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
Mesposer: “Good Kantian dodge! It’s hard to think straight when your contradicted by your philosophical master.”
And the lying begins again.
You said
Mesposer: “Hey, and since it’s you and you are our self-appointed Kant scholar, here’s a little Kant on War. Seems he agrees you have no duty to negotiate with an irrational combatant and may treat him as an enemy”
You then provided a quote, without a cite, of someone quoting Kant’s Perpetual Peace in a manner that didn’t even support your initial assertion about irrational actors.
Kant doesn’t say anything about irrational actors, your mysterious author does.
Furthermore, Kant would dismiss the rambling of anyone who summarily dismissed law and morality in their arguments; i.e. you.
Assuming arguendo that wars based on slogans and euphemisms could actually be deemed “WAR” between nations, here’s a little ditty from Kant’s Perpetual Peace:
6. “No State Shall, during War, Permit Such Acts of Hostility Which Would Make Mutual Confidence in the Subsequent Peace Impossible: Such Are the Employment of Assassins (percussores), Poisoners (venefici), Breach of Capitulation (e.g. torture), and Incitement to Treason (perduellio) in the Opposing State”;
These are dishonorable stratagems. For some confidence in the character of the enemy must remain even in the midst of war, as otherwise no peace could be concluded and the hostilities would degenerate into a war of extermination (bellum internecinum). War, however, is only the sad recourse in the state of nature (where there is no tribunal which could judge with the force of law) by which each state asserts its right by violence and in which neither party can be adjudged unjust (for that would presuppose a juridical decision); in lieu of such a decision, the issue of the conflict (as if given by a so-called “judgment of God”) decides on which side justice lies. But between states no punitive war (bellum punitivum) is conceivable, because there is no relation between them of master and servant.
It follows that a war of extermination, in which the destruction of both parties and of all justice can result, would permit perpetual peace only in the vast burial ground of the human race. Therefore, such a war and the use of all means leading to it must be absolutely forbidden.”
That you would suggest that Kant would support your position by expanding the definition of war to include euphemisms and slogans; much less
approve of ignoring the sovereignty of another nation in furtherance of a program of assassination … thereby fostering a state of perpetual war (see above)
What can I say, I’m laughing at you while I type this.
Then again, one need not cite Kant to illustrate just how full of shit you are.
Barkindog@ 0809- Hey! I resemble that remark! Except I don’t own an ipad. Or a cell phone, for that matter. Or a car. I hate all of the above as wasteful distractions and pollutants. And I can’t afford them, but that has nothing to do with it….. ok it does I really want an ereader platform of some kind :*(
Elaine- Nuclear powered drone? That’s about as brilliant an idea as the artillery based “tactical” nuclear warhead. Thank god it never got off the ground!
SwarthyMom (Sorry, couldn’t resist the childish play on words)- I have mixed emotions regarding those drones. We called ’em Kamikaze’s in a can. Much more effective in isolating individual targets, less reliance on computer analysis for target selection, and if you fuck up, you only kill one wrong civilian (nice, ain’t it?) instead of a few dozen. But the fact that the technology exists, and that the US led the way, bothers me because it’s a relatively easy tech to convert into police use, or into criminal use. A miniature Pandora’s box. Fun to fly though, the gamer in me is coming out.
Arthur Randolph Erb 1, June 10, 2012 at 12:10 pm
AR Erb, could you please provide some sources for your claims in the referenced comment, especially for these paragraphs/claims:
“This was {1} not in any way a war crime for a number of reasons. One is that the {2} target and objective was strictly military and the {3} people of that city had been warned that the place was a military target and subject to this kind of military action. Two that while it was brutal and killed lots of civilians, that alone does not make it a war crime. {4}If you live next to a munition factory, you have no claim of improper actions if your house gets bombed as part of operations against the factory.
