<<America's military principles, and very often its execution of those principles, are among the highest in the history of warfare, for nations engaged in serious warfare. >>
That's just ludicrous. Their trademark
modus operandi has become wholesale massacres of civilian populations by mass bombings to minimize their own casualties in a wars begun and continued by fraud, whose only hope of continuing in the face of domestic popular opposition lies in cutting U.S. losses to the absolute minimum.
<<The major blemish on Americans is the "collateral damage" . . . >>
Major blemish? That's like saying that the major blemish of Nazi Germany was the Holocaust. The inference is that here you have an exemplary nation (the U.S.A. in this case, Nazi Germany in my example) unfortunately tainted somewhat by the fact that hundreds of thousands and in some cases millions of civilians have to die in wars that it initiates for reasons that it dare not announce even to its own sheeple. NEWFSLASH, domer: 600,000 dead civilians is not a "blemish" it is a fucking atrocity. 2 million dead Vietnamese is not a blemish, it's an even bigger atrocity.
<< . . . rendered so much more burdensome from the blunder of entry >>
the liberal democratic mind at work - - the "blunder" of entry. It was no blunder and most people in the world understand that perfectly well. This was a criminal act of aggression of the exact same nature as was condemned at Nuremburg and resulted in death sentences for those who carried it out.
<<-- which taints the whole enterprise in the popular (global) mind -- but not from the design and intent adhering to a necessary (if temporary) presence now that "the die has been cast." >>
The die has been cast? How's that for obfuscation? The die was cast by an act of criminal aggression, which now becomes the justification for continuing the criminal aggression that began the whole thing. There's a kind of "Dog Day Afternoon" quality to this bizarre form of self-exculpation - - the criminals raid the bank, hoping to rob it and make a quick getaway; they become trapped inside, surrounded by cops with no way out. I guess, as people continue to get killed in the battle for the bank, the criminals could justify their continuing defiance of law and order with a semi-mystical submission to fate - - "the die is cast" and now everyone must play out his role - - but what kind of feeble-minded jerk would accept that mock submission to fate as any kind of exculpatory justification for the continuation of the original criminal conspiracy?
<<Al Qaeda, on the other hand, by choice and necessity, thrives on non-military targets, ripping apart innocents in a reign of terror designed ultimately to usher in the most violent and repressive of regimes. >>
Translation: to realize THEIR political goals, al Qaeda has to sacrifice innocent civilian life. Which of course is different from the U.S. policy how?
<<As for the particular tactic of torture, broadly defined it is their standard calling card, and has become a showcase method of barbarity in Iraq, repeated over and over until the stomach revolts . . . >>
Maybe you could back up that hyperbolic bs with just ONE example of al Qaeda torturing anyone? You just might be confusing them with the Shi'ite death squads operating out of the Ministry of the Interior of the U.S.-backed al Maliki government. But I'm a reasonable man - - I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. And all I ask is just one example.
<< and this as a matter of cold, calculated policy, not a spectacle such as ours with jingoes playing jailor in non-fatal ways.>>
What is non-fatal in pulping a 23-year-old guy's legs for three days till he dies of venous embolisms? What's non-fatal about beating a guy and smothering him in a sleeping bag till he croaks? These are just two cases that came to light on U.S. torture of prisoners, not one has come to light regarding al Qaeda treatment of prisoners.
