If you harbor a combatant, than you are a combatant. If your son is in the National Guard, don't be surprised if Iraq bombs your house. If your students are in ROTC, it is your fault if innocent civilian students are killed when we attack your classroom. If you invite your buddy over to dinner when he's home on leave, expect your entire family to be targeted.
I'm assuming sarcasm (or irony, I guess) in #5; I more or less think that #5, minus the irony, is descriptively correct. I think focusing too hard on justifying the morality of these sorts of decisions (as TigerHawk does) is time wasted. And, I should say, I'm on Kevin's side of the argument about whether the collateral damage was too terrible in this case to take action.
The thing is, I have only American and Pakistani government officials' word that terrorists were or weren't there, and sadly, I can't just assume that either one is telling me the truth any more. Or that they even have any idea who was there, for that matter.
We've killed something like thirty or forty million guys who were the number 2 man in Al Qaeda in the past 5 years. Their org chart must be awfully difficult to navigate.
It's a measure of the depths of my America-hating, I suppose, that I found these paragraphs in Monday's NYT blackly humorous in a Strangelove sort of way:
"The raid is believed to have been carried out by the C.I.A., using missiles fired by a remotely piloted Predator aircraft, on the basis of information gathered in an aggressive effort to track Mr. Zawahiri. An American counterterrorism official declined to discuss details of the attack, but said: ''My understanding is that it was based on pretty darned good information. A decision to do something like this is not made lightly.''
The C.I.A. and the White House have declined to comment on the raid, the third airstrike in recent weeks inside Pakistani territory by American aircraft. The American counterterrorism officials who agreed to speak about it were granted anonymity because they had not been authorized to speak publicly.
They offered a defense of the attack, saying they did not believe that innocent bystanders in Pakistan had been killed. One counterterrorism official said that even if Mr. Zawahiri was not killed in the attacks, ''Some very senior Al Qaeda types might have been.'' The official declined to identify other Qaeda members thought to have been at the scene."
--"Strike Aimed at Qaeda Figure Stirs More Pakistan Protests"
Pretty darned good!
Hey, has anyone followed the new (UK) Celebrity Big Brother? George Galloway is sharing a house with Pete Burns, Dennis Rodman, and Michael Barrymore, et al. Pete's the reasonable one, I think. I wish they'd signed up Hitchens, too.
Tim, I didn't mean to come across as if I thought the answer to Drum's question is simple in either direction. What I'm most fed up with is the chest-thumping from people with such casual, quick dismissals of other peoples' lives. "Easy for you to say," as I take Henley to be saying.
Clearly, upholding the Geneva Convention has no value, moral or practical, for the US. After all, why would we want to show the world there is a difference between us and terrorists -- that we don't kill civilians indiscriminately alongside soldiers, or torture people?
I can't imagine why that might be in our interest.
It probably doesn't have anything to do with this quote from an Iraqi civil leader, talking about the latest kidnapped American in Iraq, either.
''We condemn the abductions of innocent civilians and journalists and call for the immediate release of the American reporter and all innocent people who have nothing to do with the (U.S.-led) occupation,'' said Harith al-Obeidi of the Conference for Iraq's People.
Re: apostropher's comment, the situation is unique from the many more in which nonterrorists were discriminately targeted based on bad intelligence. Kevin's question is of the form, how many civilians, of what age and relation to the terrorists? But the more actionable question is along the lines of: How confident the intelligence, how rare the opportunity?
8: Paul, I haven't seen it, but I heard about it on Radio 4's Any Questions.
Which Hitchens? Christopher (the Trotskyist) or Peter (his brother the right-winger)? Peter would surely disapprove of it as terribly base, and CHristopher doesn't seem to make it back to ENgladn all that often.
Everyone from IDS to Simon Hughes was condemning Galloway as a bad MP neglecting his constituents. And IDS said that the MP Galloway took down, Una King--though Labour, seemed to be an honourable person and that nasty things were said about religion. How naive, or at least pleasantly civilized, compared to American politics.
(Note: I had to listen after I was found to be so deficient in my Lib-Dem knowledge, having missed that Charles Kennedy had stepped down.)
Then IDS completely lost all of my new-found respect when he said that we (meaning the British) just had to trust George W. Bush on Iran.
how many civilians, of what age and relation to the terrorists?
There was a great This American Life that talked to a guy whosemilitary job it was to estimate and minimize collateral damage. He said that if the number was above 30 people, someone above him (and I think far above him) had to sign off on it.