In contrast to the Nazis who bombed the Spanish town of Guernica, {5} the US and UK did not directly target civilians. In Guernica the Nazix deliberately bombed the town when it was most crowded and without warning. They were trying in fact to kill as many people as possible, mainly ALL civilians.{6} Dresden did not fit this pattern at all. It was initiated at night, the civilians had more than adequate warnings, had in fact been TOLD that the whole city was a target, None of this appled in Guernica. {7}The raid was simply another standard operations the US and UK forces had been doing for a number of years. Brits bombing at night, the US by day.”
The facts you recite in {1, 2, 3, 5} differ from the facts in Jörg Friedrich’s “The Fire: The Bombing of Germany, 1940-1945.”
I’m eager to discover what theory of just war supports {4}.
Regarding {7}, please support the implied claim that all of those “standard operations . . .for a number of years” were aimed at strictly military targets, and did NOT have the goal of “killing as many people as possible.”
As you gather evidence, you may wish to study material on the US Air Force- Standard Oil – project in the Utah desert at Dugway, where Erich Mendelsohn and other architects participated in plans to develop more efficient ways of creating firestorms in German and Japanese cities, and where plans were made to weaponize anthrax with the goal of killing 275,000 Berliners in one swoop. https://demo.em-assist.com/courses/dugway_german_village/library/goodbye_to_berlin.pdf
US FUNDS THE TALIBAN????
One of the most important issues today is the war in Afghanistan-Pakistan and the fact that US
Military Aid to Pakistan is being used to fund the Pakistani ISI which is in turn funding Taliban
and Al Quada fighters. While this has been reported sporadically in the media for whatever
reason political pundits on the left and right have effectively ignored this issue.
Joe Klein in an article for Time, August 9, 2010, p. 19, has written an article that every American
citizen should go to their library and read, he writes,
“The commanders are unanimous in their belief that the ISI is running the show….And so,
despite professions of alliance with the US by Pakistan’s then dictator Pervez Musharraf, a
decision was made to keep the Taliban alive. A spigot of untargeted military aid from the George
W. Bush Administration helped fund the effort. A commander of the vicious Haqqani Taliban
network tells Waldman that their funding comes from ‘the Americans–from them to the
Pakistani military, and then to us.’ Waldman reports that the commander receives from the
Pakistanis ‘a reward for killing foreign soldiers, usually $4000 to $5000 for each soldier killed’”.
American tax dollars if not directly, then indirectly are being used to fund the Taliban and put
a bounty on American boys and girls head… Makes one wonder why the establishment right
or left is not reporting on this? If the right is covering for
the mistakes of the Bush administration…why is the establishment left not reporting on this???
…this is the most important issue of the day…we will never win a war where if not directly then
indirectly the US is funding the opposition!!!!
woody voinche
http://wallwritings.me/2012/06/09/new-jerseys-9th-cd-voters-say-no-to-aipac/ A bit off topic but not totally so……. AIPAC supporter loses democratic primary in New Jersey.
In Yemen, U.S. airstrikes breed anger, and sympathy for al-Qaeda
By Sudarsan Raghavan, Published: May 29
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/in-yemen-us-airstrikes-breed-anger-and-sympathy-for-al-qaeda/2012/05/29/gJQAUmKI0U_story.html
Excerpt:
Aden, Yemen — Across the vast, rugged terrain of southern Yemen, an escalating campaign of U.S. drone strikes is stirring increasing sympathy for al-Qaeda-linked militants and driving tribesmen to join a network linked to terrorist plots against the United States.
After recent U.S. missile strikes, mostly from unmanned aircraft, the Yemeni government and the United States have reported that the attacks killed only suspected al-Qaeda members. But civilians have also died in the attacks, said tribal leaders, victims’ relatives and human rights activists.
“These attacks are making people say, ‘We believe now that al-Qaeda is on the right side,’ ” said businessman Salim al-Barakani, adding that his two brothers — one a teacher, the other a cellphone repairman — were killed in a U.S. strike in March.
Since January, as many as 21 missile attacks have targeted suspected al-Qaeda operatives in southern Yemen, reflecting a sharp shift in a secret war carried out by the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command that had focused on Pakistan.
