Yes, most of America would.

But he has his Neo-Cons guarding our Rights and even the International Declaration of Human Rights. So were all fucked.

Impeached? Never.

He's going to use this as a cover for Martial Law and then he's in for 3rd term or even 4th -6th or whatever.

Until he dies.

He was born a mistake.

Truely, he was. Abortion man, Bush = the reason for Pro Choice. ABORT the fucker. Erm, time machine kicked in, convince Bush and Mr. Bush 40+ years ago to kill the bastard fetush within her.

Don't you wish that happened? I do.

-=|peace|=-

I disagree with the cartoon I posted because 1. It tells children that revenge via violent action is the key to victory. 2. It tells children how to make suicide bombs and to contact terrorist organizations. 3. It negates any peaceful influence on Children. 4. It's aimed at children, not adults, and takes an immature stance on how to deal with problems.

Sure, Israel has done some messed up things to the Palestinians. But there are things such as peaceful protests, replacement administrations, Democracy, and logical reasoning. This cartoon does not stress anything but extremist logic and terrorist tactics. The worst part I say again, it's aimed at Children.

To answer your question.

Bokonin, violence is subjective in terms of the degree of violence. One person can consider kicking a stone or skipping a rock over water to be violent. Or someone can consider a certain sport to be violent or competition. Violence is subjective. Using Nuclear weapons is not. Nuclear energy was never meant to be used as a tool to control other sentient beings. Unfortunately, mankind, with religion, and the lack of seperation between logic and emotion, has not yet mastered the understanding of justifiable violence. If our whole species is in jeopardy of survival and violence is our only option, then violence is justified. If our "Freedoms" are in jeopardy, violence is not justifiable because if the majority is not willing to cooperate, there can be no threat to justify violence against that which threatens our definition of freedom. There needs to be no nuclear weapons. Ever.

Dude, telling kids to join militia's and use Suicide bombs to attack an army is just messed up. So, some french against the Nazi's wasted their lives trying to fight them. Good thing other country's helped them out and got rid of the Nazi's anyway. If Israel is commiting crimes against humanity then get Iran and Syria to help them deal with Israel. Violence is categorized, generalized, and subjective. Sports - Violent sports, violence in sports. Societies - Violent Societies, violent acts of civilians in societies, crimes within society that are violent. Military/Militias - Falls into a completely different category. Violence, when applied to Military or Militias turns into defensive or offensive tactics to achieve desired results.

Sure, Israel has made mistakes, so have the Palestinians. But the UN declared them an independant country and Palestine/ Jordan want to work with Israel. You have a bad animator and some militant extremist group produce, against the majority or policy makers wishes, a video that tells children to bomb Israely forces by a means of suicide attacks. Screw that. So when would the attacks end? When Israel is wiped off the face of the map?

Man, take a look at the world situation. We don't need Violence amongst nations. We don't need to be in Iraq, Israel nor Palestine don't need anymore attacks, and we don't need movies telling children to incite attacks against israelies just because some random cartoon tells them it's alright.

Bokonin, you should check out the Socrates Cafe blog ring, if you have time for it.  I'm in it.  It's has several subjects up for philosophical inquiry and discussion every week, and other people will respond to your posts that relate to the topic(s) of the week

"Its certainly a lot more honourable than dropping a bomb from thousands of feet in the air which is what America does. Takes a hell of a lot more commitment."

Funny how that works - if you send your soldiers in to die, you're evil, but if you keep your soldiers safe, you're dishonorable.

I understand what you are saying to some extent, but I disagree with your conclusion.  I see added sacrifice and courage as possible indicators of added honor, but not conclusive ones.  A suicide bombing is not more honorable than dropping a bomb from the sky, just because the committment is greater.  Way more factors go into the equation than that.

(personally, I think that most of our pilots are more honorable than most suicide bombers, but that's not an opinion I can justify easily - I think that way too many of the variables are disputable.)

I agree with most of your analysis.  My problems with suicide bombers definitely comes partly from the fact that they appear much more likely to target civilians.