Tigerhawk's response requires a moral judgment on the dead civilians; they died, but they had it comin'. This seems morally repulsive, especially given that terrorists who we have to kill with airstrikes probably don't advertise "Hey, I'm al-Qaeda's #2 man and it's dangerous to invite me over for dinner." (And the wives and kids get a lot of choice in whom Dad's friends are, as B pointed out.)
But such posturing isn't even necessary; what's wrong with acknowledging that their deaths are regrettable but an unfortunate consequence of fighting a war where the enemy's on the move, etc., etc. What's the extra step of and they deserved it! supposed to be doing here?
Besides giving weighty manly bluster to the discussion, of course.
But look, we already know al-Qaeda's bad and that capturing their leaders is a good thing from the American perspective. We also know that outside of Tom Clancy novels, surgery with bombs is impossible It's a war, or something a lot like it; more than just bad guys are going to die. For a war to be correct & moral & all that, we don't have to postulate perfect action, just within acceptable parameters.
The question should be the one Kevin's asking: are 18 innocents worth killing a bad guy? This is a tough question and he asked his commenters and they're doing their usual stupidity dance.
To pretend that all people killed in wars were enemies of the state seems a little fanciful, ya know?
Christopher, BG, the drink-soaked former Trotskyist popinjay. Kidding though. Trotskyist popinjay Hitchens might be, but I'm not waiting on him to lick cream off Rula Lenska anytime soon.
capturing their leaders is a good thing from the American perspective
On a bet, TigerHawk's argument is important to him because he wants to argue that the goodness of capturing AQ's leaders isn't dependent on an American perspective. AQ is evil, evil must be fought, etc.
Yeah, I sounded a little bit wishy-washy by including the American perspective phrase, but well. I think there are good reasons for preferring the U.S. to al-Q/Taliban (duh), but after reading Drum's site one expects any statement like 'terrorism is bad!' to be met with a whole lot of nathering about how the U.S. is bad, too.
I don't see how erasing that perspective helps TigerHawk, though; surely on his perspective the goodness of killing al-Q's leaders kind of requires the dead people to be al-Q's leaders.
Well, here's the exercise I use in making such judgments: would I be willing to have 18 random people in my neighborhood killed in exchange for the death of this person? What if my family members are among the pool of eligible sacrifices?
Not surprisingly, this exercise tends to lead one toward isolationism.
The worst aspect of the TigerHawk maneuver is its explicit assumption that there are no innocents—not just as judged by action (having al Q over for lunch) or relations (being the daughter of the host) but by political affiliation. That the neighbor of the host agrees that America is the Great Satan—that's assumed, and that's enough to write off their innocence.
I understand the calculus, veil of ignorance, etc, what if it were my family member; I'm just not sure that's a good argument, or at least not an overrideable one.
This isn't really in the abstract given the current situation. The U.S. has decided al-Q's bad because they blew up the towers. Retribution is happening because most of the people want it; if we want it to be retribution that has a decent chance of not being mindless slaughter, we're going to need an answer to how many is too many for al-Q target y that isn't just no one, because that option isn't going to be on the table.
Apostropher's thought-experiment would have different results with different people. Quite a few people would be happy to take out their whole neighborhood if they and their property were spared.
We (might) have killed 3 or maybe 4 terrorists at the cost of 18 or maybe 24 people of varying degrees of innocence. Was it worth it? We cannot possibly know that until we can accurately determine how many new enemies our actions have created.
As usual in economics, it's the costs that are hidden, willfully or no, that will bite you in the ass.
It's a more complicated question than that, though. We just bombed a country with which we are not at war, a country that indeed is an ally (so far). They weren't in Afghanistan or Iraq. Not that we've declared war there, either, but still.
Or that they even have any idea who was there, for that matter.
As I was saying upthread, nobody actually knows who got blown up.
It's hard to discuss in relation to the actual news, though, because at this point my reaction to the announcement that we've identified any Al Qaeda target at all is "Yeah, right." While I can accept that there are circumstances in which the unintended death of innocent people is acceptable if it serves legitimate military goals, I have a hard time accepting any military goals announced by this administration as legitimate. They just lie so much that I have no reason to believe any given claim is true.
So talking about stuff like this, I find myself taking the position that we, now, are wrong to kill any innocents whatsoever, because we have no standing to claim that valid military considerations justified it. This is more an irritable reaction than a thought -- but I think a lot of people are emotionally in the same place I am.
