agonizing decisions

[Plane]

Col. Jack Jacobs, a Medal of Honor winner and NBC News analyst, said that decisions to go ahead with an attack when civilians are believed present are among the most agonizing military commanders have to make.

"As a military officer, it is difficult to talk about the calculation involved, weighing the independent variables, whether it’s saving your country or achieving your objectives, while acknowledging that it requires the taking of innocent lives."



http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19318805/wid/11915773/page/2/

[gipper]

Not to beat a dead horse, but the torture debate bears on this obliquely. The decision to torture or not involves a host of variables and an excruciating calculation of can you afford to lose humanity to save humans. Somewhat similar in its analytic rigors, the decision to shell or bomb an enemy redoubt when innocents may be present requires similar trade-offs and odds-making. To the surprise of some, maybe, I must announce my firm discomfort with endangering innocents, a factor completely absent in the hypothetical we were using on torture. 

[Michael Tee]

It's relative.  In WWII, the Allies had to agonize over bombing French sites manufacturing war material for Germany.  A lot of French workers were killed.  I think this was done with the advance approval of the French Resistance but it still evoked a lot of anger at the Allies in France.  This was in the context of a war for the liberation of Europe from Nazi occupation, so there was no underlying issue of tainted causes.

In Iraq, of course, the whole fucking enterprise is tainted and corrupted.  It's an unjustified war of unprovoked aggression, an invasion and occupation which fit the classic definition of a Nuremburg war crime, and the "incidental" deaths of innocent civilians in furtherance of such criminal goals is nothing but an aggravation of the original felonies.

This explains the fake "moral dilemma" of the Colonel - - it allows him to take for granted the virtuous cause within which a potential blemish (the deaths of "innocent civilians") threatens to stain the purity of the whole enterprise.  NBC goes along willingly and wittingly with the charade.  Putting this whole fake "dilemma" before the general public is part and parcel of the government's and the military's PR objective, to portray the war as a fundamentally valid and decent undertaking conducted by sensitive and caring individuals who actually agonize over whether or not innocent civilians have to die.  The colonel, in my mum and dad's phrase, is "weeping great crocodile tears."

Who the hell do these guys think they are still fooling?  People just have to find an alternative to the MSM, but where?

[The_Professor]

This reminds me of the recent failed Isreali excurion into Lebanon. Some analysts posulate that one reason for its failure was Isreali reluctance to bomb marketplaces filled with Lebanese innocents in order to "get" the Hezbollah militants ensconced there, e.g. killing 200 to get 1.

[Michael Tee]

The Israelis killed 57 schoolchildren (maybe I got the number wrong) in one air strike so I don't know how reluctant they are to inflict civilian casualties, but I'd assume they're still a lot more reluctant than their U.S. patrons if the Iraq body count is any indicator.  Neither one of them is going to set any shining moral example for the rest of the world to follow, that's for God-damn sure.  But it's interesting how in both cases, the aggressors are so desperate to avoid any mention of the 800-lb. gorilla in the room, the basic wrong or injustice festering at the heart of the conflict, and instead "agonize" over ancillary or derivative issues such as the "morality" of civilian casualties, the fundamental merits of the conflict itself being thereby eclipsed.

[BT]

I don't know how reluctant they are to inflict civilian casualties, but I'd assume they're still a lot more reluctant than their U.S. patrons if the Iraq body count is any indicator.

The majority of the Iraqi Body count is insurgent derived.

[Michael Tee]

<<The majority of the Iraqi Body count is insurgent derived. >>

Funny, though, how there wasn't any significant "insurgent-derived" Iraqi body count before the U.S. invasion and afterwards it just seemed to blow up out of control.  Conveniently too, because once the WMD lie was finally exposed, the "insurgent-derived" bloodshed increased exponentially just when the Americans needed a new reason to stay on as invaders.  How lucky was THAT?

[BT]

Funny, though, how there wasn't any significant "insurgent-derived" Iraqi body count before the U.S. invasion and afterwards it just seemed to blow up out of control.

My point remains the same. Iraqi's are killing Iraqi's in far greater proportion than the evil Satan is killing Iraqi's.

Your cause and effect anology disavows choice.

And the Iraqi's do have choice.

