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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (46209)	5/22/2004 3:59:09 AM
From: frankw1900	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793990

This is the single stupidest thing I've read since 9/11. Stupid, stupid, stupid: ?In private life, an adult who keeps beating down on a five-year old ? even such a one as originally attacked him with a knife ? will be perceived as committing a crime; therefore, he will lose the support of bystanders and end up being arrested, tried and convicted. In international life, an armed force that keeps beating down on a weaker opponent will be seen as committing a series of crimes; therefore it will end up losing the support of its allies, its own people and its troops. Depending on the quality of the forces ? things may happen quickly or take a long time to mature. However, the outcome is always the same. He (or she) who does not understand this does not understand anything about war; or, indeed, human nature.? ?In other words, he who fights against the weak ? and the rag-tag Iraqi militias are very weak indeed ? and loses, loses. He who fights against the weak and wins also loses. To kill an opponent who is much weaker than yourself is unnecessary and therefore cruel; to let that opponent kill you is unnecessary and therefore foolish. As Vietnam and countless other cases prove, no armed force, however rich, however powerful, however advanced, however well motivated is immune to this dilemma. The end result is always disintegration and defeat ?. That is why the present adventure will almost certainly end as the previous one (Vietnam) did. Namely, with the last U.S. troops fleeing the country while hanging on to their helicopters? skids. The demoralization and disintegration that come to an army of the strong fighting against the weak were evident at Abu Ghraib prison. More fundamentally, the question of how a strong state such as the United States can fight the physically weak (but often morally powerful) non-state enemies it now faces is a central problem in Fourth Generation theory. Here is the core of his argument: To kill an opponent who is much weaker than yourself is unnecessary and therefore cruel; to let that opponent kill you is unnecessary and therefore foolish. He says this is always a "dilemma" for the powerful and thus leads to their "disintegration." It's no dilemma at all if the enemies' aims are kept clearly in view. What he is assuming is that the enemies' values are as good as our own, and they're not. If the assumption is made then, of course, you've granted them moral equivalence and 'moral power'. The adversaries in Iraq are not morally powerful. They are aspiring proto-feudal tyrants, and for that, deserve killing. They have an abysmally evil record. There is no room for them in the modern world. The corrollary to his argument is that since villainy is weak, and therefore undefeatable by the strong, we give it a free pass until it is strong and an existential threat. I think Ralph Peters has a better idea. Get inside the press's action cycle and get the job done.