When I was a kid, I got moved around a lot. I was the new kid in school in third grade, fifth grade, sixth grade, seventh grade, eighth grade, and ninth grade. It was not fun, it sucked, it was lonely and hard, and every time I made a friend or two, we moved again and I got to leave them behind. Most times, I never heard of them again. (Where are Karen Hughes, Kay Beadnell, Laura Leonhard, Mark Nacci, Carl Rapaport, Sinka Crane …)
As much fun as it wasn’t, however, it was … educational. I learned that the majority of other people’s children, when dumped into public schools and “socialized” in packs, are vicious little bastards, school-feeding pirhanas who like nothing more than a bit of fresh meat thrown into the water. I learned playground survival the hard way, year after year — I got to refine strategies that didn’t work and come up with better ones because no matter how well or how poorly I survived one year, I’d be pretty sure to get the chance to do it all over again the next.
I learned because I had to. And these are the rules I learned.
1. There are some people who are simply assholes, and no matter what you do, all they want is to draw blood. You cannot make friends with pirhanas, nor do you want to try.
2. The first people you meet are the pirhanas, because they are looking for fresh meat, while the decent kids see the assholes circling you and hang back out of fear. In a new situation, the people closest to you are probably the ones looking for weakness.
3. Negotiation is futile with playground pirhanas. They get nothing out of making peace. They want your pain, and only your pain will satisfy them.
4. Pirhanas cannot be ignored. I pity kids whose idiot mothers tell them to “just ignore the bullies, dear — they’ll go away.” No, they won’t. They’ll nibble away at you a piece at a time until you bleed to death.
5. Playground pirhanas can be joined. But only if you want to be as big an asshole as they are. I never wanted that, and never chose that path.
6. Playground pirhanas can be beaten. But it ain’t fun. If you do not want to spend the rest of the school year dealing with these bastards, your options are limited. To one. You have to make such a horrific example of the first shitwad to take a bite out of you that the rest flee in terror.
This means:
A. You commit to hurting. The playground pirhana derives his power from fear as much as from combat — but first he had to derive it from combat. He is going to hurt you. You have to face that, you have to accept it.
B. Having committed to fighting, you cannot then cut and run. Once you’ve realized that you’re going to have to fight your way out of this mess, you have to be in it for the long haul. If you quit at any point, you only set the scale for the next beating you get. It will start where the last one left off, because the pirhana knows that he has to commit that much effort to your pain to keep you in line. And he has to keep you in line to keep the rest of his victims in line. If anyone breaks free from his tyranny, everyone will see that it can be done, and the trickle will become a rout.
C. You commit to hurting back. Having accepted that fact that you are going to get hurt, your objective is to hurt the pirhana worse than he hurts you. You cannot be squeamish. You have to intend to draw blood, leave bruises and teethmarks. You’re probably not fond of fighting, but too bad. You do this, or you live in hell. This is what you do to buy a year of peace and quiet, and an umbrella. (More on the umbrella later.)
D. To hell with fighting fair. Your only objective is to win — big and loud. Screw the Marquis of Queensbury. You want to make sure that not just the bully, but the bully’s friends, have proof that if their hands stray within three feet of you in any direction they’re going to lose fingers. Do everything you have to do to hurt the bastard, and then throw in a couple of flourishes to scare the piss out of his friends. They have to know that the consequences of screwing with you are so dire that they never even consider it again — because if they doubt, they will test. And the next time they test, they’ll come better prepared.
E. Make allies. Watch each others backs. If you made a big and loud enough example of the first bastard, you’ll win not just peace and quiet for yourself, but for people who can legitimately claim to be your friends. This is your umbrella. After all, friends watch out for each other, and if anyone messes with your friends, they’re messing with you. Right? Right. Gather in the nice kids you wanted to be friends with all along, watch out for them, let them watch out for you.
F. Never mistake your friends for your enemies. Your friends are the kids who will fight to protect you. Period. If they won’t put themselves on the line for you the way you will for them, they aren’t your friends. Your enemies are the ones who will stand there making excuses for the kid who is trying to beat you up, or for why they aren’t stepping in to help you, or who will cravenly stand there and kick you once you’ve fallen to prove to the bully that they were really on his side all along. Never abandon your friends, and never turn your back on your enemies.
I learned how to fight when I was a kid — how to get hurt and keep fighting anyway. I learned never to start a fight, but to by God finish the fights others started with me. I figured most kids learned these same things.
But now I’m realizing we weren’t all playing in the same part of the playground.
For those of you who never had to learn to protect yourself, who were never the new kid, who had a group of friends you hung out with from kindergarten through college who made the world nice and safe for you, I’ll just note that the cloistered lives you lived are not the whole world and the rules you learned there are useless outside of safe walls. The corner of the playground where children were admonished to play nice is only a very small and sheltered part of a much bigger and nastier environment.
And the playground pirhana bastards who didn’t get the shit kicked out of them as kids grew up to be grown-up pirhanas. We’re fighting some of them now. The same damned playground rules, unfortunately, still apply.
We aren’t fighting a couple of holdout cities in Iraq. We’re fighting Islamic fundamentalist terrorists all around the world, because they’re shipping into Iraq from all over the world. We are fighting a fight without borders, and even though we’re going to get hurt, we cannot quit, because the only thing these shitwads want is to see us dead. That is the only way they win. They have defined the stakes, and we can either match them or trump them — except in this case, matching and trumping are both the same. We have to kill them. And we have to do it with a ruthlessness that will stop this shit now — because if we stop without killing them off, we will have only defined the entry level for the next round.
Welcome to the playground. It sucks, and nobody gets to leave. We all have to stay and play.
Holly wrote in response to Scott:
… considering I spent two and a half years just trying (and failing) to get you to ask me out.
I don’t know if I tried very hard, but I wouldn’t have minded either. He’s probably the only ‘younger’ guy I’ve ever found even remotely interesting.
FWIW, I’ve spent about half an hour turning up web pages I found by doing a google search on "attila hun monk." All I found was the "traditional" story that he murdered monks and nuns, and nothing about turning back to appease them.
I DID turn up another interesting link, though…check it out.
http://www.abacci.com/books/
But unless my textbook is wrong, Atila the Hun was stopped by nonviolence.
