You cannot see this, but I will do my best to assist in your education.
Fourth, I’ve got an honorable discharge from almost six years of penurious indentured servitude in Uncle Sam’s Canoe Club, the last year-and-a-half of that spent serving in the Nixon-Kissinger Fig Leaf Contingent (Vietnam 1970-72), so I need no lectures from you about either relevant military/political analogies or “patriotism.” I know more than you about both. So stick your adolescent canards where the sun don’t shine, REMF.
And finally, I wish to see my country cease needlessly hurting itself and others. If you wish to call that an “ax to grind,” then go ahead. Your muddled misnomers and flawed figures of speech neither explain nor justify anything.
(Note for your future reference, from Wikipedia):
mespo,
“You have every right to hold out for the better angels of our nature. In most international affairs with like-minded Western countries who share our values that can work. The question becomes what do we do when our opponent demonstrates his utter repugnance at our rights,our way of life, and our life itself? Do we owe morality to the beast of prey as Locke might say?”
*****
I don’t really care what Locke or Hobbes might say. I live by my own standards of morality. I don’t assume that all those who live in Pakistan and Afghanistan and Yemen and Somalia are jihadists/religious warriors/beasts of prey. I assume there are many people in those countries who don’t hate us or our way of life. I fear many of them may begin to hate our country for killing their innocent relatives and friends and villagers in drone strikes. I believe I would become the enemy of a country who killed my husband or daughter or granddaughter or sister or dear friends.
Over the years, like-minded Western countries killed, subjugated, enslaved, and discriminated against millions of people.
Jill:
“When you recommend genocide, you have become the beast that you decry. (I refer to your comment on Pakistan where you do clearly call for genocide.)”
***********************
I never advocated genocide and you know it. Get a dictionary.
Bluise:
“Muslims and ALL people deserve to have their beliefs understood from their own perspective, not spun through western demands of what is suitable & what is not.” (talkingbacktocspan)
**********************************
Well, maybe. Substitute the topic at hand, “militant theocrats” for “Muslims and ALL people” and see if that proposed tautology still works for you.
PS: I’d disagree with ALL people. The insane? The sociopathic? How about NAMBLA? “All” rarely makes sense.
DonS:
I am quite confidant that I am on firm classical philosophical ground here. Our enemies are those militant theocrats who have sworn jihad against the West simply for being the West and their enablers and supporters whether they be political units or individuals..
Gene H:
“You’ll have to look long and hard to find someone who despises theocracy and theocrats more then me, but the answer to fighting that ill isn’t to become amoral killers.”
**********************
I know that and I know you understand history. I also know that amoral killers is precisely what we must become in a war with madmen. Consider our experience in Japan in late 1945. Besieged by suicidal kamikaze attacks that threatened our navy, we looked for a way to end the war and save tens of thousands of American lives that would be necessarily lost by an attack on the Japanese mainland. What did we do?
We dropped two atomic weapons and killed 250,000 non-combatants in two cities. Amoral killers? Not immoral–amoral. Of the 1.25 million battle casualties incurred by the United States in World War II, nearly one million occurred in the twelve month period from June 1944 to June 1945. We calculated our rising death toll and measured it against theirs and dropped the bombs.
You can lead by example on those people willing to be led. It doesn’t work on this gang of zealots.
Jill:
“What happens when the govt. demonstrates its utter repugnance at our rights, our way of life and our life itself? This has already begun to happen in the US and you are more than willing to support all of these things.”
****************************
Quite simply, Jill, the answer is we fix it. We throw the bums out or we pass laws or we protest. We do NOT equate our democracy with a gang of 7th Century theocratic misogynists who would have no problem eviscerating you or your children in some homage to their fanciful warrior deity.
The flabbergasting false equivalency I see bandied about by seemingly intelligent people is equating our form of democratically elected government (replete with the problems we all moan about) with their religious tyranny. We do not throw battery acid into the eyes of school girls; we do not conscript young me to be suicide bombers; we do not call for the death of innocents to assuage our religious insecurities about death; and we do not commit honor killings.
We are not the same as our enemies as one day living under their theocratic thumb would surely prove to you. Hopefully that won’t happen but cajoling our leaders to tire their hands behind their back as they fight this menace is a foolish homage to a morality that neither impresses nor restrains our enemies.
This self-defeating application of law or morality has no basis in law, history, or classical philosophy as I’ve tried to show. Instead it has its basis in sentimentalism and false equivalencies that are the result of soft-headed thinking and a squishy understanding of the realpolitik in which we find ourselves.
We can quote the great humanitarians of our day until the we die from exhaustion but I can assure you it will mean nothing to men who would cut your throat merely to appease their sense of morality. It is a struggle with a mad man and trying to use reason here is both pointless and pitiful. Like it or not there are times to fight and to do so with abandon.
