Psycho-Death Cult
Archaeoblogologist Ace does some digging, uncovers traces of an anti-military cult in our midst, in the recent past. As in last week, briefly, at Kos, before the high priests feared what they had wrought and exorcised it. Spirit summoned up here in a Google seance. Psycho-death cult is obsessed with the myth that all soldiers are psycho-killers.
Brain-scooping Nation article referenced by death cultists here. It turns out war sucks, it involves death, gallows humor, fear, overreactions, mistakes. Who’d have thought?
Scribbling theology student Chris Hedges, who thought war is the force that gives us meaning, is shocked, or at least betting he’ll make money on the premise that readers will be. He brings us the brain-scooping incident, which is in poor taste, but not exactly criminal.** There is a dog that gets shot, which is maybe unnecessary, depending on whether the soldier considered that dog a threat. Investigate a dog-shooting? There are a lot of people who get rousted from their beds in the middle of the night and searched, and sometimes the GIs think the officers are making them take away the wrong guy. At that point I got bored and bailed.
Presumeably, if Hedges had found any actual war crimes, he would have led with them ahead of the dog-shooting and hamming-with-brains anecdotes. Another case of someone who has trouble figuring out who the enemy is, which way the frontlines are, and what a war crime is. Repeat offense for Hedges, a veteran war correspondent who took a powder on this one and decided midwar that the best use of his time was to conduct an exhaustive investigation of the dire threat Christian extremists pose to the western civilization.
The Kos death-cult post cites report that only 25 percent of combat soldiers in the Good War fired their weapons because they were … too good. I’d suggest a closer examination of people in heavy combat in World War II might find the Good War wasn’t all that good. The report cited notes that 25 percent is a disputed statistic, but cites more recent examples of reluctance to kill.*
That’s somewhat mystifying. My own combat experience is brief, but the above claims do not jive with it or with what I’ve heard from combat veterans of wars going back to WWII. Have yet to speak to one who said he feared killing and would not fire in combat. Have not heard from any who were enthused about killing, though one in particular voiced very well what many have discovered about combat: “I loved it. We enjoyed it.” Adrenaline, overcoming fear, comraderie, prevailing made them high. That does not mean they became indiscriminate killers.
Combat and the reactions and emotions it induces are extremely complex things. I witnessed numerous examples of willingness to fire with small and heavy arms in close quarters, and only recall one example of undue hesitancy, which had more to do confusion over orders. These were virtually all men who were new to combat and new to killing. Young soldiers’ juvenile pre-combat expressions of desire to kill were followed by a high degree of discipline in combat. Desire to avoid being killed, to protect comrades, to do one’s duty far outweighed desire to avoid killing. Notably including an officer who was a student of Buddhism and not enthused about killing. Witnessed a fair amount of gallows humor but no murderousness or cruelty. Also witnessed a great deal of compassion and judicious caution, but not anything I would confuse with fear of killing. Maybe a mass casualty incident would have changed that. These men were all products of the allegedly psychopath-inducing military training, but I am not nor I believe are many other non-combatants who have been compelled by circumstances to play a role in killing in war, notably Joe Galloway and to the best of my knowledge Michael Herr and the Boston Globe’s Scott Bernard Nelson, to name a few. To the contrary, I’d suggest most of us are wired as combat-prone animals to overcome both fear and reluctance and do all kinds of counter-intuitive things.
There is nothing really pretty about any of it. But the fixation the Nation and others have on relatively low-grade ugliness in war at a time when our military is focused on trying to prevent a far greater ugliness … and our politicians are debating same … suggests that like the New York Times and Obama, the Nation and Kos feel genocide is preferable to what is happening now.