Don’t rule the incorrectness of your textbook out. The vast majority of textbooks currently being put out are worthless — they’ve been corrupted by revisionist history that pushes a left-wing/anti-democratic (little D)/pro-socialist agenda that has little to do with history and everything to do with social engineering. While I won’t state categorically that the Attila the Hun story is false, having never heard it before, I’d like to know what sources, including original sources, the textbook used.
The history I have both read and heard from a number of sources claims that after a defeat by the Roman Empire while invading Gaul, he withdrew, though sacking a number of Italian cities as he exited. He then died of a nosebleed on his wedding night to the last of a longish line of wives, ending the driving force behind the Huns.
Which has always been a strong supporting argument for my point. If you can drag in some original source material from your textbook, though, I’ll give it a look. Here’s a starting point for my side of the argument; includes both a very abbreviated history and a number of links to corollary sites, recommended reading, etc..
I’ll let Jim’s comments cover the rest of what you said, since I agree with them.
Okay, I’m all for analogies, but if you’re going to make one – make an accurate one.
Andi — please don’t go hostile on this. Hunter carefully placed the lines "… They usually only do this when well surrounded by a school of sunfish, or hidden in the kelp. Then (like the cartoon character Stitch) they suck their teeth back in and rub the orange back on their bellies and look just like sunfish again …" in his analogy, making it clear that though pirhanas and sunfish DON’T resemble each other, these particular pirhanas can make themselves look like sunfish.
If you haven’t seen the movie Stitch, you wouldn’t realize the aptness of the analogy. However, it was a very good analogy, making your off-topic comment both petty AND wrong.
I knew I should’ve asked you to mary me .
[g] … I would never have guessed … considering I spent two and a half years just trying (and failing) to get you to ask me out.
I’m having a tough time believing some of the stuff I’m reading here.
Islamic radicals do not kill Americans because they hate the very idea of America and it’s people. No. Really. Who they hate is Israel, and the Jewish people. Don’t believe me? Who has been fighting for the last few thousand years? Americans and Muslims? Or Jews and Muslims?
Let’s borrow Holly’s playground analogy. Bill, Bob, and Jerry all play on this playground. Jerry has hated Bob for years because he feels that, back in first grade, Bob stole one of his toys out of his backpack. Bob, however, has a friend named Bill who is the biggest boy in the class. So Jerry thinks and schemes how he might incapacitate Bill so he can get at Bob. Jerry could try to make a friend of Bill, but really he just can’t even stand Bill because he is Bob’s friend and realizes he can’t pretend enough to pull that one off.
So Jerry has to incapacitate Bill some other way. He starts a well-thought-out campaign of harrassment against Bill–making Bill look like a bully because he’s bigger–picking on Bill’s younger brother–teasing and tormenting Bill–trying to buy off others on the playground to finger Bill as a bully– feinting to test for weaknesses, gambling on the hope that Bill will get tired of it all and back away, leaving Bob at Jerry’s tender mercy.
The gamble Jerry takes is that Bill figures out who is behind the campaign and punches him in the face.
You talk about your cold-blooded, hateful strategies………
So, no, if you don’t get the motives of these Islamic radicals right, you’re definitely not going to stop them by feeding them, or ignoring them, or by any other method cited here.
Wow. Wish I’d had someone explain those playground rules back when I was in kindergarten.
A couple of quick comments:
To Holly, regarding recriprocal rights for allowing armed Americans on foreign flag carriers:
That’s a good point, and we’d problaby end up banning some countries from sending planes to the US just to keep their citizens from carrying arms on our flights.
Lets use the example of JAL (which, I will admit, was kind enough to give back the pocket knife I accidentally left in my carry-on luggage at the end of my flight, something TSA hasn’t even done with my confiscated sewing kit scissors).
The proposal reads that JAL will only be able to bring flights into the US if Japan allows Americans to be armed on their flights; otherwise, they cannot fly into the US because we cannot guarantee protection.
Conversely, we would allow Japanese citizens who had passed a terrorist response certification course to carry arms alongside American citizens on American flag carrier flights.
I’m not sure that I can picture Saudi Arabian Airlines (they currently send one flight per 4 days into JFK and Dulles) to allow armed American citizens on their flights, but we can always take the position that the recognition is not automatic.
Thinking through in real time here…
Anyway, as regards Kelsey’s post:
I’m not saying that peaceable resolutions are impossible, but they depend on the circumstances and the players and the timeframe people are willing to employ.
I hadn’t heard that story about Atilla the Hun; I need more information (did he stop all conquering, or just turn from the monks in a different direction; etc.) However, we have been trying peaceful resolution with Saddam for a decade without results.
Ghandi’s transformation of India took 30 years, and while it eliminated the British occupation (the backlash from that massacre of Ghandi’s followers was a major ffactor), it did nothing to stop the conflicts between Hindi and Moslem on the subcontinent, another of Ghandi’s major objectives — and the one that got him assassinated.
In most cases, nonviolent opposition only works when serious abuses of the system are the exception, rather than the rule. The British Empire was generally an enlightened one. Intense American opposition to racial integration was geographically isolated, and the integration forces generally had the federal government on their side.
There is no indication that these solutions would have applied to a man who:
a) a secular leader who is working with, rather than against, the religious leaders of his country to forment violence against select other peoples;
b) a leader who directed the use of poison gas against dissident elements of his own population;
c) a leader who offer his defecting son-in-law amnesty, then exceuted him brutally when he returned home;
d) a leader who formented violence against his racial (Kurd and Iranian) and religious (Sunni vs. Shiite) enemies;
e) a leader who tortured his political opponents to death, after forcing them to watch his minions rape their wives and daughters.
f) a leader who had "bought off" the governments of three of our major "allies" rather than submit to verifiable terms for disarmament.
Note that I’m NOT necessarily saying that we did the right thing; others (e.g. Jerry Pournelle at jerrypournelle.com) have offered defensible reasons why we should have left Saddam alone. Or at least Dr. Pournelle was until he had verification that Saddam’s minions raped Pvt. Lynch; this has quite incensed him, though I don’t know yet if it’s changed his opinion about the war in general.
The bottom line is, we had two choices: take Saddam out, or leave him in power and hope he was contained from attacking America by the leaky sanctions and the denial of continued inspections, while allowing his reign of terror at home and his support of anti-Israeli terrorism to proceed unabated.