But as in the tribal areas of Pakistan, where U.S. drone strikes have significantly weakened al-Qaeda’s capabilities, an unintended consequence of the attacks has been a marked radicalization of the local population.
The evidence of radicalization emerged in more than 20 interviews with tribal leaders, victims’ relatives, human rights activists and officials from four provinces in southern Yemen where U.S. strikes have targeted suspected militants. They described a strong shift in sentiment toward militants affiliated with the transnational network’s most active wing, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP.
The Year of the Drone
An Analysis of U.S. Drone Strikes in Pakistan, 2004-2012
New America Foundation
http://counterterrorism.newamerica.net/drones
Excerpt:
The research on these pages, which we have created in a good faith effort to be as transparent as possible with our sources and analysis and will be updated regularly, draws only on accounts from reliable media organizations with deep reporting capabilities in Pakistan, including the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal, accounts by major news services and networks—the Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse, CNN, and the BBC—and reports in the leading English-language newspapers in Pakistan—the Daily Times, Dawn, the Express Tribune, and the News—as well as those from Geo TV, the largest independent Pakistani television network.
Our study shows that the 302 reported drone strikes in northwest Pakistan, including 22 in 2012, from 2004 to the present have killed approximately between 1,845 and 2,836 individuals, of whom around 1,552 to 2,365 were described as militants in reliable press accounts. Thus, the true non-militant fatality rate since 2004 according to our analysis is approximately 17 percent. In 2011, it was more like eleven percent.
re John 1, June 11, 2012 at 7:25 am
“So HOW do we get in these wars? Usually by LIES!!!”
what is astonishing is that the American people offer themselves up as suckers time and time and time again.
reprise of William Randolph Hearst and New York Journal:
” [David] Sarnoff . . .the founder of RCA and NBC . . .was the one that received the message from the Lusitania.”
Historian Joyce Appleby in an interview with Brian Lamb
http://www.q-and-a.org/Transcript/?ProgramID=1283
-Iraq — TWICE!
-Afghanistan
-Libya
-Syria
-Iran-in-process
It’s not so much the lying as the fact that it’s the same old lie.
Privatizing the War on Terror: America’s Military Contractors
by John W. Whitehead
January 16, 2012
http://njtoday.net/2012/01/16/privatizing-the-war-on-terror-americas-military-contractors/
Excerpt:
“Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes… known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”—James Madison
America’s troops may be returning home from Iraq, but contrary to President Obama’s assertion that “the tide of war is receding,” we’re far from done paying the costs of war. In fact, at the same time that Obama is reducing the number of troops in Iraq, he’s replacing them with military contractors at far greater expense to the taxpayer and redeploying American troops to other parts of the globe, including Africa, Australia and Israel. In this way, the war on terror is privatized, the American economy is bled dry, and the military-security industrial complex makes a killing—literally and figuratively speaking.
The war effort in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan has already cost taxpayers more than $2 trillion and could go as high as $4.4 trillion before it’s all over. At least $31 billion (and as much as $60 billion or more) of that $2 trillion was lost to waste and fraud by military contractors, who do everything from janitorial and food service work to construction, security and intelligence—jobs that used to be handled by the military. That translates to a loss of $12 million a day since the U.S. first invaded Afghanistan. To put it another way, the government is spending more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety.
Over the past two decades, America has become increasingly dependent on military contractors in order to carry out military operations abroad (in fact, the government’s extensive use of private security contractors has surged under Obama). According to the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States can no longer conduct large or sustained military operations or respond to major disasters without heavy support from contractors. As a result, the U.S. employs at a minimum one contractor to support every soldier deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq (that number increases dramatically when U.S. troop numbers decrease). For those signing on for contractor work, many of whom are hired by private contracting firms after serving stints in the military, it is a lucrative, albeit dangerous, career path (private contractors are 2.75 times more likely to die than troops). Incredibly, while base pay for an American soldier hovers somewhere around $19,000 per year, contractors are reportedly pulling in between $150,000 – $250,000 per year.
