y81 has an interesting and fairly typical (of the position he seems to represent) point here. The standardised dialogue (monologue I should perhaps say) in the wake of an event which a government is able to describe as an atrocity against the nation is to require that the country should unite in patriotic fervour behind the most right wing and agressive response that the government in question proposes. At a time when the foreigner has made clear his intention to attack the nation, y81 seems to believe that all the people of the nation must therefore swing into line behind anyone who advocates and practises warfare against the foreigner, and that this should be with no regard to the nature, bloodiness, effectiveness or cost of the war. This leads us to the inevitable conclusion that, as Dubya argues, you are either `with us’ or `against us’.

Therefore anyone in America who does not support the militaristic response is one with the marauding foreigner, and part of the other side.

The example here is slightly more complex, as the woolly jihadist liberals are accused of wishing death upon the armies of the parent country. The assumption is that more than any other category of people, the soldiers engaged in executing the war agaist the foreigner must be above reproach, and certainly that to wish ill luck on them is treasonous.

This clearly does not apply to others in the population. In America especially it is normal to wish death on members of the American population who have transgressed the law, typically in the form of support for the death penalty, and usually because the individual in question has perpetrated a crime such as murder. However, at this point we must depart into the value system of the woolly liberal jihadists. They squeal when described as being on the otehr side, because they are under the impression that they live in a country which gives a moral as well as legal respect to freedom of expression.

It is normally their contention that instant over the top ill thought through military responses to atrocities are not necessarily appropriate. They may have their focus on practical issues such as actually making Americans safer, or on moral notions such as not blowing up loads of innocent people. They believe that the responses and actions of the ruling individuals are murderous, and perhaps motivated by other reasons than protecting the American people, such as the desire for enrichment. For all these reasons, these liberals feel that it is appropriate to oppose the government, military and other figureheads of the war.

They do not subscribe to the bipolar view of the world, but suspect that they are on the side of sensible appropriate reaction, guided by moral concerns and the pragmatic intention of protecting their countrymen. they feel that the jihadists and the warmongers share as much with each other as with themselves, the liberals.

And so, just as the jihadists and militaristic patriots feel at liberty to wish death and destruction on each other, and as people disgusted by certain crimes may appeal for the death sentence, the liberals will occasionally feel that it would be for the best if one, two or several hundred of the militaristic patriots who appear to be quite as murderous as Charlie Manson decided to top themselves, even when this includes specific (rather than generalised, a deathwish against all American soldiers would seem excessive) military personnel.

A trifle longwinded, but I hope my point comes through – the language of `the other side’ is the language of people who want an enemy and want to hate that enemy, and believe that while it is unforgiveable to wish harm on an American soldier, it is fine to redefine fellow citizens as the enemy for their opinions.

Of course, by y81’s axioms, what he says is surely true, we are on `the other side’. Its just that teh other side isn’t about people who hate america, its about anyone who won’t attack the foreigner indiscrimately in America’s name.

Unfortunately, if you take the unfashionable position that nations are arbitrary, and the only real and meaningful union of people is our common humanity, it looks rather like y81’s crowd are on the other side after all.

Love and woolly jihad…

“I don’t think anyone’s dismissing the possibility out of hand. We’re pointing out that it ought not be the default assumption, as it was in the officer’s vile comment.”

The comment was not vile for suggesting that the prisoners committed suicide as an act of protest.

Acts of protest whereby a prisoner, in oppressive circumstances, makes things worse for themselves (and it is traditional to think of death as being worse than living) in hopes of calling the attention of others to said oppression are often thought of as being noble.

I can’t help but wonder why, in all the narratives propounded for this act, it is not identified as a triumph for the human spirit. That at the end the powerful U.S government did not have control of the lives of these men.

The statement was not vile. Vile is an imprecise description of what this statement was.

If all the world’s a stage than this is the end of scene where the sacrifice is shown to be in vain, where human hope in being able to get the boot off the face is shown to be a delusion. Where you cannot warn others, because what you did to yourself in protest is done over and protested as an attack against order.

Even the people who should see this for what it is go along with the narrative, hardly anyone seems to dignify the efforts of these men to expose the corruption that had imprisoned them but rather wish to excuse the weakness of the dead in some way.

And that at least can be described by the rather milquetoast word, under the circumstances, of ‘vile’.

Irony is dead…

Nor did [ghandi], like most Western pacifists, specialize in avoiding awkward questions. In relation to the late war, one question that every pacifist had a clear obligation to answer was: “What about the Jews? Are you prepared to see them exterminated? If not, how do you propose to save them without resorting to war?” I must say that I have never heard, from any Western pacifist, an honest answer to this question, though I have heard plenty of evasions, usually of the “you’re another” type. But it so happens that Gandhi was asked a somewhat similar question in 1938 … Gandhi’s view was that the German Jews ought to commit collective suicide, which “would have aroused the world and the people of Germany to Hitler’s violence.”

It’s kind of hard to tell.

==> And who is this “top official”?

Who indeed? The Secretary of State, chief White House press secretary? Nope, a minor mandarin. Harris is relatively more senior in his field, but that field is the military in which ‘blunt’ talking is often held to be more important than mere ‘diplomacy’.

Now compare their comments to the obvious discomfort emanating from real top officials, and lack of breathtakingly crass commentaries.

I want to know more about this mind-reading trick of yours, y81…I’m throwing a party this weekend and I think it would be a great ice-breaker.

I know that your language is but the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, but I wonder why you don’t have such powerful feelings for people in North Korean or Chinese or Cuban prison camps, if you’re not on the other side.

Thank you, Bruce, it is a sentiment I would have myself but for the already corrupted standard I bear (hm, not unlike Moses’ disrupted speech from Pharoah’s test… but that is just a proof of my clarity’s lack)(Help Mister Wizard, Help…)

No, I was speaking to you with the same level of seriousness as your comment deserves. It’s not necessarily the same thing.

It’s alright, I’m used to be being called a groupie for the neo-imperialists when I dare to not to bend over backwards to accomodate anyone who valiantly opposes them. Just as I’m used to be being called a Hizby when I suggest that maybe our side can make mistakes or miscalls. Sticks and stones.

Many of us think that the suicides are much more likely to be acts of desperation than aggressive-ness because we have this quality called empathy which enables us to feel something when we imagine ourselves in a similarly hopeless situation. Empathy is the basis of shared humanity.

Many of us also have experience with the world, so know that suicide usually comes from untreated depression, which is a state of agressiveness and negativity turned inward.

Even if you lack empathy or experience, look at the statistics—remember that the administration has reported dozens of suicide attempts at Gitmo over the past 3 years (and lawyers for the detainees there have alleged those reports are grossly underestimated). None of those attempts have been spun as ‘war-fare’, so something is out of place now.

Either route one takes, it makes suicide because of hopelessness and despair to be the much more likely option. Hence our mocking of the clueless prison administrator’s attempt at making it otherwise.

Here’s another take on it!

P.S. The General’s satire actually stems from wounded empathy and anger at injustice. That’s why many anti-social personalities just don’t get it.