And I’ll tell you this: the firestorm President Bush has faced for attacking with less than full facts is NOTHING compared to what he would have faced if he had let Saddam be, and let an Iraqi anthrax bomb, or worse, a nuclear weapon, be placed in Manhattan by Al Queda. Maybe the probability of the latter was quite low — but the regrets of NOT acting were, and are, virtually infinite.
Ok. You’ve given me the mike, right? I am very sorry, but I can’t afford the time to give you my full solutions to the war against Iraq, because I don’t have all of them and because this is complicated. That answer deserves full attention and not something I think of in the 8 minutes I have to write this.
However, let me give you some examples of nonviolent action working. Again I can’t go into detail, although I will get back to you and explain. Hopefully this will help give you an idea.
1. Atila the Hun. I’m sure you’ve heard of him , and his group’s violence in China and ideed, that whole area. How could killing them be more justified? But unless my textbook is wrong, Atila the Hun was stopped by nonviolence. A group of peaceful monks went to see him. They did not fight. They had no weapons. They just stood in his way and told him to stop. No one knows exactly his reasons for this affecting him, whether he feared God’s retaliation, refused to hurt such holy men, or simply was shocked by their defenselessness yet their willingness to risk their lives so they wouldn’t endanger his. Whatever was going through his mind, it worked. They stopped.
2. Gandhi. He gave India the right to self-rule without violence, relieving them from occupation and, in effect, oppression.
3. The Danes’ resistance to the Nazis. The whole country got together to defeat the Nazis wish to exterminate the Jews, and smuggled almost all of them out of the country while destroying their means of war, crippling the German army.
4. Martin Luther King. Slavery had been abolished. What else? Not much. Malcom X also tried to free his fellow brothers from oppression, but he used violence, and wasn’t nearly as effective as King.
5.Poland defeated communism, using Solidarity and strikes. Lots of them, country-wide. It took years, but it worked.
6. The defeat of aparteid in Soth Africa, using boycotts, noncooperation, etc. ALso took a long time, but it worked.
7.EL Salvador got rid of its MILITARY DICTATOR using manly strikes. He lost the will of the people.
Thre are more. Every situation is different, as well, and so it is not sure that any one solution used in the past will work the same way. But frankly, violence makes for better news, better coverage from the media, and we don’t hear about these things nearly as much as war. And by the war, you said that "It is not the way I want the world to work. But THEY CHOSE TO SET THE PARAMATERS OF THE FIGHT." So why are you accepting this? WHy not refuse to let them have the last word in defining the problem, and instead use creativity, organization, communication, the power of doing the opposite expected? HOw can we KNOW a peaceful solution won’t work until we try it? I think that is infinitely better than trying the war-like one first, saying "well, diplomatic solutions have failed." Did you ever REALLY try in the first place? Did you REALLY want to communicate with the Middle East and help solve the tensions thier, or were you going through the necessary steps without much hope of it working befoer you could do what you really though would work?
Besides, nonviolent responses aren’t always diplomatic. Confornt ‘em, don’t take it sitting down!
Excuse me, my 8 minutes are way past up. Thnk you for listening.
“(Yes, it’s a petty comment, but if you want to make a point, at least make an accurate point)”
Odd, however, I would bet that most of us saw the analogy. Could it be the old problem of the trees blocking the view of the forest again?
It is impossible to tell the piranhas from the sunfish until they show their teeth.
Okay, I’m all for analogies, but if you’re going to make one – make an accurate one. Sunfish do not, in any way, shape, or form resemble piranhas. If a person can’t tell the difference between the two, they should make an appointment with their eye doctor immediately – and then possibly a specialist for being unable to distinguish between salt water and fresh water.
Now, jacks bear a faint resemblance to piranhas (still wrong, though, since jacks are salt water species), so that might make a little more sense. Pacas are a good choice and from the same area as piranhas. Pacas a staple food in the Amazon, and they’re harmless – there you go, an accurate analogy.
(Yes, it’s a petty comment, but if you want to make a point, at least make an accurate point)
I knew I should’ve asked you to mary me.
The question is whether the general public has the stomach to be prepared to hurt. For those of us over here – we do, in large part because we see the sunfish and we see how clean water, regular food and electric power can improve their demeanor.
Can we have the embedded reporters back? So that we can see what our guys are seeing? So we can see the rebuilding and the successes, as well as shots of fires and explosions and burned-out tanks and assholes dancing in glee taken by some network face who has been looking for nothing but the photo-ops that bleed and lead?
Hunter — any ideas on how to get better intelligence from the local folks who are pro-US and who already know which of the sunfish are fakes? Money? Favors? More non-Islamic Americans trained to speak the language? (I’m still smarting from that business in Guantanamo.)
And as an addendum, Thanks. Thanks for representing us over there, for risking your own life to protect us, and for doing it in a way that shows the people who have suffered 30 years of anti-American indoctrination who Americans really are. Hugs from back here.
Unfortunately, you could always tell the bully on the playground (four inches taller than everyone else, ten pounds overweight, bad teeth and the facial tic), it’s not the same now. As some who have commented have said, most Iraqis are still pro-US – and this in spite of the fact that the majority have suffered through 30 years of indoctrination as a substitute for education. The minority is very small. Unfortunately, the populace is homogenous (at least to our unpracticed eyes). It is impossible to tell the piranhas from the sunfish until they show their teeth. They usually only do this when well surrounded by a school of sunfish, or hidden in the kelp. Then (like the cartoon character Stitch) they suck their teeth back in and rub the orange back on their bellies and look just like sunfish again.
How do you fight this? Unfortunately for us, the best rules we’ve been able to define are much like your playground – don’t punch back until you get punched, then fight to win. It is impossible to avoid casualties with this policy. The question is whether the general public has the stomach to be prepared to hurt. For those of us over here – we do, in large part because we see the sunfish and we see how clean water, regular food and electric power can improve their demeanor.
What if, theoretically, just half of the money that was going into national defense (trillions of dollars) went to feeding the hungry in those countries? With very clearly marked American packaging.
I think that this (though vastly overbudgeted in your proposal) is an EXCELLENT adjunct idea. (To be carried out simultaneously with hunting down and killing the terrorists.) It’s what we’re doing in Afghanistan. It’s much of what we’re doing in Iraq now, rebuilding schools and power plants and roads.
