How Do We "Win" a War on Terror? - Page 59 - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

cmac2012 · #**871** 09-30-2006, 04:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Bell

The more I think about this cmac quote the more I relize just how revealing it is. Cmac is holding up as an example a philosophy that completely failed those that espoused it. The Sioux were in a fight for their lives, for their way of life and they got their asses handed to them. Now 150 or so years later CMAC is espousing this philosophy as one that we should admire and follow. One could only conclude two things. One, CMAC wants the same result for us that the Sioux experienced. Or, two CMAC is going mad...repeating the same thing over and over but expecting different results. Either way turing the other cheek when your in a fight for life is never a good idea.

You are one intellectual giant.

THEY DIDN'T STAND A CHANCE!

Anyway, they didn't take Black Elk's advice. It was the white's who brought the concept of scalping to the Injuns, you know. It was the means you could prove how many you'd killed and thereby collect your bounty.

The factors in our conflict are about as different from back then as they could be. We have most of the power, way more than back then even, and we had an overwhelming edge back then. Black Elk didn't say, "Let's lay down so they can slit our throats more easily." He was at Little Big Horn, as a warrior, FWIW. I suspect you have the barest clue about him or the Siuox.

One thing that is the same is people still have the option of lowering themselves to the standards of those they despise, or of taking the high road.

I don't know if you noticed, boy wonder, but our current stratagy in THE WAR ON TERROR is succeeding mainly in bankrupting us and enriching the Chinese. That, and finding us new, improved enemies. Oh we're smart all right.

aklim · #**872** 09-30-2006, 08:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cmac2012

The vast majority of Muslims do not countenance the tactics of the Islamo-whackos. The more we lower our standards thinking it's going to do us some good, the more we lose the moderates. We're supposed to be the civilized ones. Got to act like it, then,

Are you sure? There was a huge outcry about a car dealership having Jihad Days but quite a lot of silence, relatively speaking when it comes to what the islamo-whackos were doing. Lotta outcry about the pope too. So, are these "moderates" really moderates or moderates visually but aiding the radicals? As I pointed out to you an anoteher thread, their first loyalty seems to be to other muslims. Can you trust that?

aklim · #**873** 09-30-2006, 08:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cmac2012

Self fulfilling prophecy. Who is this "they" you speak of? One billion Muslims in the world. No Muslim has ever gotten in my face rudely. I'm sure some of the extremists would be happy to drain my blood, my point is they are a small minority. It behooves us to not increase their numbers.

On the 1/10th of one percent chance, if that, that we might learn some "actionable intelligence" (they get a hard-on when they talk like that) through torture, we set the stage for a 98% chance of making an enemy for life. And all the experts say torture doesn't work anyway.

Once again, you are only looking at the surface. So, if all the radicals were to come up to you and tell you they repent their ways, we are all hunky dory, right? If I give money to a bunch of people to finance their bank robbery, I am not a thief, right? Oh, I will decry bank robbery too.

OK, you arrange yourself in a cell pattern. 1 member knows somebody else and the other members of the cell know each other. You can work your way up. Torture doesn't work to gather a confession because they will confess to anything to stop it. However, if we know something, that low percentage of a chance is now a payoff. In any case, what have we to lose? We cannot turn the guy loose and give him a great meal so he becomes a friend. Their loyalty is to other muslims. Even you have more or less admitted that when you mentioned that even if they do something 10X worse than us the other muslims will side with them or something to that effect. But say we torture 1000 people and we get some info that saves some lives. How bad is that? Now, I am talking about being selective here and not just some $5000 bounty guy. I am talking about someone possibly with info like say if we catch them when they are fighting us.

aklim · #**874** 09-30-2006, 09:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cmac2012

Anyway, they didn't take Black Elk's advice. It was the white's who brought the concept of scalping to the Injuns, you know. It was the means you could prove how many you'd killed and thereby collect your bounty.

One thing that is the same is people still have the option of lowering themselves to the standards of those they despise, or of taking the high road.

I thought the origins of scalping were kinda mixed and there are many theories on who started what?

OK. So what is the high road worth? What does it give you besides a harder time? Will it change much? You seemed to think that even if they did worse, the "moderates" will still view our bad deeds as worse than those of their own people.

If morals were so adopted, we would not have to hire so many enforcement people. Without enforcement on all parties, morality and laws are just words. There is no universal body to enforce it on both sides so what is the point? Laws were written because we needed enforcement otherwise all of the morality we talk about is just words. Since there is no enforcement there, why bother with it? No enforcement means no consequence. Who cares about what you have to say then?

cmac2012 · #**875** 09-30-2006, 01:40 PM

Best I can tell, Muslims feel way more threatened than we do. Our armies are making inroads into their traditional lands. Trying to actually wipe them out has enormous down sides. And probably wouldn't work anyway.

IMO, torture will yield more long term disadvantage than advantage. The people who administer it become scarred and have problems resuming their normal lives, lot of evidence of that from what I've read.

This nation came into being through a process of enlightenment and a greater equity among peoples than had been the case in imperial Europe. Lowering ourself to the standards of the modern descendents of desert dwelling, bedouin throat slitters doesn't strike me as progress, especially if it's a largely fruitless exercise.

aklim · #**876** 09-30-2006, 03:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cmac2012

Best I can tell, Muslims feel way more threatened than we do. Our armies are making inroads into their traditional lands. Trying to actually wipe them out has enormous down sides. And probably wouldn't work anyway.

IMO, torture will yield more long term disadvantage than advantage. The people who administer it become scarred and have problems resuming their normal lives, lot of evidence of that from what I've read.