[Michael Tee]

<<My point remains the same. Iraqi's are killing Iraqi's in far greater proportion than the evil Satan is killing Iraqi's. >>

Oh yeah, right.  And I suppose you think that the Iraqis killing Iraqis has nothing at all to do with the Great Satan?  That the Great Satan isn't doing anything to encourage this last remaining reason for their staying on?

<<Your cause and effect anology disavows choice.

<<And the Iraqi's do have choice. >>

God-damn right they do.  They can choose to lie down and let the U.S. fuck them in the ass by dictating to them how they are going to run the country and and  its resources - - OR they can choose to fight the bastards with everything they have and keep killing them till they pack up and leave, like they did in Viet Nam.

[BT]

God-damn right they do.  They can choose to lie down and let the U.S. fuck them in the ass by dictating to them how they are going to run the country and and  its resources - - OR they can choose to fight the bastards with everything they have and keep killing them till they pack up and leave, like they did in Viet Nam.

Yeah shame about all that collateral damage in their righteous struggle to overthrow the yolk of the Great Satan.

You would think they could target better by now.

[Michael Tee]

<<Yeah shame about all that collateral damage in their righteous struggle to overthrow the yolk of the Great Satan. >>

Geeze, I'm impressed by this new-found concern for collateral damage.  You sure it isn't un-American?

<<You would think they could target better by now. >>

Well, I don't think it really was collateral damage, BT.   They just aren't as hypocritical as the Americans are about such things.

[BT]

Well, I don't think it really was collateral damage, BT.

Of course it isn't. They know exactly who their target is. It is other Iraqi's. Which has been my point all along.

BTW you 600k figure is bogus. You know it, and so do i.

Those figure only come along in election years. They aren't meant to be accurate. They are meant to shock.

Save it until it matters.

[Michael Tee]

From The Lancet's study

This survey indicates that the death toll associated with
the invasion and occupation of Iraq is probably about
100 000 people, and may be much higher. We have
shown that even in extremely difficult circumstances,
the collection of valid data is possible, albeit with limited
precision. In this case, the lack of precision does not
hinder the clear identification of the major public-health
problem in Iraq?violence.

www.thelancet.com Published online October 29, 2004 http://image.thelancet.com/extras/04art10342web.pdf 5

What a relief to know that "only" 100,000 Iraqis had died at the time of the survey.  According to Lancet, It "may" be "much higher."  But we don't worry about that.  Tommy Franks sure doesn't.  Tommy Franks, by his own admission, "doesn't do" body counts.  Strange, for an army that allegedly "makes every effort" to avoid civilian casualties, that effort doesn't seem to extend to even bothering to count how many civilian casualties they DO cause.  Maybe they have some way of knowing that doesn't involve counting.  Every week, the General's aide reports to him on the civilian casualties:  "Shitload a casualties, sir."    "WHOAA, that's a helluvan improvement over last week, major.  Last week was "Whole big shitload a casualties"  Congratulate the men, major.  Let's see if we can keep it up."   Yep, the U.S. army makes every possible attempt to avoid civilian casualties.

[BT]

100k is far lower than 600k.

And like i said the majority is Iraqi on Iraqi deaths.

The Lancet study doesn't come close to the numbers posted by other independent groups like the Iraqi Body Count or the UN.

[Michael Tee]

<<100k is far lower than 600k.>>

Considering how an entire country of 300 million people went all ape-shit over less than 3,000 killed on Sept. 11, I'd say that 100,000 killed in a country of 23 million is one hell of a lot of dead people.  Somehow I get the feeling that if it were 600,000,  you'd bust a nut trying to minimize that figure as well:  "600,000 is far lower than 3,600,000" or some such nonsense.  Whatever the number of Iraqis killed, it will never be enough to make you doubt the wisdom of the original enterprise, so why pretend that it makes any difference at all to you that the death toll (reported I think two years ago) was "only" 100K and not 600K?

<<And like i said the majority is Iraqi on Iraqi deaths.>>

Like the U.S. had absolutely nothing to do with any of them.  Yeah right.

<<The Lancet study doesn't come close to the numbers posted by other independent groups like the Iraqi Body Count or the UN. >>

Iraq Body Count was specifically at pains to point out that their methodology would inevitably lead to a major undercounting of the casualties and I'm not at all familiar with the UN count.