It would take a few years, but the most converts to zealous kamikaze-style terrorists come from the poor, and they would not strike at the hand that was (literally) feeding them and their children, and it certainly wouldn’t spawn 10 other groups that hated us and that we could only track down 9 of every time.
Actually, from what I’ve read, most of the terrorists are recruited from the Islamic upper and middle classes around the world, from universities and via the Internet (to which the hungry poor have no access in most parts of the world). Many of them have university educations; they are a sort of Islamic fundamentalist Bizarro-world version of the American anti-war hippies of the 70′s who preached pot, free-love, and throwing rocks at the guys who’d served their country in Vietnam. Many of them, including Osama bin Laden, are Saudi rich kids. These are not people blowing up planes to feed their families.
I MIGHT require proof of such training to allow people to carry arms onto aircraft on their person rather than in their carry-on baggage…but I would also tell every country in the world that if they wanted access to U.S. airports, they would allow and require American citizens to fly armed on their flag carriers — with reciprocal rights for their citizens.
I’m mostly with you on this, as adjunct policy to what I suggested rather than as a replacement. But that last line, last clause in the quote here had me peeling my fingernails out of the ceiling.
Reciprocal rights? Aaaaagghh! Allowing foreign nationals on our flights armed. Sure, we could shoot them if they turned out to be terrorists — but holes in the cabin and loss of cabin pressure can still result in everybody on board dying. And when you have people who use suicide as a weapon …
Ah, hell. Guns or no guns, you’re not going to see much improvement in the downed-plane outcome, I guess. I really think we have to start racial profiling on flights, too. Last time I checked, 100% of recent airplane terrorist incidents were caused by Arab men. That seems to be statistically relevant enough to give us just cause to eye Arab men getting on airplanes with extra caution.
It is assumed that without bombing and war, the only other option is sitting on our butts and doing nothing. THis is not true! It’s not what pacifism is about. It’s about non-violent ACTION, and that is why I believe there are options other than war right now.
Okay. I spent time as a Quaker when I was a kid — I understand the depth of belief in the power of peaceful resistance, even if I don’t share it. But you have the floor here. How do we as a nation solve this problem without violence? What non-violent actions do you suggest?
We just aren’t looking for them, becuase those options would be harder and slower. Harder, because more Americans might die than Iraqis.
Iraqis aren’t the issue anymore. Most of the Iraquis at this point are on our side. The ones who aren’t are a minority in a few pockets of Iraq. They are being bolstered by terrorists coming in from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Germany, and other places, responding to calls for soldiers on Islamic terrorist websites.
But I (and I think most Americans) do not consider repeats of 9/11 acceptable. I do not consider unanswered American deaths acceptable. That was the policy of the last administration, and it resulted in escalation by the terrorists to bigger targets and more deaths, not in cessation of hostilities.
Slower because it might take years. But then, the results would be MANY times as lasting as with violence.
Show me. Don’t give me a hypothetical happy ending without telling me how we get there. Spell out what would work, what people would have to do to make it work, where we get from pacifism to lasting peace, while dealing with the actual enemy we’re dealing with. You have the mike. Give it your best shot.
“This is why I do NOT believe the only way to stop terrorists is by wiping them all off the face of the Earth. That’s what wars in the Middle East have been trying to do for 30 years now.”
I believe dealing with terrorists has a lot in common with raising a garden. In both you have two choices: You can eliminate ever living thing in the garden and start over with fresh plants. The other choice is to accept the fact that you will have to weed the garden as long as you use it.
Europeans have been in effect “weeding the garden” in the Middle East The timing is not 30 years, instead it is 2500 years since they first took control under Alexander the Great. I would find it unwise to turn my back on someone with 2500 years of accumulated hate, even with the best of intentions.
"I realize that it’s the Islamic fundamentalists actually DOING it [the blowing things up]."
“I mostly meant that there are Christians and Americans with just as radical viewpoints who don’t do terrorism against Islamic people because…..”
I don’t believe I have seem the problem more clearly stated by either side. I guess the answer to the problem depends on what type world we actually live in!
In a perfect world a white knight gallops to the rescue of everyone who gets in over their head, innocents are never abused and tortured just for fun. Perhaps in this type world we can afford to be compassionate for evil beings.
Unfortunately in my world 2+2=4. Freewill means that the bad guy frequently wins. In my reality, burying you head in the sand means someone will kick your ass.
In order to understand which world you are in, pick up the newspaper and start reading. Unless you are very stubborn, you won’t need to go past page one.
Ah..circumstances.
It’s 11:30 and I have to catch a flight in 9 hours and still have stuff to do to get ready.
So I’m just going to throw this out and see what happens. It is in response to Holly’s post from 7:07 AM, the last I got to read before I left for work this morning…
I WILL read and respond to the other comments here…
__________
First, I WILL have to say that your approach is one which would undoubtedly work. AND it may well be the approach which will minimize the risk to ordinary American citizens.
Nonetheless, I don’t like it. It may even be necessary, but I don’t like it, and the reasons I don’t like it go back to the most fundamental concerns I’ve had about the US response so far — dirty laundry, if you will, that I’ve not shared in detail in posts on the site because I’ve taken pains to be supportive of the administration.
Fundamentally, I err on the side of libertarianism. (For example, I read Neal Smith with interest. I don’t 100% agree with him, particularly when he falls into conspiracy theories, but he makes a number of moral points with which I agree wholeheartedly.)
MY response would be to turn back the second amendment clock to the early 20th century. Or to implement the "Swiss" model. American citizens — I WOULD include gender, racial, and sexual equality in this equation — should have unrestricted rights to maintain and bear firearms, should be so encouraged in all circumstances to do so, and should have access to training in emergency response to terrorist situations at their own costs for training (I MIGHT require proof of such training to allow people to carry arms onto aircraft on their person rather than in their carry-on baggage…but I would also tell every country in the world that if they wanted access to U.S. airports, they would allow and require American citizens to fly armed on their flag carriers — with reciprocal rights for their citizens.)