There are a couple other problems as well.  Suicide bombers operate by appearing to be innocent people, which enables them to get as close as possible to their target.  As a result, they cast suspicion on all innocent persons.  Nations have a generally accepted rule of war (I believe it's even in the Geneva convention) that soldiers must be dressed as soldiers, so that suspicion is not cast on innocents.  By using the technique of suicide bombing, it gives greater justification for your enemy to do terrible things in response that may hurt innocents.  That's why Israel has such racist policies concerning its borders, and why American soldiers occasionally shoot up a car that screws up at the roadblocks.  If there were no suicide bombers, then military targets would be much clearer.

Second of all, a number of bombings have taken place where those who go in to help the wounded have been bombed as well.  I've seen reports of secondary bombings to kill the altruistic in both Israel and Iraq.  That is a horrible tactic, first of all because it kills those trying to do good (which can certainly include non-combatants), and second of all because it discourages those who want to give aid to people who suffer.

Third of all, it takes a very certain mindset to become a suicide bomber.  As a result, people seem to be preyed upon from a young age so that they may become suicide bombers.  Some people have issues with military recruiting in the US, but that doesn't even come close to approaching in indoctrination of the young and the destitiute that results in suicide bombings.

So, for me, the tendency to target civilians, the failure to dress as soldiers which leads to harm carried out on innocent citizens, the method of repeated attacks which kill those who bring help, and the indoctrination of the most vulnerable to get them to carry out these bombings, all lead me to see suicide bombing as a generably less honorable tactic for a fighting force to use than bombings.

(and I think I've mentioned this before, but I'll repeat it again.  I'm not only strongly against civilian casualties, I'm against the war in Iraq and almost always against war in general.  I hate bombings of any kind.  But even though I am against both types of bombings, I really hate moral equivilency (or worse) where I feel it does not belong.)

"So what do you hate more? Arguments or not getting the last word?"

That is an enormously difficult question for me to answer.

I honestly am not sure.  I can say that I hate people being misinformed more than either of those options.  But in my attempts to make sure that people are my version of "correctly informed", it certainly feels like I hate not getting the last word.  The length of a number of these arguments would seem to confirm that not getting the last word in the greater worry for me.  Then again, I usually feel terrible after arguing, while I rarely feel bad when I don't get the last word.  So I'm not sure which one I hate more.

Honestly, I think that we've made positive ground here.  I'll respond briefly to a number of your statements, and perhaps that will be enough from me for now.

"My only reponse to that is that we shouldn't be there in the first place. Generally the situations you are speaking off will only crop up when there is an occupying force opressing the indiginous population who cannot fight back in a conventional mannor. In such cases the first wrong has been commited by the occupying force who have a moral obligation to withdraw, because they do not have a legitmate reason to even be there."

I agree in that our presense has allowed the whole situation to be created, and that is significant reason that we should not bring ourselves into a country in such a fashion anymore.  But I don't like "you did it first" arguments, and I believe that all actions should be evaluated on their own merits, and the pros and cons of the decisions of other parties should be evaluated seperately.

"Groups like Al-Quaida aside, I don't think the typical fighter in the Iraqi resistance wants to kill civilians any more than an individual American pilot wants to kill civilians. "

I'm not 100% sure of that.  A lot of the Sunni attacks on Shi'ites could be characterized as "part of the Iraqi resistance", but are certainly being taken against civilians.  The numbers would definitely weigh heavily over if you considered Iraqi policemen to be civilians.

"I also really hate it when people pretend that when we drop bombs the collateral damage is inevitable and so somehow justified but when a sucide bomber kills civilians it can only be from purely evil intentions."

I was only thinking of the occasions in which civilians are targeted, which is not uncommon in suicide attacks.  I hate collateral damage as well, but I think that many civilian deaths by suicide bombing could not even be described as collateral damage, but direct targeting.

"Because my original argument wasn't to do with sucide bombers in general but a hypethetical situation (as depicted in a cartoon) where a sucide bomber takes on the Israeli army and not civilans. To attack an argument I never made is to commit the strawman logical fallacy. It's always easier to attack the argument I didnt make than the argument I did make isn't it? I hope you arn't doing this on purpose as rhetorical tactic but have just been unclear about what I was saying."

I was unclear here.  I don't remember seeing the cartoon you are referring to so I thought the comment had broader implication than you may have intended.

Anyone catch the latest Gitmo tapes/pics released? Pretty messed up.