There's separate (tho not wholly unrelated) questions here:
What actions may the U.S. take when trying to fight al-Qaeda?
Is bombing allies acceptable if we're fighting terrorists and nominally working with the country they're hiding out in?
How many casualties would be acceptable in a situation where we had good evidence that we could kill a major leader with an airstrike?
How good would the evidence have to be before such an airstrike should be authorized?
etc.
I took Kevin to be posing the third question (and receiving answers to the first, second &fourth.) I'm not sure I can trust this administration's word on much of anything, but I still am pretty sure that sometimes civilian casualties are okay under some circumstances. And it would be good of the only dialogue on question #3 wasn't of the Tigerhawk variety.
31: WHA...? I get the reaction, but it's not a policy. The vast majority of the country supports our actions in Afghanistan. Killing AQ leaders is still clearly something most think is justified. I don't understand the support for #31.
I was being sarcastic, and I don't think it's really all that illogical a reaction. We're fighting in country, and we claim to be fighting terrorists--who are, pretty much by definition, non-military combatants. Inevitably, therefore, we are going to be killing people as they go about their daily business. Saying that that's acceptable is one thing; justifying it by saying that people are asking for it--"be neither surprised nor outraged" "you are asking for it" and "you are a combatant"--is a real bit of moral cowardice.
Does the statement "the vast majority of the country supports our actions" alter the moral calculus?
I'm not quite sure what you mean by this, but no, I don't think if, say, killing 30 civilians to get 1 bad guy was wrong, that if the country supports it, 30 somehow becomes morally correct. (Politically viable, yes.)
But what the country supports is certainly going to limit the non-violent options.
36: Oh, I know -- that's why I called it an irritable reaction rather than a thought. But it does mean that my answer to Cala's fourth question is always going to be "More evidence than this administration is giving me. I don't care what they say, I want more, and I want it to be from someone else."
On Cala's third question, answering it as if I had any faith at all in the data we're getting, my answer is still "Very few," but I could be talked out of it. The impression I have is that the Al Qaeda leaders we're talking about are individual conspirators, not irreplaceable masterminds -- that Al Qaeda is going to go on without them, and a year from now no one is going to remember or miss them and the terrorism situation will be the same. If I thought (A) that destroying Al Qaeda as an organization was likely to have a large effect on the total amount of world terrorism (it might -- I just don't know. Don't we keep hearing that a great deal is done by copycat organizations with no actual connection to Al Qaeda) and (B) that killing these guys was likely to have a large effect on the destruction of Al Qaeda as an organization (it might, but I don't hear that claim being made, and I don't know that I'd believe it if it was) I could be talked into condoning the death of a larger number of civilians.
I don't know how well that works as a strategy, Labs. Some will win, some will lose and we won't be any closer to finding out whether the people we killed were streetlight people.
I'd suggest a few additional questions to add to Cala's list in 35:
What's our motive? if we are seeking retribution against those who did bad things in the past, our justification for injuring innocents is a whole lot weaker than if we're trying to prevent future deaths of innocents.
What alternatives are there? If there are less risky ways to accomplish something, aren't we obliged to choose the least risky alternative?
I agree with what I think LB is saying - given that our information on all these questions is highly dubious, it's very hard to agree that any action resulting in the death of non-targets is justified
Thank you for the confirmation, LB. I think I'm falling back on the old question of who has the burder of proof. I'd say that the party who killed the non-targets has the burden, and they have some serious credibility problems. I think it goes back to what Cala and Matt Weiner were talking about yesterday, about the agency of the witness and the necessity of contemplating the possibility that the testimony is simply a lie.
It strikes me as odd that Tigerhawk creates an exception for churches, mosques, and hospitals. What is different about these places? What is his standard such that the members of the household are nonrelevant, but the people of the mosque are? I can't figure that one out. And how are the people of the hospital significantly different from, say, a shopping mall? (Or bazaar, as the case may be.) This is probably a minor quibble, though. I doubt Tigerhawk would have complained if it had been a church, or mosque, or hospital.
A bit more serious. As MHS noted, our motive is relevant. It's reprehensible to kill bystanders simply to kill a man, or men, for the sake of revenge. The only moral argument here is that the evil of killing the bystanders is less than the probable evil of inaction. And we can look at this backwards or forwards. We can second guess the call, saying that there's only a probability that Zawahiri was there, only a probability that the attack would kill him, only a that there wouldn't be another, better chance, and only a probability that he would do more damage in the future, if the attack was not made. Of course, there was also, I imagine, only a certain probabilty of collateral damage. So, they took a gamble. Was it right to do so? I'm glad no one's asking me.