If we had maintained the tradition that Americans are at all times responsible for their own security, up to and including the right to apply deadly force for self-protection (and the responsibility not to overreact), a right which can not and should not be adicated to police forces, law enformement officials, National Guards, or military except for individual dangers to the body politic (convicted felons, persons with a history of using poor judgement in such situaitons, etc.) September 11th would have been impossible. Admittedly it would have been a shootout aboard the flights, but outnumbered 10:1 the terrorists wouldn’t have been able to accomplish much and probably wouldn’t have tried.
Frankly, I can’t say I like my solution that much either. The right to bear arms is a lot more bearable if you aren’t expected to have to use them. It may, or may not be, as safe as the one you proposed. But it is the only response which I believe remains true to the desires and intents of the Founders. That solves our country’s security issues without imposing a level of government-mandated social control that I find unacceptable.
I didn’t say anything about a vast Christian conspiracy to blow up the world. Really. I even said something along the lines of, "I realize that it’s the Islamic fundamentalists actually DOING it [the blowing things up]." Sorry if I didn’t make clear that I didn’t think that there are equal numbers of Christians out there blowing people up (although I thought I had). I really have nothing against Christians or Americans, having been both most of my life (well, American all of my life =) ). I mostly meant that there are Christians and Americans with just as radical viewpoints who don’t do terrorism against Islamic people because they aren’t in abject poverty or don’t think that they can get away with it or just are so comfortable in their lives that they don’t feel the need to DO anything (thank goodness they don’t). But if there were someone fundraising for a terrorist anti-Islamic group, there would be a LOT of people donating.
And, you said to please list ideas other than blowing up our enemies. I believe I DID suggest an alternative to war in my last post.
THese are my reasons for not believing that the best way to stop terrosists involves war.
I am not a hippie pacifist. It’s all very well to say, "Peace!" and "War is wrong", etc. I say it, too. Heck, I even believe it. But there are many peopole who say this bcause they can, because they aren’t affected, they don’t know the details, and they don’t particularly want to. They this as an easy ideology. When push comes to shove, though, all those meaningless words will fly out the window and when faced with reality, they will realize they have no real basis for believing that, besides it sounds nice, and those ideals will disappear.
The truth is, it IS a dificult path to follow. IT’s not an easy idea to understand. SOmeone hits you, you hit back, right? There are many arguments in favor of this, most of which have been said. Pacifism, real pacifism, is illogical because it doesn’t seem logical that you could fight back without ever swinging a blow. But people aren’t logical. OUr feelings don’t always follow logical paths. It is not easy to say that we shouldn’t go to war, knowig there would be some immediate changes for the good. THat is a fact that war CAN humane benefits. Becuase we, as pacifists, sound idealistic, dont’ dismiss what we have to say, becuase it wasn’t an easy decision and we have legitimate reasons, that CAN (nothing’s foolproof) work in Real Life.
There is another assumption being made here. It is assumed that without bombing and war, the only other option is sitting on our butts and doing nothing. THis is not true! It’s not what pacifism is about. It’s about non-violent ACTION, and that is why I believe there are options other than war right now. We just aren’t looking for them, becuase those options would be harder and slower. Harder, because more Americans might die than Iraqis. Slower because it might take years. But then, the results would be MANY times as lasting as with violence.
People aren’t looking for other solutions becuase they are impatient, or blinded by anger and want for revenge. Justifications are readily at hand. War is the easier answer–a necessary evil. By this I don’t mean it isn’t hard for us to see our children go off to possibly to killed. It never is.
This is why I do NOT beleive the only way to stop terrorists is by wiping them all off th face of the Earth. That’s what wars in the Middle East have been trying to do for 30 years now.
The first people you meet are the pirhanas, because they are looking for fresh meat.
I agree with everything you’ve said except for this. I believe this is conditional, either that or I just got lucky.
I can give you this one. I might have simply been unlucky, and since my rules were formulated based on my own experience, they may not hold up to what others have experienced. I know they were true for me, and that many of them scale very well to world-conflict scale. That one may not.
Oh, my. I don’t know if I’m making much sense. I guess my point is, I think there are better ways to "fight" terrorism than blowing up the terrorists we can find and engendering hatred in five other groups every time we do that because of our high- handedness.
Please list them. I have been agonizing over this for months, and what I offered here is the best I have been able to come up with. But I freely admit that there may be better ideas out there, and if there are I want to hear them.
As I noted to others who have e-mailed me privately about this particular entry, I don’t mind if you disagree with me here in the weblog, so long as you stick to the point.
That’s beside the point, though. There are innocents on their side, and there are warmongers and fundamentalist christians (and other religions, including American) who hate everyone not christian (or not whatever religion, or American) on our side and would cheerfully blow up the rest of the world if they had the energy/initiative/confidence.
I’m afraid I have yet to see any genuine proof of a vast Christian conspiracy to blow up the world, and before I’ll let you get by with that statement as anything but an egregious example of religious intolerance, you’re going to have to give me proof that such a conspiracy exists. I’ll give you isolated wackos who bomb abortion clinics — those are real. I’ll give you isolated warmongers. But the statement as a whole is pretty nasty example of virulent, unsubstantiated anti-American/anti-Christian hyperbole masquerading as being even-handed.
I would just like to point out that Merriam Webster defines genocide as: "the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group"
It sounds to me like genocide is exactly what you are suggesting. Is it?
I have very carefully and clearly stated my position. I endorse killing ONLY those people who have already subscribed to the policy of the genocide of MY people. The actual terrorists.
I call it self-preservation. However, if you feel happier calling that genocide, I guess you’re welcome to do so.
The first people you meet are the pirhanas, because they are looking for fresh meat.
I agree with everything you’ve said except for this. I believe this is conditional, either that or I just got lucky.
I think it may be likely that the first people you meet are pihranas, but it is not a steadfast rule like everything else you’ve stated here.
I learned never to start a fight, but to by God finish the fights others started with me.
Amen. I suspect you and my mother would get along nicely.
Holly, you mentioned that "Not all ideas and all philosophies are born equal." I completely agree with you. But I can’t say that I think the American ideals (which I LOVE, especially "that ALL people have the God-given right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness") are being held in mind by every American, or even just the ones in power, or that other people with lousy ideas and philosophies necessarily act worse than Americans. I KNOW–they shot down the World Trade towers, they terrorize Americans, etc., and that IS behaving badly. That’s beside the point, though. There are innocents on their side, and there are warmongers and fundamentalist christians (and other religions, including American) who hate everyone not christian (or not whatever religion, or American) on our side and would cheerfully blow up the rest of the world if they had the energy/initiative/confidence. Again, I realize that the numbers are disproportionate, and the Islamic fundamentalists are actually DOING it.