It was Gibbons who reminded us that civilizations fall as much from internal division as external pressure:
The rise of a city, which swelled into an empire, may deserve, as a singular prodigy, the reflection of a philosophic mind. But the decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the causes of destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and as soon as time or accident had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight. The story of its ruin is simple and obvious; and instead of inquiring why the Roman empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long. The victorious legions, who, in distant wars, acquired the vices of strangers and mercenaries, first oppressed the freedom of the republic, and afterwards violated the majesty of the purple. The emperors, anxious for their personal safety and the public peace, were reduced to the base expedient of corrupting the discipline which rendered them alike formidable to their sovereign and to the enemy; the vigour of the military government was relaxed and finally dissolved by the partial institutions of Constantine; and the Roman world was overwhelmed by a deluge of Barbarians.
(…)
As the happiness of a future life is the great object of religion, we may hear without surprise or scandal that the introduction, or at least the abuse of Christianity, had some influence on the decline and fall of the Roman empire. The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity; the active virtues of society were discouraged; and the last remains of military spirit were buried in the cloister: a large portion of public and private wealth was consecrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion; and the soldiers’ pay was lavished on the useless multitudes of both sexes who could only plead the merits of abstinence and chastity. Faith, zeal, curiosity, and more earthly passions of malice and ambition, kindled the flame of theological discord; the church, and even the state, were distracted by religious factions, whose conflicts were sometimes bloody and always implacable; the attention of the emperors was diverted from camps to synods; the Roman world was oppressed by a new species of tyranny; and the persecuted sects became the secret enemies of their country. Yet party-spirit, however pernicious or absurd, is a principle of union as well as of dissension. The bishops, from eighteen hundred pulpits, inculcated the duty of passive obedience to a lawful and orthodox sovereign; their frequent assemblies and perpetual correspondence maintained the communion of distant churches; and the benevolent temper of the Gospel was strengthened, though confirmed, by the spiritual alliance of the Catholics. The sacred indolence of the monks was devoutly embraced by a servile and effeminate age; but if superstition had not afforded a decent retreat, the same vices would have tempted the unworthy Romans to desert, from baser motives, the standard of the republic. Religious precepts are easily obeyed which indulge and sanctify the natural inclinations of their votaries; but the pure and genuine influence of Christianity may be traced in its beneficial, though imperfect, effects on the barbarian proselytes of the North. If the decline of the Roman empire was hastened by the conversion of Constantine, his victorious religion broke the violence of the fall, and mollified the ferocious temper of the conquerors.
This awful revolution may be usefully applied to the instruction of the present age. It is the duty of a patriot to prefer and promote the exclusive interest and glory of his native country: but a philosopher may be permitted to enlarge his views, and to consider Europe as one great republic, whose various inhabitants have attained almost the same level of politeness and cultivation. The balance of power will continue to fluctuate, and the prosperity of our own or the neighbouring kingdoms may be alternately exalted or depressed; but these partial events cannot essentially injure our general state of happiness, the system of arts, and laws, and manners, which so advantageously distinguish, above the rest of mankind, the Europeans and their colonies. The savage nations of the globe are the common enemies of civilized society; and we may inquire, with anxious curiosity, whether Europe is still threatened with a repetition of those calamities which formerly oppressed the arms and institutions of Rome. Perhaps the same reflections will illustrate the fall of that mighty empire, and explain the probable causes of our actual security.
Sir Edward Gibbons, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-1788) [emphasis mine]
The peculiar immunity that many tyrants have in the Arab countries like Saudi Arabia is inextricably intermingled with their control of wealth. America respects the control of wealth. Then you have out and out thugs in other countries (Saleh of Yemen) who milk the “terrorists are scaring us all” line to extort more money from the Saudis, etc.
If you had a dozen really good people in our state department assigned to the Middle East desks, some change would inevitably occur. Unfortunately, the jobs are more political than functional and the real interests are corporate. Nothing ever makes sense unless it makes dollars.
mespo72X —
“outside our borders among those who reject any notion of what we consider civilization.”
Does your “rule of law” and sense of “civilization” respect borders and sovereignty?
= = = =
@mespo: “Among those peoples for whom life is cheap, where the individual is but a cog in their orthodoxy, where there is no respect for freedom, I have no regards for their rights at all where they clash with ours. It was that crowd that attacked us and anything except total war against them is an insult to ourselves and our ancestors ”
Mespo, you are wallowing in generalities here, leaving open a wide door to shove anyone through who fits your definition of “that crowd that attacked us” which, if the government knows more about “that crowd” than generalities, too, it ain’t saying. Except for the Saudis who, ironically, and oil-lily, get off scot free. Huh.