Now, looking backwards, the only questions are 1) Is anyone getting any compensation for this? and 2) How dangerous was Zawahiri? I'm under the impression that he is about the samer priority target is bin Laden. However, I'm one of those people who's not that scared of AQ. As the Righties have trumpeting all day; they're on the run, they can't do much of anything. Despite all the glaring security holes in this country, AQ in Afghanistan/Paskistan hasn't managed anything since 9/11.
However, even if one buys into the idea of this sort of calculation, the only one that I see available, it still doesn't go anywhere because it can't be made; the variables simply can't be filled in. There are other fators; the damage to the US reputation, to how others perceive the US, but taking these into account seems to be making an amoral condemnation of the US for seeming to be amoral.
The whole problem appears to be even looking for the morality of this situation. Practically, there doesn't appear to be any moral perspective. I don't actually think that there was any sort of moral calculation like I walked through above. Those who gave the order were not likely considering the moral rights of bystanding Pakistanis.
If we consider the moral rights of the Pakistanis at all, we're thrown into an unsolvable moral quandry. I can at least say that that in itself is something which I do not like. I think I'm going to have to stand against the strike. Maybe it's ridiculous, but what if we had simply fired a rocket off to the side? A message, "we could have done it. we could have killed you. but, it wouldn't have been right."
Impossible to tell what would have resulted from that. But surely it may have done something to help our image, to show off that we're not the evil that Zawahiri accused us of being.
While a lot of Journey is fine, "Don't Stop Believing" is the only *truly awesome* track of theirs, in my judgement. That one goes on the spaceship when the sun goes nova.
"Fontana is right" refers (in this case) to 'Oh Sherry' being a Steve Perry song. But he's right about it being ok to kill 100 innocents to singe Al Zarqawi's beard, as he argues elsewhere.
But he's right about it being ok to kill 100 innocents to singe Al Zarqawi's beard, as he argues elsewhere.
You read the Gayatollah too narrowly. That the 100 innocents might choose their own lives over singeing Al Zarqawi's beard proves that the 100 are morally complicit with Zarqawi. Collective punishment is collective justice!
If you wanted criticisms of your lint-puppet modelling technique? If you wanted a reader to point out prior lint-puppet construction projects that you clearly ripped off? If you wanted a reader to compare (unfavorably) lint-puppets with used Q-Tip-puppets?
Coming into this late, but here're my two cents: I used to work for the US government overseas. I was repeatedly amazed by what the filter of government secrecy and press ignorance did to the reporting of events I was privy to. I never had a hand any intentional obfuscations, not to mention directed ones, though it was easy to imagine.
Still, it amazes me that everyone is talking about the CIA bombing by Predator aircraft and precision guided bombs. Might as well call them TEAM America. Aren't they supposed to be covert? And the story about who got killed changes like every 8 hours. The easiest explanation is that the confusion is to blame, and that the changing story is approaching truth over time.
But I can almost as easily engage in fantasy, James Bond style. Say you know some bad guys might attend a dinner in a village in Pakistan. You can get those guys, and I mean nab, capture, take away, and interogate using the Bulgarian Field Guide to Prisoner Questioning in Wartime even. You could nab them as they arrive, or as they leave, or during the dinner. Easiest is at the dinner, the location is known and that reduces risks to the mission. Problem is, if you take them, and AQ knows you got them, they then know which of their plans and operations are potentially compromised. The trick then, is to capture persons, without anyone knowing you got them. In other words, I'd be willing to believe that the carnage and the confusion is the result of violence done just to cover up kidnapping.
On the other hand, there seems to be a pattern of CIA assassinations, in cases where abduction seems the far more desirable option strategically. Is the only good AQ lieutenant a dead lieutenant or a captured lieutenant?
Whatever happened to "stick'em up!"? To "Come out with your hands up!" Did this Americanism die at Waco with the oh-so-flawed "we'll smoke'em out, see?"
It seems we really have changed. We are now terrorizing the terrorists: a dinner party for a wedding party, a village for a train, a mountain for a skyscraper. We're taking or fight to...
Thanks, Matt W. Cheryl's a friend of mine, and her lint stuff is brilliant. I could hardly believe that it came up here.