“This is a precision strike weapon that causes as minimal collateral damage as possible,” said William I. Nichols, who led the Army’s testing effort of the Switchblades at Redstone Arsenal near Huntsville, Ala.”
I say Nobel Peace Prize . . .
Someone please slap me.
Pentagon to deploy pint-sized drones
The Switchblade drone is designed to fit into a soldier’s rucksack. It weighs less than 6 pounds and can take out a sniper on a rooftop, without blasting the building to bits. The drone also enables soldiers in the field to identify and destroy targets much more quickly by eliminating the need to call in a strike from large drones that may be hundreds of miles away.
By W.J. Hennigan, Los Angeles Times
June 11, 2012, 5:00 a.m.
Seeking to reduce civilian casualties and collateral damage, the Pentagon will soon deploy a new generation of drones the size of model planes, packing tiny explosive warheads that can be delivered with pinpoint accuracy.
Errant drone strikes have been blamed for killing and injuring scores of civilians throughout Pakistan and Afghanistan, giving the U.S. government a black eye as it targets elusive terrorist groups. The Predator and Reaper drones deployed in these regions typically carry 100-pound laser-guided Hellfire missiles or 500-pound GPS-guided smart bombs that can reduce buildings to smoldering rubble.
The new Switchblade drone, by comparison, weighs less than 6 pounds and can take out a sniper on a rooftop without blasting the building to bits. It also enables soldiers in the field to identify and destroy targets much more quickly by eliminating the need to call in a strike from large drones that may be hundreds of miles away.
“This is a precision strike weapon that causes as minimal collateral damage as possible,” said William I. Nichols, who led the Army’s testing effort of the Switchblades at Redstone Arsenal near Huntsville, Ala.
Nuclear-powered drones on the drawing board for U.S. military contractors
By Nick Fielding, The Guardian
Monday, April 2, 2012
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/04/02/nuclear-powered-drones-on-the-drawing-board-for-u-s-military-contractors/
Civilian contractors playing key roles in U.S. drone operations
Relying on contractors has brought companies that operate for profit into some of America’s most sensitive military and intelligence operations. And using civilians makes some in the military uneasy.
By David S. Cloud, Los Angeles Times
December 29, 2011
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/29/world/la-fg-drones-civilians-20111230
Excerpt:
Reporting from Washington — After a U.S. airstrike mistakenly killed at least 15 Afghans in 2010, the Army officer investigating the accident was surprised to discover that an American civilian had played a central role: analyzing video feeds from a Predator drone keeping watch from above.
The contractor had overseen other analysts at Air Force Special Operations Command at Hurlburt Field in Florida as the drone tracked suspected insurgents near a small unit of U.S. soldiers in rugged hills of central Afghanistan. Based partly on her analysis, an Army captain ordered an airstrike on a convoy that turned out to be carrying innocent men, women and children.
“What company do you work for?” Maj. Gen. Timothy McHale demanded of the contractor after he learned that she was not in the military, according to a transcript obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
“SAIC,” she answered. Her employer, SAIC Inc., is a publicly traded Virginia-based corporation with a multiyear $49-million contract to help the Air Force analyze drone video and other intelligence from Afghanistan.
America’s growing drone operations rely on hundreds of civilian contractors, including some — such as the SAIC employee — who work in the so-called kill chain before Hellfire missiles are launched, according to current and former military officers, company employees and internal government documents.
Relying on private contractors has brought corporations that operate for profit into some of America’s most sensitive military and intelligence operations. And using civilians makes some in the military uneasy.
At least a dozen defense contractors that supply personnel to help the Air Force, special operations units and the CIA fly their drones are filling a void. It takes more people to operate unmanned aircraft than it does to fly traditional warplanes that have a pilot and crew.
The Air Force is short of ground-based pilots and crews to fly the drones, intelligence analysts to scrutinize nonstop video and surveillance feeds, and technicians and mechanics to maintain the heavily used aircraft.
“Our No. 1 manning problem in the Air Force is manning our unmanned platforms,” said Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, Air Force vice chief of staff. Without civilian contractors, U.S. drone operations would grind to a halt.