* Given Kos’ fascination with certain high-profile psychopaths with military backgrounds, I’ve been hunting around this morning for the statistics on how many military veterans and how many combat veterans become violent criminals. If you know where they are, let me know. Here’s something on the effects of PTSD that says 2 percent of World War II veterans of 60-plus days of combat, “98% of the surviving soldiers had become psychiatric casualties. And the remaining 2% were identified as “aggressive psychopathic personalities.’ “ That works out to 100 percent. Psychiatric casualty here is described as someone who can not longer function in combat. The latter link cites the same figures, which are rendered ridiculous by the fact that many, many thousands upon thousands of soldiers have functioned well beyond 60 days in combat and returned to be productive members of society, though scarred by their experiences. The study cited also says that 25 percent of American combat veterans pissed their pants and another 25 percent shit themselves, which also sounds high. I did not encounter any of that and only recall hearing a couple of historical anecdotes about that. I’d agree that 100 percent of people who go into combat of any duration come out affected in some way, but “psychiatric casualties” sounds a tad broad and dramatic. As for the 2 percent of psychopaths, I’d be curious to know how far off that is from what you might find in a lot of bad neighborhoods and stressful professions. Both articles suggest domestic murder rates increase in wartime, but there’s no discussion of the issue and the lack of discussion of violent crime rates in veterans in articles of this sort that are looking for war damage creates the impression it isn’t a significant problem.
My own quick take on PTSD. Clearly, it is a legitimate phenomenon that sometimes requires treatment. But I think may be worthwhile for us as a wartime society, someday to be a post-war society, to separate the disorder from the syndrome. I’d suggest that reactions to combat, including many described in these scholarly articles, are often part of an entirely normal adjustment and not necessarily part of a “disorder.”
In 2004, my buddy Sig and I were reviewing the list of factors that contribute to PTSD in an article that stated 19 percent of returning Iraq vets had it. We each racked up more than half of the dozen or so contributing factors. Saw people killed at close range. Check. Knew people who were killed. Check. Expected to be killed. Check. Narrowly avoided being killed. Check, check, check, check, check, check, check. Participated in killing, in my case, check.
Sig laughed at the 19 percent PTSD figure: “Try 90 percent. The other 10 percent were that way when they got there.”
True. And probably 99 percent of them are coping with it, the vast majority quite successfully. Because traumatic stress reaction is a normal human adjustment process. How could anyone look at human history, going back to primitive times, and suggest otherwise? Just as you must eventually learn and accept that there is no Santa Claus, and that your mother will not always be able to protect you, and you will have to support and protect yourself, and no one else particularly cares whether you succeed at that or not, you may have to learn to kill is sometimes a part of life, and it may be a part of yours. Whether that happens to you or not, you will have to learn about death sooner or later. It is part of the human experience.
Regarding the perspective from which the scholars cited above approach their subject, the first article linked above makes the statement that “killing is not a normal phenomenon,” which suggests a somewhat sheltered and historically myopic view, and generally approaches the subject from the perspective that you’d have to be crazy. The author rationalizes her belief:
Almost every country has a law saying that killing is illegal. If killing were normal, why would so many entities say it was so wrong? The reason that so many different entities say that it is wrong is precisely because it is not normal.
I’d suggest religion and law forbid killing precisely because it is more normal than many people would care to admit, however it is also disruptive and destructive and as a freelance endeavor runs counter to the interests of society. That is why, while armies have always desensitized soldiers to killing, the United States military also teaches laws of war, discretion, humane behavior, and investigates and prosecutes serious transgressions as is now happening in a number of cases of rape and murder in Iraq.
The second scholarly article kicks off with this interesting, more realistic statement:
An examination of the psychological effects of combat must begin by acknowledging that there are some positive aspects to combat. Throughout recorded history these positive aspects have been emphasized and exaggerated in order to protect the self-image of combatants, o honor the memory of the fallen and rationalize their deaths, to aggrandize and glorify political leaders and military commanders, and to manipulate populations into supporting war and sending their sons to their deaths. But the fact that these positive aspects have been manipulated and exploited does not deny their existence. There is a reason for the powerful attraction of combat over the centuries, and there is no value in going from the dysfunctional extreme of glorifying war to the equally dysfunctional extreme of denying its attraction.
UPDATE: A fair amount of traffic coming in. In addition to a presumeably friendlier crowd from Instapundit, Little Green Footballs, Ace, etal, there’s some moral indignation and snark from the aptly named Instaputz and the self-flattering Shakespeare’s Sister. Welcome Sullivanistas! I understand you have trouble seeing what is in front of your faces. Stick around, we’ll see what we can do for you.