Now the whole Iran BS thats going on.

Any theory's as to whats going to happen next??

"Yes, but your argument lends itself to a "you did it first" justification too, in that you seem to excuse the Americans for killing civilans because the Iraqis did something FIRST. The Americans feel justified in shooting Iraqi civilians because apparant civilans blew themselves up FIRST. They feel that they are the ones reacting to what the Iraqis did FIRST."

"I agree with you actually. But following this principle, why shouldn't the suicide bomber evaluate his actions on its own merits and leave the pros and cons of the decisons of the U.S. Army (i.e. the decision to start shooting civilians for security reasons) to be evaluated separately? Conversely is it right to evaluate the actions of U.S. troops in terms of the pros and cons of an Iraqi sucide bomber and his decisions? Or wouldn't you prefer we evaluate those actions on their own merits?"

We agree on more than you think here.  First of all, I'm not excusing US forces for killing civilians.  I have always disagreed with the war primarily because wars kill civilians, and since that's nearly impossible to prevent it is better not to get into the war in the first place.

Second of all, I need to be clear on what I mean by "evaluating actions on their own merits".  What I mean is the basic two wrongs don't make a right.  You can't excuse one action just because someone else's action was wrong first.  What I certainly don't mean is that the unintended consequences of your action should not be examined.  When the US invades Iraq, they should definitely consider the Iraqi resistance when they decide whether or not invasion is a good thing.  When suicide bombers kill soldiers, they should definitely consider what the soldiers' response will most likely be when they decide whether or not suicide bombing is a good thing.

So in other words, justifying your actions because someone else is more evil than you is off limits, but considering the response to your actions because someone else is dangerous is certainly expected and necessary.

"Sunni is a very broad way to characterize the resistance. Not innaccurate, just very broad, as it would include Al Qaida which also happens to be Sunni. It is debatable whether the non Al Qaida groups are deliberately targetting civilians."

I'm speaking of the apparent religious warfare that is seeming to become more common, and appears to target civilians.  It feels like this is the leading cause of deaths recently, although as you state it probably was not in the earlier stages of the occupation.

 "No I don't. Not in this context. In this context they are tools of the U.S. military. They're fighting to protect the order established by the occupiers which does not make them legitamate protectors of the rule of law but simply local enforcers of the occupying agents."

I don't think this is fair because I think that an Iraqi could see joining the police force as a major contributor to stability.  A strong and non-attacked Iraqi police force would probably be the #1 factor in getting America out of Iraq.  There may be people who can bring up reasons to disagree with this statement, but I am sure that there are people who truly believe it.  I do not believe it fair to say that every police officer just wants to be a US pawn. 

The first part of your post seems to be a good explanation why guerilla warfare is most often a bad idea.  You admit that the tactics they use will certainly result in an increase in civilian deaths.  But you don't seem to consider the option that they could not fight the guerilla war, and thereby not incur the civilian deaths.  Remember how quickly Saddam's government fell, and the relatively small number of deaths at that point.  Isn't there some part of you that believes that it would be much better for the Iraqi people if the insurgents had laid down their arms at that moment, and turned to working for the betterment of Iraq instead?  Isn't there a possibility that peace could be preferable to continued war in this instance?

From there you lead to the idea that the United States is a country bent on control and dominion for the sake of oil.  Iraq is responsible for about 3% of America's oil.  We acquire our oil without taking over and dominating any of the other top 10 suppliers, even though many of them (Canada, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Nigeria) import more than twice as much oil to us as Iraq. 

When you look situations like the one in Iraq, you have to consider the real pros and cons.  You have to think - how would controlling Iraq in the manner you describe actually provide net benefit to the United States?  Considering the enormous monetary costs, the political costs, the loss of life, the loss of stature in the world's eyes, and the costs of maintaining such control - how could it ever be a beneficial thing for the reasons you describe?  I can understand why a logical person would want to get Saddam Hussein out of power, even though I wouldn't have used the methods they used.  I can understand why a logical person would want there to be a real democracy in a Middle Eastern Muslim-dominated country, even though I don't think you can go about making one the way that they have tried.  But I can't understand why a logical person would decide that a constant occupation of a hostile Middle Eastern country would be a beneficial decision.