Oh, my. I don’t know if I’m making much sense. I guess my point is, I think there are better ways to "fight" terrorism than blowing up the terrorists we can find and engendering hatred in five other groups every time we do that because of our high-handedness.
What if, theoretically, just half of the money that was going into national defense (trillions of dollars) went to feeding the hungry in those countries? With very clearly marked American packaging. It would take a few years, but the most converts to zealous kamikaze-style terrorists come from the poor, and they would not strike at the hand that was (literally) feeding them and their children, and it certainly wouldn’t spawn 10 other groups that hated us and that we could only track down 9 of every time. No, it isn’t our responsibility. But it never hurts to help people (Please spare me the dead-end version of the "if we give them food they will be leeches on us forever and never better themselves" argument, because that can go back and forth forever without any progress, and just depends on your view of human nature, I guess. Besides, if the alternative is killing them all, I really don’t think that’s a lot better than them becoming leeches, if the "leech" argument is that it isn’t good for them. If you say that it is a major drain on our treasury, well, what about the war effort?)
Another thing: the perspective that we are members of a country and the only way we can do well will be if we look out for our own interests first, then fit in philanthropy later, is not mine. It’s true, the world is set up in a kind of capitalist way. If we don’t look out for ourselves, no one will. But I don’t think that’s the best way the world could exist. And I don’t think we should settle for the way it is now–I think it is the RESPONSIBILITY of world leaders and the UN to try and make the world more of an ideal place, where dog-eat-dogism doesn’t belong. If we act like the world is not ideal and will never change, it WILL not change.
Holly, you said, "I do not want to see us endorse or participate in genocide."
I would just like to point out that Merriam Webster defines genocide as: "the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group"
It sounds to me like genocide is exactly what you are suggesting. Is it?
Maybe I’m missing something here but I don’t see how a war against terrorists can be won. It seems to me that while its possible to find some terrorists there will always be others who get away. Unfortunately it isn’t possible to tell from appearance whether or not someone is a terrorist (islamic extremist or otherwise).
It is also inevitable that innocent people will die and pretty likely that those innocent people will have friends and relatives who might not have liked you much before but definitely don’t now. Is this how new terrorists are made?
Unfortunately I don’t have any solutions (at least not right now, its nearly three in the morning here). As to how the war progresses I don’t think I have any influence. Perhaps something to be thinking about would be how to make sure that the war does end. How do you get the survivors to give up their animosity towards you or reduce it and prevent it from growing into a new war sometime ahead?
By the way, how would we know when the war is over?
Saying you want to wipe out the "Islamic fundamentalist terrorits" from the planet is the mirror image of their opinion of Americans. But they’re wrong and we’re right?
Very simply, yes. Not all ideas and all philosophies are born equal. Don’t know if you’ve read the Koran, but I have. I’ve also read the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and other supporting documents of American democracy. What we have to offer the world is better than the system they would replace it with. The American idea — that ALL people have the God-given right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is a stronger, better and more humane idea than the Koran’s assertion that anyone who does not embrace the Koran is a heretic and must die. While I have no problem with people who follow Islam but who choose to ignore that "heretic" bit in favor of a live-and-let-live philosophy (just as I have no problem with Christians who choose to ignore the Biblical demands to go out and convert the world, and to not suffer witches to live), since the terrorists set this up so that Americans are going to die, the only course of action we have that will end with our survival as a nation and a people is to kill them first.
The terrorists have set our current situation up so that people are going to die — there is no alternative scenario that would let everybody live, or I would champion that approach, even though it meant terrorists would live, too. And what I propose vs. what they have already declared isn’t a mirror image. I want us to specifically and selectively target ONLY those people who want to kill us. They have ALREADY targeted every man, woman and child in this country, regardless of race, creed, color, political affiliation, intent, or degree of innocence, declaring ALL of us heretics who must die.
This whole situation sucks. It is not the way I want the world to work. But THEY CHOSE TO SET THE PARAMATERS OF THE FIGHT. And if its going to be them, or me and mine, fuck them.
Been the new kid more times than I remember, dealt with ever manner of bully known to man and lived by Dad’s rule of "Never throw the first punch – but after they’ve hit you once, take them down." I never actually inflicted physical wounds (championed mental wounding, though!), but both of my brothers did…and made friends with the bullies very soon after. I found the same thing. Standing up for yourself and refusing to be bullied helped. We gained their respect, and they stopped being assholes (not all, but a lot did).
However, I don’t go in for the "blow them all to Hell, let God sort it out later" extremism (nor do I consider the two to be related – quite a big jump going on there). Yes, there are bad people out there. Yes, there are bad people who will forever be bad people – get over it. Wiping every "bad" person off the planet doesn’t solve anything. Different people believe different things – and are entitled to their beliefs. Saying you want to wipe out the "Islamic fundamentalist terrorits" from the planet is the mirror image of their opinion of Americans. But they’re wrong and we’re right? Doesn’t work that way. The day we start persecuting people for what they believe is going to be a very sad day. Oh, wait – we’re already there.
As I think I said some time before this started, I have several friends who believe that the appropriate reaction to 9-11 was to create a field of green radioactive glass from Jordan to Pakistan, from Turky to the southern edge of the Arabian peninsula.
I’ve heard the same suggestion a number of times. I do not want to see us bring nukes into this. I do not want to see us endorse or participate in genocide. So, like you, I disagree with this suggestion, though it would certainly solve the problem, or most of it.
I don’t like armchair strategists. People who are not in the fight lack the on-the-ground intelligence to make intelligent tactical commentary. However, I also cannot leave the following comment unanswered, which puts me into the position, for just a moment, of becoming what I don’t like. I apologize in advance, I acknowledge to those military folks reading this that I lack a lot of the critical informational intelligence to offer anything more that broad generalizations, and I open the floor to anyone who HAS such access to such information to correct me wherever I have erred.