I realized with all this examination of post-traumatic stress and how much of it there is, and whether its normal or not, I didn’t describe what a mild, walking combat reaction case is like.
It’s like this. Being totally wired for months upon years. Like crank, so that you don’t fall asleep as much as pass out and you don’t wake up as much as become alert. Thinking about different aspects of combat the way some people think about sex, compulsively, repeatedly in the course of the day, while going about your business, holding down a job, acting relatively normal but still freaking people out when you talk about it. Small flashbacks-lite, triggered by various events. In my case, accelerating up the highway, like going on an armored assault, with all the emotions, thoughts and memories, on my way to the various places that took me. More adrenaline then, and other adrenaline bursts at odd times. Thinking about the dead, at least once a day, in a number of different ways, when alone. Seeing their faces, and studying a face to catch the moment when life exited it. Choking up or sometimes sobbing at both expected and unexpected times, and learning to control that. Wishing you were back there. Preferring the company of people who know what that is like. Recognizing in a glance or a word that you both know the same secret, without having to say much about it.
I never had nightmares like some friends did, and in fact have never once dreamt of it. It didn’t haunt me, not even the dead, not even when I felt the need to ask some of them their forgiveness. I was fortunate that way, in part maybe because I wrote about it, had plenty of opportunities to talk about it, because that is part of what I do. Over the third and fourth year, most of it significantly subsided, though parts can and do periodically come up. I never felt traumatized as much as I felt I had a great deal to think about, not least the startling discovery that I had enjoyed myself, and also that I had been fundamentally rewired, and had somewhat different perspectives and focus in various matters. As one friend put it, there was life before, and life after. Not good or bad, just different.
And there you have it.
Joe Hooker in comments notes that Europe in 1944 vs. Iraq or Vietnam is apples and oranges in terms of intensity, and he is absolutely right, though as one old vet I know says, 15 minutes can do it. Speaking of WWII, apollyonbob notes below that the shitting and pissing oneself may well be references to incontinence for other reasons, which had occurred to me.
** Technically, as a reader notes below, abusing a corpse in military as well as civilian life is a crime. In this case, I’d apply the legal principle of who cares? The Nation article, at least before I got bored with reading about low-grade offenses, was short on offenses that couldn’t be addressed with a simple “cut that out,” or improved intelligence. I’d add that the reader, a dear old friend, falls into the “genocide preferred” camp, as he would prefer Saddam Hussein (genocide tally 500,000 to 1.5 million, depending how you count) were still in power. That might explain the failure to appreciate that war-stressed soldiers goofing with a corpse, while distasteful, is not a big deal. Unlike, for example, this or this. This is the kind of thinking that has people convinced the United States is practicing torture, illegal detention, illegal wiretapping and wholesale trampling on rights, exercised over same illusions while ignoring threats posed by our enemy and taking for granted vile actions of same.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:33 am on Monday, July 23, 2007
55 Responses to “Psycho-Death Cult”
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July 23rd, 2007 at 12:21 pm
…and Disinformation from “The Nation”
With the exception of “Vets for Freedom”, every one of these groups is vehemently anti-war. And, as in the last line, when you find people by friends who refer friends, you can see how your skewed sample is skewed even further. It’s also worth notin…
July 23rd, 2007 at 12:25 pm
“Presumeably, [sic] if Hedges had found any actual war crimes, he would have led with them ”
Real soldiers know their war crimes:
First Protocol of the Geneva Conventions, article 34:
1. The remains of persons who have died for reasons related to occupation or in detention resulting from occupation or hostilities and those of persons not nationals of the country in which they have died as a result of hostilities shall be respected “
July 23rd, 2007 at 12:56 pm
Kos is a serial killer eh? That dirt under his front porch looks kinda freshly dug. Just saying…
July 23rd, 2007 at 1:40 pm
Agreed, disrespecting the remains of the dead is revolting and clearly not acceptable behavior.
Now stay tuned for Q’orn’s insistance on bringing similar AQI atrocities to light and those who perpetrate them to justice.
July 23rd, 2007 at 1:46 pm
I know that no study into PTSD would ever _purposefully_ misrepresent data in an attempt to prove a point … But when you menitoned this:
“The study cited also says that 25 percent of American combat veterans pissed their pants and another 25 percent shit themselves, which also sounds high.”