About 168 people are needed to keep a single Predator aloft for 24 hours, according to the Air Force. The larger Global Hawk surveillance drone requires 300 people. In contrast, an F-16 fighter aircraft needs fewer than 100 people per mission.
Blouise 1, June 10, 2012 at 8:45 pm
…
“The essence of immorality is the tendency to make an exception of oneself.” … Jane Addams
==============================================
Nice.
The essence of national immorality is the tendency to institutionalize national exceptionalism through propaganda.
“The King can do no wrong” has failed miserably historically, legally, and every other way, but the only ones who can’t figure that out are those whose nation can do no wrong.
Regarding the B-36 Peacemaker. The design was started during W-II with the specifications requiring a large bomber capable of bombing Germany from US soil. As for whether it would have been successful is a question still unanswered. At the time it was conceived during the dark days of WW-II, it was state of the art. It had two bomb bays, each capable of carrying an atomic bomb as well as conventional bombs. It was half again as big at a B-29, which was a huge airplane for the time. The monster airplane was obsolete almost as soon as the first one rolled off the assembly line shortly after the end of WW-II and not very many of them were built. It had a very short shelf life because the B-52 came out in the 1950s and the remaining B-36s were relegated to the boneyard at Davis-Monthan AFB.
I know a guy who was the first Honorably Discharged Vietnam war vet who was convicted of treason for joining in demonstrations against the war. His appointed counsel told him he would not be convicted because he had not done anything wrong, and when the verdict was announced he fainted in court. Six months later some senator, incensed that a decorated veteran was in Leavenworth serving 20 years for telling his story in front of a microphone, pulled some strings and got him out, and then even managed to get his record expunged somehow. Recently he was chosen to be the foreman of a grand jury in a state circuit court and he served until health problems overtook him. He’s a guy who talks “macho shorthand” about nearly everything EXCEPT the war. He hardly speaks. His voice drops and becomes unsteady, his speech slows, he focuses on his hands and doesn’t look up, and he only uses small words, and no abbreviations.
MM, it’s because of warspeak from TV and movies. You just aren’t macho enough if you simply kill somebody; you’ve gotta take ’em OUT, man.
And if they take YOU out, you say, “You got me.” It’s only fair.
Bob,Esq:
Good Kantian dodge! It’s hard to think straight when your contradicted by your philosophical master.
From Patrick Cockburn of the Independent/UK (June 10,2012):
Yes. I think I just said that myself above. But this only seems to recapitulate what Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., wrote in The Imperial Presidency (1973):
Some generals — lots and lots of generals — should really lose their perks and privileges over this. If we had generals as bad as these in World War II, Americans would speak German in New York and Japanese in Los Angeles. I don’t know where we get these ticket-punching careerists, but certainly not from the deep end of the nation’s intellectual gene pool. And now we’ve got the biggest self-promoter of them all running the old Can’t Identify Anything shop. I predict that soon the “tap” followed by the “double tap” will expand into the “triple-tap” followed by the “quadruple-tap,” because you know how wild and crazy our military gets when if finds a new euphemism for blowing up more innocent bystanders after missing the intended innocent bystander the first three times.
Why can’t our military just say “kill” when they mean “kill”? Every time I hear “take out” I want to dial up the local Chinese restaurant for some fried rice and noodles.
BitchinDog here again. I am standing in for wormbutt (BarkinDog) here at the Dogalogue translation machine. We were a rogue nation in the Vietnam War era but snapped out of it when the men and women drafted into service saw the crimes being committed in the name of anti communism or some such mantra. That generation is well over 60 now and distracted by “grampa give me this or that” and no one will listen to them about these middle east wars. The folks in the military are volunteers whose parents want to make men out of them and simultaneously shirk from the economic pain or folly of sending junior off to college. So those in the military who see the folly of droning Pakistanis to death are few and far between. The main focus of the younger generation (dont trust anyone under 35) is on the motor vehicle of choice and the iPad.