The comment: I don’t see wiping anybody off the face of the earth as the answer. If nothing else, to do that, we’d have to become as ruthless, as cruel, as heartless, and as oppressive towards dissidents amongst our own people as they are.
We do not have to become the enemy to win this. We do not have to be oppressive, or cruel, or heartless. But we do have to stop being willfully blind, and pretending that we are not harboring enemies within our borders, and dealing abroad with a sizeable force of people who are sworn to the destruction of our forces and our way of life.
Here are the strategies I would recommend.
1. Rebuild the military, the CIA, and the FBI to Reagan-era size.
2. Put our own borders under the watch of our military, and police ruthlessly against would-be illegal immigrants.
3. Hunt down and expel ALL illegal immigrants and their families from the country. Those who have minor children born in the US could choose the option of internment (http://vikingphoenix.com/public/JapanIncorporated/eo9066/eo9066.htm" rel=”nofollow”>link 1, http://www.foitimes.com/internment/fallon2.htm" rel=”nofollow”>link 2) over expulsion until the war is over. (Note: I would ONLY offer this option to ILLEGAL ALIENS WITH AMERICAN CHILDREN.)
4. Require a signed statement from all LEGAL aliens who are citizens of a country with which we are at war or who are members of the Islamic religion, which considers itself a religion that negates national loyalties, and a portion of which has declared war on us, that they will not participate in, fund or harbor those who participate in or fund activities against this country.
5. Immediately expel those who do not, as well as all non-citizen family members. EXCEPTION: If they have citizen family members who are minors, I would offer internment as an option, with the point being not to break up families. I would not permit confiscation of assets of even those LEGAL aliens with citizen children who refused to sign a non-aggression pact if they chose internment. Their stuff would be theirs again once the war was over.)
6. On the foreign front, harden the borders of Iraq by any means necessary, make this policy LOUDLY public, and then start shooting anyone attempting to enter the country by anything other than legal means.
7. Bomb Tikrit, right now, into a smoking hole in the ground that nothing bigger than a cockroach could crawl out of. Tikrit is a localizable known center of Baathist sympathizers, and its utter destruction would make a very good demonstration of our determination to stop this thing. Yes, innocents would die. They died on 9/11, too, and they’re going to keep dying until this stops.
We cannot win this by quitting. We can only win it by fighting our way through to the end.
These are sketchy measures. They might be insufficient to stop deaths here at home, they might be insufficient to stop deaths of our people abroad. Those actually working in this arena could offer much better suggestions. But suggesting that if we dare to take the necessary measures to protect our own people at home and abroad, we will automatically become as cruel, heartless, and inhumane as our enemy is false.
We can’t do this and be "nice". That is true. But being "nice" is going to get us killed.
Answering this one in sections.
actually flatly disagree with your playground rules 2, 4, and 6. There are plenty of people who love to help newbies at anything, which is my response to number 2.
Fine. No problem with them. There are also a lot of people who love to kick the shit out of anyone who is seen as being alone, or weak, or indecisive. And on the playground, your biggest chance of being kicked comes when you’re new, just because you are alone, and nobody yet knows if you’re weak or indecisive. God help you if you cried on your first day. #2 stands, because no matter how many nice people there are, there are still plenty of assholes to go around. You ALWAYS have to watch your back.
About number 4–sometimes you can ignore them, although admittedly not all of the time, but sometimes even when you can’t ignore them, per se, you can still prevent them from picking on you by having a really strong sense of self.
We’re going to stop terrorists with a really strong sense of self? Really? If our self-esteem is high enough, they’ll decide they don’t want us dead and just leave us alone? You’re kidding me, right? You don’t really believe this. No one who saw the towers fall on 9/11 could really believe this.
Number 6…for "pirhanas" to REALLY be beaten, you need to have the entire rest of the "playground" on your side, and the "pirhanas" will generally back down against those odds. The hard part is getting people on your side, and if the "pirhanas" are bad enough, it isn’t all that hard.
Really? How bad is bad enough, then, since feeding people into a plastic-shredder feet first, and gassing a portion of his own population, and paying for cruise missiles, and developing nuclear technology, and developing germ warfare technology, wasn’t bad enough to convince the UN?
Sorry, but this assertion simply isn’t true. Sometimes before anyone else will help you, you have to go it alone.
Not that we did. We have lots of friends. These are the current coalition members:
Afghanistan
Albania
Australia
Azerbaijan
Bulgaria
Colombia
Costa Rica
Czech Republic
Denmark
Dominican Republic
El Salvador
Eritrea
Estonia
Ethiopia
Georgia
Honduras
Hungary
Iceland
Italy
Japan
Kuwait
Latvia
Lithuania
Macedonia
Marshall Islands
Micronesia
Mongolia
Netherlands
Nicaragua
Palau
Panama
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Rwanda
Singapore
Slovakia
Solomon Islands
South Korea
Spain
Turkey
Uganda
United Kingdom
United States
Uzbekistan
But the assertion that if you’re really right and they’re really wrong, everyone will play on your team, and the bad guys will get scared and run away is false. If it were true, there would have been no World War II.
Incidentally, I spent part of my childhood out of the US, too, living in Costa Rica and Guatemala. My viewpoint here is not based on ignorance of other countries, but on careful study of the one particular enemy we’re fighting at the moment. If you’d like to understand a bit better what exactly we’re fighting, I’d recommend an old (1980′s) and essentially neutral book, The Arab Mind, with http://www.alibris.com/search/search.cfm?qwork=7578524" rel=”nofollow”>Tea With Terrorists by Ken Power as backup. The latter is a well-researched teaching-novel that is more current, but that has some distinct and (to me) unpalatable religious biases.
In the case of the violent Muslims extremists, I know how you feel — they’ve wished every kind of horror on America and are now trying to carry out those wishes. But, on a purely human level, I think we have to recognize that, regardless of how malicious their motives, they honestly believe that we are evil, that we’re a huge bully, that we won’t mind our own business, and that we want to exploit them.
I don’t care what they feel. What they feel has nothing to do with me or mine. I don’t care what they think. They can think whatever they want and I will think that we should leave them alone. HOWEVER, I care deeply what they do. They haven’t “wished” anything on us. They’ve DONE. And http://hollylisle.com/greylog/archives/00000186.html#terrorist" rel=”nofollow”>this is what they had done up to Sept 11, 2001.