The first thing that came to mind was Band of Brothers, where the vets talked about how they’d crap in their pants, or in their foxholes, because of artillery. It wasn’t that they shit themselves from fear, but that they shit themselves because they either had dystenary, diarrhea, or simply didn’t want to commit suicide via artillery shell. That to me is quite a difference from saying someone crapped their pants in fear.
Not really any big deal, but just sayin. I’m sure you know, in any sorts of surveys like that, the question can create its own answer.
July 23rd, 2007 at 2:36 pm
I see we are now at the stage where those who are anti-war are in the process of “scientifically” justifying their anti-war and anti-military position. Those who have no experience in war, or especially with the military are not experts, I don’t care how many questionnaires they pass out.
July 23rd, 2007 at 2:45 pm
Incredible write up on combat and it’s effects after the insane Kos and Nation pieces.
Did Kos think his pages disappeared when he deleted them? Ahh the wonders of Google…
And The Nation has run all out the standard anti-war tropes for this piece–baby killing, indiscriminate assaults on peaceful civilians, crazed “full metal jacket” style killing machines turned loose on unsuspecting third world populations…
What year is this, 1968?
By far the vilest piece of “journalism” I’ve read in a long while.
The Nation is ready to damn a soldier for any choice he makes. If he defends himself, he’s a killer. If he gets killed he’s a victim, a stupid pawn. If he kills to defend others, he’s a killing machine.
It’s good the Nation and DailyKos are warning us it’s the US Military and Western culture that are breeding death cults, not totalitarian Islam or totalitarianism in general.
Let’s look at what Islamists have to say about shaping history:
Palestinian religious scholar Sheik Abdullah Azzam who initially taught Osama bin Laden stated,
“History does not write its lines except with blood. Glory does not build its lofty edifice except with skulls. Honor and respect cannot be established except from a foundation of cripples and corpses.”
And from one of Algeria’s leading Islamist’s Ali Benhadj,
“If a faith, a belief, is not watered and irrigated by blood, it does not grow. It does not live. Principles are reinforced by sacrifices, suicide operations and matrydom for Allah. Faith is propagated by counting up deaths every day, by adding up massacres and charnel houses. It hardly matters in the person is who has been sacrificed is no longer there. He has won.”
From “Terror and Liberalism” Paul Berman
July 23rd, 2007 at 3:02 pm
[...] horribles par des soldats et de la tentation de traiter nos soldats comme des tueurs en série. Jules Crittenden est un vétéran américain, parle en réponse à des plaintes américaines et mention des examples [...]
July 23rd, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Corndog “would prefer Saddam Hussein (genocide tally 500,000 to 1.5 million, depending how you count) were still in power.”
Typicaly rightie “either/or” type of thinking. The fact is, ever since the First Gulf War, the US controlled the air over Iraq and could have prevented the massacre of the Shiites in 1991 if George H.W. Bush chose to, and any future attempts at mass murder. There were many ways to stop genocide in Iraq short of invasion.
Also, the vast majority of Iraqis today would prefer to live under Saddam than under what they have now. The majority of the U.S. military also wish that we hadn’t invaded in the first place. So apparently, Jules believes the majority of the U.S. military is pro-genocide. That’s way worse than what the Kos article argues.
July 23rd, 2007 at 4:45 pm
“Did Kos think his pages disappeared when he deleted them? ”
Kos didn’t delete it. the original author did.
July 23rd, 2007 at 5:14 pm
Now stay tuned for Q’orn’s insistance on bringing similar AQI atrocities to light and those who perpetrate them to justice.
Matt 7:5
July 23rd, 2007 at 7:32 pm
[...] Crittenden has put up an excellent post about war and psychology that I will command to your [...]
July 23rd, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Jules, the best overall look at the phenomena commonly called shell shock, combat fatigue, PTSD, etc is Ben Shepard’s . He looks at actual case histories rather than applying current trendy psychiatric theories. F’rinstance, comparing, as one of the academic studies you cited did, 60 days of continuous combat in Europe during 1944 (e,g, in a high-intensity environment) with 60 days in Iraq or Vietnam (mostly low-intensity) is like comparing apples and oranges.