I'd vote for Wheel in the Sky as a decent Journey song, but a thumbs-down to Open Arms (which I think was the "theme song" to my Junior Prom)(And this was not in 1984, either. Go figure).
Okay, now that a friend of the creator of the prior lint puppet project has showed up to testify, I am willing to concede that BoingBoing is unnecessary.
And surely the greatest Journey song is the one that ends "na-na-na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na"? (I may have miscounted.)
JRoth, you're welcome. We surely know some people in common -- well, I've met Cheryl a few times, and my mom was working with her on some project once I think, but probably more than that. I was in Pittsburgh till '03.
I can't believe Ogged is willing to ignore the terrorist threat even as Glenn puts it in perfectly clear language for him:
BILL ROGGIO notes that contrary to claims it killed innocent civilians, the U.S. airstrike in Pakistan took down some major terrorists.
Can't you understand that these terrorists are so dangerous that they turn anybody who's within a bomb-blast radius of them into a terrorist too! If this ever came to the US, it'd be worse than Night of the Living Dead! I'm concerned that the entire eastern seaboard could become terrorists within hours!
Yeah, Matt, I first came across your blog right around that time, discovering that you had left. In Pittsburgh, it's maybe 3 degrees of separation - at most. (As a regular patron of Cupka's 2, I figure I'm probably just 2 degrees from that Steelers fan who had the heart attack last week, and was mentioned in the NYT yesterday).
In high school, a Chinese restaurant my friends and I frequented played a lot of "elevator muzak" and we'd amuse ourselves while waiting for our food by playing a game my friend Paul invented, called "Foreigner or Journey?"
True Confession: I used to google my comments' turns of phrase before posting, weeding them out if they weren't reasonably original. This was around the same time I was chiding Ben for concerning himself overmuch with avoiding triteness. The shame, the hypocrisy!
Interesting, Apo. I haven't looked at the link, but in the past I've found tristero's arguments entirely unhinged. But you find him (her?) worthwhile, and I find you worthwhile. You'd think there would be some sort of transitive law involved.
I keep waiting for the fucking Philosophy professors to tell us whether or not we are trapped in our own pool of subjectivity. If they say, strongly, that we're not, maybe I'll go read the link. But I'd guess they're too busy correcting grammar.
in the past I've found tristero's arguments entirely unhinged
Me too, absolutely, but this one's surprisingly decent.
I'm still burning with rage over the idea that my liberalism equates me with Osama bin Laden, a meme that Digby responds to very effectively but still makes me so mad I can barely see.
in the past I've found tristero's arguments entirely unhinged. But you find him (her?) worthwhile, and I find you worthwhile. You'd think there would be some sort of transitive law involved
I think tristero is policy-wise very sensible and reasonable; I have certainly had occasion to think that s/he was overly hostile toward political opponents, to the point where I was left thinking "Oh, that really isn't going to help." But the linked post is dead on what I wanted to say above -- if you thought I had a point at all, you should click through and read.
If the question is "Should I read the link?" this is something I'm kind of an expert on, and the answer is "yes." The question is "Is it worth spending the energy to read tristero's arguments, and then, is it worth spending the energy to think about them?" You start out with a pretty strong reason to believe that the answer is "no," because tristero's track record makes you think he's not worth reading. But Apo's track record makes you respect his recommendations about what's worth reading, so now you have some specific reason for paying attention to this piece of tristero's. Double now that LB has also endorsed it.
There would be some cases where someone's past reputation is so bad that an endorsement from someone with a good reputation doesn't help. If someone I respected said "This is a good Ann Coulter column," then I would lose respect for them; it would take a lot before I clicked the link. But I doubt tristero is that far gone.
This actually relates to the actual substance of the argument. The Bush Administration's track record is so bad that many of us don't think their testimony provides any evidence of anything. They've just made too much stuff up. So even if we think that it would be OK to drop a bomb on this house if there were terrorists inside, we don't think we have any reason to believe that there were any terrorists there. Hence the reluctance to support this action, because we feel that our support is likely to turn out to be based on false premises.
It's unfortunate that, given this, if the Bush Administration had actually killed some terrorists we wouldn't be giving them credit for it. Sucked for the boy who cried wolf, too.
(as for the question, is it OK to kill civilians while taking out a Bad Guy like whatsisface, it's more Labs' department. It seems to me that this is the sort of thing that happens in wars of any sort, which is part of the reason that war is always a bad thing which may nevertheless be sometimes justified (and in the case of the war on Al Qaeda, I think it obviously is justified). And then there are the questions about blowing up stuff in Pakistan, about which I pass.)