With puzzlement, I think you are digging yourself a deep deep hole here, and getting deeper. Careening between classical philosophy and populist ranting. I must say, I feel right at home with my own deficit of knowledge, and am more than glad to engage at the level of logic and reason, because anyone can slant their own view of ‘facts;.
mespo,
You’ll have to look long and hard to find someone who despises theocracy and theocrats more then me, but the answer to fighting that ill isn’t to become amoral killers. It’s by continually proving that a free and secular society is a better form of society – including the ability to produce ethically superior people. Killing in the Name of God X is zealotry run amok, but killing in the name of democracy is jingoism run amok. You cannot impose democracy at the point of a gun. You never have been nor will you ever. By its very nature, democracy is something the masses have to embrace and often do after long periods of tyranny. Democracy is a choice and for it to be valid it must be a choice made by and for the people. Our continued existence and the restoration of our eroding domestic democracy away from the hands of the oligarchs currently attacking it openly and freely (often with the help of pols who are nominally our democratically elected representatives) will go further to convince the world of the value of democracy than becoming killers for the MIC oligarchs who despite waving their flags have no interest in maintaining democracy and every business interests in crushing it both at home and abroad as long as they profit. If total war was to be declared, it isn’t against criminals that attacked us. It should have been against the state that supplied money, manpower and materials to said criminals: Saudi Arabia. The “War on Terror” is a bad joke that plays in to their agenda for the region at our expense – our nominal allies who got a walk on their role in 9/11 because they were buddies with the Bush Crime Family and big customers of Halliburton. The greatest insult to ourselves and our ancestors is that we’ve been played by villains foreign and domestic into selling out the ideals this country was founded up on a violent folly that ultimately does nothing to bring the perps behind 9/11 to justice and serves only to destroy any credibility we had as a nation suitable to lead by example.
Bolton. Media darling: say anything anytime for arousal. Just ask Pam Geller. Romney is just a panting lap dog for anyone; always reserves the right to be right all the time, consistency be damned.
On treatment of women by Muslim fundies — maybe more extreme than other religious fundies, I don’t know on all counts. But the issue isn’t whether we love us some Muslim fundies now, is it? Or even whether we respect their religion. The issue is whether we have any compass as a nation that guides our own behavior, or if we make it up as we go along, throw any shred of coherence out the window. Now that’s a real rogue nation.
Gene H:
“If you are not fighting ultimately for your way of life and values, then you are not a civilization and you have no respect for the rule of law. The only rule you respect is the law of the jungle.”
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I guess we fundamentally disagree on whether there is a rule of law outside our borders among those who reject any notion of what we consider civilization. I contend there is none and I have scads of examples. Inside our borders I have utmost respect for the rule of law. Amongst our fellow democracies I have utmost respect for the rule of law. Amongst those nations that share our values I have the utmost respect for the rule of law. But among those peoples who find our very existence an anathema to them or their deity I have nothing but contempt and find them a common enemy of civilization. Among those peoples for whom life is cheap, where the individual is but a cog in their orthodoxy, where there is no respect for freedom, I have no regards for their rights at all where they clash with ours. It was that crowd that attacked us and anything except total war against them is an insult to ourselves and our ancestors who must have assumed we would never squander what they paid in blood to obtain.
Let’s forget about the small stuff. Time to Think Big! I picked this up at Sullivan’s blog:
“Top neocon John Bolton pens an op-ed on Syria. I hope you’re sitting down:
It would have been one thing to work with the Syrian diaspora to remove Assad and the Baath party when we had a massive military presence in Iraq, right on Syria’s border. In the days just after Saddam’s ouster in 2003, conditions were optimal (if nonetheless imperfect) for overthrowing Assad and replacing his regime with something compatible with American interests. We would not have needed to use U.S. ground forces. Our mere presence in Iraq could have precluded Iran — or, what we see today, an Iraq under Iran’s influence — from trying to protect Assad.
But the dream of a permanent occupation of Iraq and the ousting of Assad is just the start:
Significantly, U.S. intervention could not be confined to Syria and would inevitably entail confronting Iran and possibly Russia. This the Obama administration is unwilling to do, although it should.
Remember what Romney said about Bolton:
John’s wisdom, clarity and courage are qualities that should typify our foreign policy.
Just ponder that for a moment. Are you terrified because Romney believes that? Or because he’ll say anything to get elected?”
Mark,
You write, “In most international affairs with like-minded Western countries who share our values that can work.
The question becomes what do we do when our opponent demonstrates his utter repugnance at our rights,our way of life, and our life itself? Do we owe morality to the beast of prey as Locke might say?”
What happens when the govt. demonstrates its utter repugnance at our rights, our way of life and our life itself? This has already begun to happen in the US and you are more than willing to support all of these things.
You also recommended genocide of the “other”. This is not part of our law. When you recommend genocide, you have become the beast that you decry. (I refer to your comment on Pakistan where you do clearly call for genocide.)