If you look at human history as a whole, war is the norm rather than an exception.
July 23rd, 2007 at 8:25 pm
Matt 7:5
2 Tim 3:7
July 23rd, 2007 at 8:26 pm
Office Hours for the idiot with the spoon. A one way ticket to Saudi Arabia for the Kos Kids.
July 23rd, 2007 at 8:50 pm
i go into the Kos post here:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com/2007/07/psychopaths-u.html
July 23rd, 2007 at 9:22 pm
Corndog writes, “The fact is, ever since the First Gulf War, the US controlled the air over Iraq and could have prevented the massacre of the Shiites in 1991 if George H.W. Bush chose to, and any future attempts at mass murder. There were many ways to stop genocide in Iraq short of invasion.”
Actually, the U.S. controlled the Northern and Southern no-fly zones, not all of Iraq, and by Security Council resolution 686 from March 1991, Iraq only had to cease flights of “combat” aircraft. The U.S. continued to allow helicopter flights, which allowed the Iraqi military to continue to murder Shiites. The 12 years of no-fly zone patrols were limited to taking out hostile SAM and AAA sites (hostile meaning they turned on their targeting radars). Corndog is being a bit unrealistic if he thinks airpower alone could have stopped this genocidal behavior by the Hussein regime. All it takes to kill off a village is a single truck full of soldiers with small arms. It’s extremely unlikely we could have stopped this short of invasion.
Corndog then says “Also, the vast majority of Iraqis today would prefer to live under Saddam than under what they have now”. Facts are a bitch, corndog. The BBC/ARD/USA Today poll of Iraqis from March 2007 shows that over 50% of Iraqis support democracy vs. 25-30% for the hypothetical “strong man” in power. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6451841.stm A distinct minority want to regress to the days of political repression and secret police.
Corndog then says “The majority of the U.S. military also wish that we hadn’t invaded in the first place” Sure. 20/20 hindsight explains this. But in 2003, the number was 65%. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2006-12-29-poll-iraq_x.htm Who’s not going to “wish we hadn’t invaded” when he’s on his 3rd tour in 4.5 years? What a dumb question! Gee, looking back on it, do you wish you hadn’t picked a fight with that guy flirting with your girlfriend in the bar and gotten your teeth knocked in?
I’m also not sure what exactly is rightie-type “either/or thinking”. Mentioning that Saddam purposely murdered his political opponents, raped anyone he wanted, and received kickbacks from European polticians which he used to buy even more weaponry, thus turning the country into a gigantic stockpile of RPGs, small arms, and artillery shells is off limits? Yeah, life was much better under Saddam. “Abu, we are out of antibiotics. Buy some more 122mm shells from Russian black market”
July 23rd, 2007 at 9:52 pm
Oops, my attempt at HTML programming was a failure. I’m still trying to figure out the telegraph.
The book is A War of Nerves: Soldiers and Psychiatrists in the Twentieth Century by Ben Shepard. The Amazon link is below but you’ll have to cut & paste.
http://www.amazon.com/War-Nerves-Soldiers-Psychiatrists-Twentieth/dp/0674005929
July 23rd, 2007 at 10:03 pm
“Real soldiers know their war crimes:”
“First Protocol of the Geneva Conventions, article 34:”
We’re not a parrty to that treaty. The senate never ratified.
If the military wanted to pursue the matter, they’d charge under either article 93 or article 134 of the UCMJ.
July 23rd, 2007 at 10:22 pm
is being a bit unrealistic if he thinks airpower alone could have stopped this genocidal behavior by the Hussein regime.
An excellent write up, beerandbrats, and very much to the point. However, it’s more for the benefit of other readers; not only is corndog committed to spouting off discredited leftie talking points, “unrealistic” is his middle and last name.
July 23rd, 2007 at 10:52 pm
A fine takedown, B&B
July 23rd, 2007 at 11:08 pm
Thanks for the reminder, Jeffersonian. I shall pour myself a snifter and watch you fine folks pound the piss out of a Leftist.
Oh B&B, to repeat Jeffersonian…”A fine takedown”.