Understand, NO MATTER WHAT WE DO, Americans are going to die. If we do nothing more Americans will die. If we fight them weakly, some Americans will die, and other nations who are watching this with great interest (North Korea, China) will note the price of entry when they are ready to take their turn on the playground. If we make an example of them, Americans will STILL die. But not so many. And we may create an umbrella peace by stopping North Korea and China (and any others who are still undecided but would like to be a problem.)
I was an army brat–moved ten times in my first ten years–then completely changed schools in middle school and high school, never keeping friends through school changes. I have never found, though, that there are necessarily people as bad as you’re making them out to be. I really have faith in human nature–in everyone, not just a handpicked set of people I like. In a group, people can be kind of mean, but I think generally all they need is to be reminded of decency (in one of various ways). I actually flatly disagree with your playground rules 2, 4, and 6. There are plenty of people who love to help newbies at anything, which is my response to number 2. About number 4–sometimes you can ignore them, although admittedly not all of the time, but sometimes even when you can’t ignore them, per se, you can still prevent them from picking on you by having a really strong sense of self. Number 6…for "pirhanas" to REALLY be beaten, you need to have the entire rest of the "playground" on your side, and the "pirhanas" will generally back down against those odds. The hard part is getting people on your side, and if the "pirhanas" are bad enough, it isn’t all that hard.
I do see the point you’re making, but I have to disagree. Even when the pirhanas are really bad, if the group of them gets broken up, the individuals are usually ok.
As I think I said some time before this started, I have several friends who believe that the appropriate reaction to 9-11 was to create a field of green radioactive glass from Jordan to Pakistan, from Turky to the southern edge of the Arabian peninsula.
While I’ve never believed that, I do believe that it is necessary to take the war to the breedging ground of radical islamic fundalmentalism. Which is what we are doing, and doing reasonably well.
I’m an American but grew up overseas — in Asia and Europe — and moved schools every few years, too.
I went to school, made friends with, and grew up with Africans, Indians, Iranians, Lebanese, Israelis, etc, etc., and I find it hard to view whole countries or belief groups as enemies, although, sure, there are some that frighten the heck out of me.
In the case of the violent Muslims extremists, I know how you feel — they’ve wished every kind of horror on America and are now trying to carry out those wishes. But, on a purely human level, I think we have to recognize that, regardless of how malicious their motives, they honestly believe that we are evil, that we’re a huge bully, that we won’t mind our own business, and that we want to exploit them.
So while we’re over here thinking they have to be annihilated in order for us to be safe, they’re over there thinking the exact reverse. And not only that, but there are other people elsewhere in the world who also believe the reverse, and so even if we do completely annihilate the violent extremists in Iraq, there are still plenty of other people out there who wish us the worst.
What I’d wish for is that, without changing our goals for homeland security, our government could approach these international conflicts with a bit more finesse so that we keep the negative feelings towards the US in the world from escalating and spreading. Just what teachers are supposed to do in playground conflicts.
As a rule I avoid confrontation. But when I fight i go balls to the wall. So I agree with you Holly, wipe the SOB’s off the earth if we have to. I don’t want them coming back to hurt my children or grandchildren because we were too busy playing "nice".
I only moved schools twice, but the second time it was into one of Those areas, where if your parents weren’t born there you’re an outsider for life. Most of my teachers had tought the parents of the kids I was in school with…. I was the new kid for five years, until my parents pulled me out of school.
Interestingly, I don’t think I ever got into a fight per se. What I learned instead was to never, ever let them see me hurt. I can remember getting my hair pulled, getting tripped, getting shot at with rubber bands, et cetera – and I just clamped down on everything resembling emotions.
After a while the other kids left me and my friends alone, because they didn’t know how to handle me. I unnerved them. I wasn’t playing by the rules.
Fighting back is, of course, playing by the rules.
I painted a barn today, so this is more on the lines of faintly coherent blathering than actual social commentary. I’m also a card-carrying pacifist who believes that war can never be better than a necessary evil, and so I pretty much disagree with you from fundamental principles here. *grin* But I *respectfully* disagree, because you’re making good points.
But… I don’t see wiping anybody off the face of the earth as the answer. If nothing else, to do that, we’d have to become as ruthless, as cruel, as heartless, and as oppressive towards dissidents amongst our own people as they are. Becoming your enemy is a shitty way to win anything.
*wanders off to get some sleep*
Sorry, wasn’t specifying tit-for-tat as a specific strategy, only idicating an example of what is covered in the book, as I think it’s relevant to your article, should you ever feel inclined to read it.
I actually talked about the recent war with a friend of mine, who is Christian, and we talked about war vs. a Christian commitment to pacifism. She said it was really a matter of weighing the statistical odds. If we (or rather, the Amricans and British, since we’re Canadian) don’t fight to eradicate these people (by which I mean the terrorists and the governments that support them, NOT any peaceful citizens the nations that they spring from), the consequences will certainly be grave. No doubt. 100% bad result. If you do, they might be grave (all out war – posibbly nuclear), or they might be very very good (we kill them before they kill us, as they most certainly intend to, and help out another country while we’re at it).
I guess the choice is difficult as a Christian, but a no-brainer as someone who can see the odds stacked up. Of course there is no denying the impact of war on non-combattants (and the fact that non-combattants were taken out so specifically in 9-11 is not an excuse)…but how can any sane society NOT seek to protect itself, especially when there is no ambiguity about the other guys intention? (I think this was you objection to tit-for-tat? Tit-for-tat is essentially about building up a reputation as a forgiving but stern player. You start nice butyou essentially respond in like to the other player’s moves. If they strike, you strike back, if they ease off, you ease off. If they attempt genocide, you wipe the fucking floor with them.)
Well said.
I wouldn’t even consider advocating tit-for-tat retaliation. I’m advocating wiping the Islamic fundamentalist terrorist motherfuckers off the face of the earth. Period. They defined the game — stating that Americans were infidels and had to die. The only thing we determine now is how fast and how effectively we kill them, or they kill us.
Check out Matt Ridley’s Origins of Virtue if you have a chance. Excellent explanation of tit-for-tat retaliation and rules of cooperation, as products or by-products of our evolutionary history. (And Red Queen, for a completely different topic – sex. Also excellent.)