I see both the right and the left as misguided groups who want the best for people but don't know the right way to go about doing it.  The right mostly appears to see the left as good-intentioned but misguided idiots who can't figure out what's good for them.  But the left seems to see the right as evil-intentioned schemers who are borderline insane.  That's a very dangerous route to take - since the vast majority of almost all peoples wants to do good, you will never correctly understand others if you insist on believing that they are simply evil.  Ever since you reccomended that I read counterpunch.org a year or two ago, I've been browsing their articles and trying to understand the ideology of the authors.  And it's a world where logic almost always comes with giant, gaping holes.  I have often sent emails to the writers trying to show them where they have made factual errors and mistakes in logical progressions.  I have yet to recieve any replies.  Their world is one where useful discourse is impossible - those rants aren't written with the hope of convincing anyone on the other side.  Almost none of those articles have the slightest hope of convincing anyone on the right.  They're equally unlikely to ever convince anyone in the middle.  There's probably even a majority of people on the left that would have a hard time believing most of the things they say.  And that's why that sort of discourse will not result in anything useful.  It completing fails to understand everyone else involved.  Until the far left figures out that the people on the other side want to be good people too, until they understand their motivations as ones of benevolence, until they dialogue with them in such a way that real communication can be carried out, they will continue to be irrelevant.

Thank you for that insightful comment (I'm not being sarcastic).

Just a few points of clarification:

I strongly disagree that an immediate US pull-out is the most peaceful solution for Iraq.  In the past the US has invaded countries and stayed in them until they stabilized, resulting in long-term peace.  Considering the combined effect of Al Queda and the Sunni-Shiite rivalries, I can't imagine a peaceful future coming after a withdrawal from an unstabilized Iraq.

I am not "center" and don't believe I would describe myself as such.  I hold some left ideals (anti-war, pro-environment, pro-gay marriage) and some right ideals (anti-abortion choice, pro-hunting, pro-employer autonomy in hiring).  I believe that all my political positions are strongly tied to my religious values, but I would not ascribe any degree of "conservativeness" to my religious values.  I was strongly religious and strongly left-wing through college and post-college.  I do have positions that I would describe as central (on the death penalty, gun laws, drug legalization).  Overall, however, I can really only describe myself as "independent".

I certainly believe that counterpunch.org is on the left, and I agree with you that they are so far to the left that they see other people on the left as being on the right.  I only identify you as being on the left so far as you're using counterpunch-like arguments to support yourself.

And I believe there's more options that the administration being evil and the administration being idiots.  I think that they have good intentions, but were misguided because they don't realize that war will inherently almost never work to solve problems.  Since a huge portion of our population doesn't realize this, I'm not going to assume that you must be an idiot or evil to think that such aggressive action could possibly be good.  As far as wars go, I think that this was one of the more supportable ones in American history (certainly more supportable than the Mexican, Korean, or Vietnamese conflicts, or the vast majority of our myriad actions in Central America).  I think that I could only support the US entry into war if war was already in progress and one side was substantially more "evil" than the other.  Even then, I would only support it if I believed that the war was winnable and that US entry would certainly minimize the casualties in the long run, and if every other option truly was exhausted (a qualification that I'm not sure has ever been met in US history).  But my strong position against war is not shared by most people, and I'm not going to assume that anyone who doesn't share it is either evil or an idiot.

"You are anti-war and yet you want the U.S. to stay until Iraq is "stabilized". How is that an anti-war position? That is President Bush's nominal position."

No - President Bush was the one who invaded the country in the first place.  I was strongly against the invasion of the country at every moment.  I even rooted against them finding WMD's (even though I believed that they probably existed), mostly so the war would look even more unjustified.  My roommate was the organizer for anti-war activity on Mudd's campus.  I shared my views with hundreds of thousands of people, getting into heated arguments with right-wing radio hosts about why, as someone from a Middle Eastern Christian denomination, me and my church were against the war.  I am certainly anti-war, and no attempts by you to paint me as otherwise will change that.

But we created a mess in Iraq.  And I think that leaving would make the mess worse.  What evidence do you have that the Sunnis and the Shiites could possibly work things out peacefully on their own?  We've mediated recovery in other hostile countries (Japan, Germany) with great success.  I still think that it could happen here.