July 23rd, 2007 at 11:09 pm
“Actually, the U.S. controlled the Northern and Southern no-fly zones, not all of Iraq, and by Security Council resolution 686 from March 1991, Iraq only had to cease flights of “combat” aircraft. The U.S. continued to allow helicopter flights, which allowed the Iraqi military to continue to murder Shiites. The 12 years of no-fly zone patrols were limited to taking out hostile SAM and AAA sites (hostile meaning they turned on their targeting radars).”
Two minor clarifications
The Coalition also eventually forbade helicopter flights, after first allowing them. In 1994 we accidently shot down two of our own Blackhawks, after mistaking them for Iraqi helicopters.
The last line should read: “(hostile meaning they turned on their targeting radars or opened fire on Coalition aircraft)”.
July 23rd, 2007 at 11:28 pm
Dave Surls
And a lifting of the snifter of B&B, to you as well.
http://www.benedictine.fr/anglais/cocktails_frame.html
July 24th, 2007 at 1:03 am
Thank you my Cid!
July 24th, 2007 at 1:35 am
“In June 2003 Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejía’s unit was pressed by a furious crowd in Ramadi…”
Anyway, I wouldn’t take anything this guy says about brain-scooping, or anything else too seriously. He’s an extreme leftist ideologue (he apparently picked up his anti-Americanism from his mommy and daddy, both of whom appear to have been Sandinistas in Red Danny Ortega’s Nicaragua) who never should have been in the service in the first place, he spent nine months in prison for being AWOL and was booted out of the service with a bad conduct discharge.
I’m sure all that makes him a credible witness to the sort of trash they have over at The Nation.
July 24th, 2007 at 8:30 am
What a pleasure it is to read someone who actually knows what he is talking about. Thank you, Jules.
July 24th, 2007 at 9:11 am
El Cid, the International Commission of the Red Cross, which administers the Conventions, has the United States ratifying the treaty on 02.08.1955.
As to beerandbrats “point” about controlling the air, he is conveniently overlooking the fact that Saddam used air power to get to the sites of massacre. Duh. And the US and Britain still retained the authority under the Security Council to bomb land targets in the interest of retaining the peace. The rest of your post doesn’t address my points. You’re saying it’s no surprise that the military wishes we hadn’t invaded. This is beside the point. Jules was saying anyone who opposes the invasion favors genocide. The majority of the military opposes the invasion. Therefore….QED.
July 24th, 2007 at 9:32 am
Maybe Jules “I Watched Silence of the Lambs too Many Times” Crittendon should rename this post “In defense of sociopathy as a pillar of neoconservative ideaology.”
July 24th, 2007 at 11:10 am
I agree…your nic is indeed what should occur, to you,hungjurist.
I respect your good wishes for Rebecca corndog, btw. That was quite good of you.
July 24th, 2007 at 11:28 am
Oh and it is Crittenden. You may have neen hanging to long, hungjurist..
July 24th, 2007 at 11:29 am
Oppps been…your disease is contagious, hungjurist.
July 24th, 2007 at 11:56 am
As to beerandbrats “point” about controlling the air, he is conveniently overlooking the fact that Saddam used air power to get to the sites of massacre. Duh.
Uh-huh:
…and by Security Council resolution 686 from March 1991, Iraq only had to cease flights of “combat” aircraft. The U.S. continued to allow helicopter flights, which allowed the Iraqi military to continue to murder Shiites
Duh, indeed. Or should I say “QED”?
July 24th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
“the International Commission of the Red Cross, which administers the Conventions, has the United States ratifying the treaty on 02.08.1955.”
No, they don’t. Like most things that come out of the mouths o’ leftys…that’s not true.
July 24th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
Surly,
This is from the ICRC’s Mission Statement:
A permanent mandate founded in international law, a worldwide mission to help victims of conflicts and internal violence, whoever they are. The ICRC’s mandate in the Geneva Conventions and in its Statutes; articles on the mission, status and objectives of the ICRC.
Thanks for playing.