This nation came into being through a process of enlightenment and a greater equity among peoples than had been the case in imperial Europe. Lowering ourself to the standards of the modern descendents of desert dwelling, bedouin throat slitters doesn't strike me as progress, especially if it's a largely fruitless exercise.

Restrict it to those that are giving us problems whether they are active participants or just the backers.

Yeah. And kids are also being scarred when they get bad test grades so we need to boost their self esteem and not have tests. I believe in psych reports like I believe in the weatherman predicting next year's weather. However, before you can get to worry about what will happen in the long term, you have to get over the short term first. If you are not going to be alive in 20 days, best not worry about what is happening in 60.

So, if we agree to fight with swords and you see me bring a gun, what will you do? Fight me with a sword and keep your word or play with the rules at hand?

cmac2012 · #**877** 09-30-2006, 03:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aklim

Restrict it to those that are giving us problems whether they are active participants or just the backers.

Yeah. And kids are also being scarred when they get bad test grades so we need to boost their self esteem and not have tests. I believe in psych reports like I believe in the weatherman predicting next year's weather. However, before you can get to worry about what will happen in the long term, you have to get over the short term first. If you are not going to be alive in 20 days, best not worry about what is happening in 60.

So, if we agree to fight with swords and you see me bring a gun, what will you do? Fight me with a sword and keep your word or play with the rules at hand?

Dude, comparing kids' anxieties about tests to people's emotional problems that arise from having tortured people is just moronic, sorry to say.

It would be nice if we could magically identify the ones who were a serious threat, just winnow them out from the general population but it's never that easy. That's where the hydra-headed beast myth comes from: the damage you do to bystanders when you try to take out the bad guys will net you double or more the enemies you wipe out.

It was different in WW2 with G and J. They were the imperial agressors, spreading their troops out in other people's countries. Made them weak. It's like the bad guys stuck their heads out, ready for the sword in that kind of case.

cmac2012 · #**878** 09-30-2006, 03:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Bell

The more I think about this cmac quote the more I relize just how revealing it is. Cmac is holding up as an example a philosophy that completely failed those that espoused it. The Sioux were in a fight for their lives, for their way of life and they got their asses handed to them. Now 150 or so years later CMAC is espousing this philosophy as one that we should admire and follow. One could only conclude two things. One, CMAC wants the same result for us that the Sioux experienced. Or, two CMAC is going mad...repeating the same thing over and over but expecting different results. Either way turing the other cheek when your in a fight for life is never a good idea.

Yeah, well the more I think about your posts, the more I'm certain the editors of the new All World Illustrated Dictionary need a photo of you. They're looking for a picture to place next to the definition of "myopic."

Lessee, the life you're leading is the best of all possible lives cause it's your life, ain't that right? I don't imagine anyone else in the world believes that do they?

The various Nat. Am. cultures had some less appealing aspects here and there but fact is, if we hadn't come, they'd be living a healthy life, one that could have gone on for thousands more years on this continent complete with healthy soils, clean water, clean air, and plentiful game, free of chemical additives.

We on the other hand, have run through a good portion of our natural capital in a few hundred years, our kids are getting fat and clueless (Hey! Let's go see Jackass 2, DUUUDE!!), and we've come up with a marvy way to scatter bits of toxic metal (cell phones, computers) all over the landscape (I, guilty as well) so that they can slowly leach their toxic metals into ground water. But who needs that huh? After all, we've got faucets in our house, what's the problem then?

Seek ye some expansion, myopia man.

cmac2012 · #**879** 09-30-2006, 03:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Botnst

Mostly the stay on the res and get drunk or cook-up crank to sell it to each other.

A good example of how slow cultural evolution can be.

I ran into plenty of drunk Indians when I drove cab in Seattle -- not too appealing. OTOH, when Buffalo Bill took his wild west show to England, Queen Victoria came up to Black Elk and the other Sioux and said (rough quote): "I've been all over the world, and you are the handsomest people I've ever seen." Top nutrition and exercise, clean living. I understand it's fairly well agreed that our hunter-gatherer progenitors became less healthy with the advent of agriculture.

The "Dances With Wolves" phenomenon of whites "going Indian" was not all that rare. The tribal/family interaction and support was heady stuff for whites who'd come out of dog eat dog Euro cut throat culture. That and seeing ever changing vistas on their migratory route. Had to be some heady stuff.

aklim · #**880** 09-30-2006, 07:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cmac2012

Dude, comparing kids' anxieties about tests to people's emotional problems that arise from having tortured people is just moronic, sorry to say.

It would be nice if we could magically identify the ones who were a serious threat, just winnow them out from the general population but it's never that easy. That's where the hydra-headed beast myth comes from: the damage you do to bystanders when you try to take out the bad guys will net you double or more the enemies you wipe out.

It's all the same to me. Same psychological tripe. I don't believe it it way back when and I don't believe in it now. I could lie to most of those mindfux anyways and unless someone tipped them off, they would be fooled. So, if you are going to tell me about mental damage, I have to say I don't believe it at all.

Double what? Double the active participants as opposed to the other "good" ones? Well, lets see, if we pull them off the street and they are carrying guns in their hands and shooting at us, are you saying it is a celebration that is going on? A wedding perhaps?

Edit: Here is a thought. You claim that the interrogators have mental issues later in life. OK. Lets say I go along with that. Lets say. I don't buy it for a moment but we can pretend. We have enough of these mentally ill people in our prisons and psych wards. We can use them to pay their debt to society and extract any and all info that the combatants migght have. These prisoners are already damaged goods so there is no loss, right?