July 24th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
Beerandbrats,
Did you actually read Resolution 686 before you posted, or did you think you’d just wait for me to come along and make a fool out of you. This is from the text:
Recalling and reaffirming its resolutions [660 (1990), 661 (1990), 662 (1990), 664 (1990), 665 (1990), 666 (1990), 667 (1990), 669 (1990), 670 (1990), 674 (1990), 677 (1990), and 678 (1990)Acting under Chapter VII of the Charter,
1. Affirms that all twelve resolutions noted above continue to have full force and effect;
Thanks for playing, B&B.
July 24th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
Q. How many Jeffys does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A. None. Jeffy doesn’t notice it’s dark.
—
Q. How many beerandbrats does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A. It’s 209 miles from Boston to New York.
July 24th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
“Surly, This is from the ICRC’s Mission Statement:..”
That’s nice. However, the United States never ratified Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions, and despite what you claimed, the ICRC does NOT have the United States ratiying that treaty on 2/8/55.
For one thing, the Protocol didn’t appear until 1977, so no could have ratified in 1955, as you would know if ou had the slightest idea what you were talking about.
List of nations which have ratified…
http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/WebSign?ReadForm&id=470&ps=P
July 24th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Surley,
Yeah, I guess you’re right about the non-ratification. Must be perfectly ok to abuse a corpse after all.
July 24th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
*Snort*. All that cherry picking is going to damage your brain, corndog. If it hasn’t already, I mean.
July 24th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
Jeffy,
Did you like the joke I made up about you? I heard it at the Yearly Corndog, this year held in sunny Tierra del Fuego.
It’s not cherrypicking, by the way, I just looked at the pdf for the original convention, rather than the later one. Note that I’m willing to admit my error, as opposed to all those above who will not (Jules excepted). And think about what that says about respective character.
July 24th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
Moved it from Pyongyang this year, did you?
It was a lovely joke, Q’orn.
July 24th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
Q. How many Jeffersonians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A. None. The Bush administration would never, ever let a lightbulb burn out.
July 24th, 2007 at 5:35 pm
Pyongyang, Jeffersonian? I would have thought Cuba. Better weather, and they aren’t serving bark soup in Havana. Or maybe Tehran, where the corndogs can munch on roasted goat.
July 24th, 2007 at 6:07 pm
Power Outages Darken Portion of Downtown San Francisco
That sucks.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,290632,00.html
July 24th, 2007 at 8:43 pm
“who cares” right?
July 25th, 2007 at 12:33 am
Resolution 686: “The Security Council, acting under Chapter VII of the Charter,
Also demands that Iraq 3a: Cease hostile or prevocative actions by its forces against all member states, including missile attacks and flights of combat aircraft”
Corndog: Did you actually read it, or just cut and paste the first paragraph? The resolution says exactly what I said it did: http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/596/22/IMG/NR059622.pdf?OpenElement And to think you tried to call me out on that……..
And you still can’t refute my point that we couldn’t have stopped a genocide with airpower alone, especially when the UN resolution only gave the authority to counteract actions “against member states, including missile attacks and flights of combat aircraft”. Since we decided after the end of combat actions that the Iraqis could use their helicopters, we unwittingly made their genocide easier, but even without helicopters, it would still have happened and we couldn’t have stopped it without an invasion and occupation. Again, were we supposed to bomb every Iraqi military truck driving near a Shiite village in 1991? Unworkable without an invasion. If you were against putting boots on the ground inside Iraq in 1991, then you were OK with letting the Shiites die and letting a dictator who recently started 2 wars remain in power. If you were against putting boots on the ground inside Iraq in 2003, then you were OK with the clandestine WMD programs, OK with another 12 years of boring holes in the sky, dropping bombs on SAM sites in the no-fly zones, OK with UN Oil-for-Food corruption, OK with Iraq harboring terrorists, OK with Iraq paying terrorists’ families, OK with the destruction of the marshland habitat in the south, and OK with a steady stream of political murders by Sadaam in his quest to win First Prize in the “Who can best imitate Stalin?” awards. (Awarded yearly in the always sunny, beautiful Pyongyang, before millions of well fed, happy citizens)
As for the military wishing we hadn’t invaded……I’m guessing soldiers are answering that question on a personal level, whereas the typical man on the street is answering the polling question impersonally. Joe Grunt is thinking, “Yes, I was for the invasion 4 years ago, and still think it was right to get rid of Sadaam, but I don’t want to be away from my family for yet another tour, so “No, I wish we hadn’t invaded”" **HE DEFINITELY SAYS THIS IF HIS WIFE IS WITHIN EARSHOT WHILE HE’S ANSWERING THE POLLING QUESTION! Meanwhile, Joe Street, after 4 years of listening to every MSM and cable channel report the death total every evening, has just gotten sick of the whole thing. Average Joe Street has a dim grasp of history, especially military history, and doesn’t realize the Union lost more soldiers per day at Cold Harbor than in 4.5 years of Iraq.
July 25th, 2007 at 8:17 am
Beerandbrats,
I quoted to you the language that authorizes use of force on the ground. If you’re too lazy to read it, that’s not my problem.
And, by the way, your argument is totally screwing your hero, George Bush, because he argues that he was authorized to invade Iraq by the pre-existing Security Council resolutions, which are cited in the document I quoted. So if you really think that the UN only authorized air power, then you’re really arguing that George Bush committed a grave war crime.
July 25th, 2007 at 8:43 am
MoeLarryAndJesus:
I guess I’m the sort of “flatulent moron” and “Bushpig moron” who actually has visited Iraq (2004-2005) and likes to argue with the reasoning ability God gave me, rather than simply name-calling.
Why is comparing casualty totals between one day of Cold Harbor (4,000 Union soldiers killed in action) and 4.5 years of counterinsurgency in Iraq (approximately 4,000 KIA since 2003) so wrong? Doesn’t it set a little bit of historical perspective for everyone? Doesn’t it speak to our collective wimpiness for the greatest military power in the world to cringe at the sort of casualties that were commonplace in one day in 1864? That was my point.
Anyhoo, gotta get back to writing my senator about passing a flag-burning ammendment, since that’s #1 on my list of things to do today. See Ya!
July 25th, 2007 at 8:51 am
Beerandbrats,
To put it right in front of you, Resolution 686 specifically states that Resolution 678 shall remain in effect until Iraq implements the conditions the Security Council calls for. Resolution 678 authorizes “all necessary means” to restore international peace and security in the area.
You say, though, that you are right and I am wrong. Ok, big guy, here’s your chance: cite the language that restricted the U.S. only to the air.
July 25th, 2007 at 8:57 am
Corndog:
I believe we were authorized to invade anytime since 1991 because Iraq never fully abided by terms of the original 1991 ceasefire. George H.W. Bush should have flattened the entire Iraqi military in 1991, although I don’t think that would have stopped the killing of Shiites without an occupation. Doing nothing in 1991 set us up for 12 years of worthless inspections and thousands of hours of air patrols, ultimately leading us back to square one: dictator still in power, still working on WMD, still funding terrorists and plotting to kill our president, still killing his own people, this time in league with corrupt Euro politicians while his people were in need of supplies.
And your “quotation” was paragraph one of the entire resolution. Which one of us is too lazy to read the whole thing? I quoted specifically the part about “combat” aircraft because that was the part critical to my point about allowing helicopters. Is it that hard to understand?
July 25th, 2007 at 10:03 am
Bearandbrats,
You quoted language that “gave the authority to counteract actions “against member states, including missile attacks and flights of combat aircraft”. Do you understand that “including missile attacks and flights of combat aircraft” does not mean that this is the ONLY means available? I quoted paragraph one because that clearly authorizes other means as well.
If you want to win your point, you have to show that the US was restricted to the air, as you first contended. Come on, big guy, where is it?
July 25th, 2007 at 11:39 am
“I believe we were authorized to invade anytime since 1991 because Iraq never fully abided by terms of the original 1991 ceasefire. George H.W. Bush should have flattened the entire Iraqi military in 1991 [etc.]”
Excellent post. That pretty well sums it all up.
July 25th, 2007 at 8:46 pm
Winter Soldier Part 2, 3, 4, etc - Updated
I believe that this continuous drumbeat of supposed atrocities is nothing more than taking a page from the Winter Soldier hearings. You know the old ‘claim atrocities so Americans will be disgusted and demand we leave the war’ tactic that was so succ…
February 8th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
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