Contrary to my not paying her this time, your mom still had sex with me last night.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 12:02 PM
Children harboring parents who harbor aides to top terrorists have to pay as well.
Posted by Joe O | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 12:35 PM
Living next door to someone who might harbor terrorists is also, clearly, a capital offense.
Posted by Matt #3 | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 12:36 PM
1: Mom says it didn't last long enough for her to feel right about charging you. All that crying just brings out her maternal nurturing instincts.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 12:39 PM
If you harbor a combatant, than you are a combatant. If your son is in the National Guard, don't be surprised if Iraq bombs your house. If your students are in ROTC, it is your fault if innocent civilian students are killed when we attack your classroom. If you invite your buddy over to dinner when he's home on leave, expect your entire family to be targeted.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 12:45 PM
I'm assuming sarcasm (or irony, I guess) in #5; I more or less think that #5, minus the irony, is descriptively correct. I think focusing too hard on justifying the morality of these sorts of decisions (as TigerHawk does) is time wasted. And, I should say, I'm on Kevin's side of the argument about whether the collateral damage was too terrible in this case to take action.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 1:08 PM
The thing is, I have only American and Pakistani government officials' word that terrorists were or weren't there, and sadly, I can't just assume that either one is telling me the truth any more. Or that they even have any idea who was there, for that matter.
We've killed something like thirty or forty million guys who were the number 2 man in Al Qaeda in the past 5 years. Their org chart must be awfully difficult to navigate.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 1:17 PM
It's a measure of the depths of my America-hating, I suppose, that I found these paragraphs in Monday's NYT blackly humorous in a Strangelove sort of way:
--"Strike Aimed at Qaeda Figure Stirs More Pakistan Protests"
Pretty darned good!
Hey, has anyone followed the new (UK) Celebrity Big Brother? George Galloway is sharing a house with Pete Burns, Dennis Rodman, and Michael Barrymore, et al. Pete's the reasonable one, I think. I wish they'd signed up Hitchens, too.
Posted by Paul | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 1:23 PM
No, no, no, apostropher. We've killed the number 3 man--trusted lieutenants all. Zawahiri actually is number 2.
The children of the neighbors of people who might harbor him clearly must die.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 1:24 PM
Tim, I didn't mean to come across as if I thought the answer to Drum's question is simple in either direction. What I'm most fed up with is the chest-thumping from people with such casual, quick dismissals of other peoples' lives. "Easy for you to say," as I take Henley to be saying.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 1:53 PM
Clearly, upholding the Geneva Convention has no value, moral or practical, for the US. After all, why would we want to show the world there is a difference between us and terrorists -- that we don't kill civilians indiscriminately alongside soldiers, or torture people?
I can't imagine why that might be in our interest.
It probably doesn't have anything to do with this quote from an Iraqi civil leader, talking about the latest kidnapped American in Iraq, either.
''We condemn the abductions of innocent civilians and journalists and call for the immediate release of the American reporter and all innocent people who have nothing to do with the (U.S.-led) occupation,'' said Harith al-Obeidi of the Conference for Iraq's People.
[source: AP]
Posted by mmf! | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 1:59 PM
Re: apostropher's comment, the situation is unique from the many more in which nonterrorists were discriminately targeted based on bad intelligence. Kevin's question is of the form, how many civilians, of what age and relation to the terrorists? But the more actionable question is along the lines of: How confident the intelligence, how rare the opportunity?
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 2:06 PM
8: Paul, I haven't seen it, but I heard about it on Radio 4's Any Questions.
Which Hitchens? Christopher (the Trotskyist) or Peter (his brother the right-winger)? Peter would surely disapprove of it as terribly base, and CHristopher doesn't seem to make it back to ENgladn all that often.
Everyone from IDS to Simon Hughes was condemning Galloway as a bad MP neglecting his constituents. And IDS said that the MP Galloway took down, Una King--though Labour, seemed to be an honourable person and that nasty things were said about religion. How naive, or at least pleasantly civilized, compared to American politics.
(Note: I had to listen after I was found to be so deficient in my Lib-Dem knowledge, having missed that Charles Kennedy had stepped down.)
Then IDS completely lost all of my new-found respect when he said that we (meaning the British) just had to trust George W. Bush on Iran.
Posted by Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 2:14 PM
how many civilians, of what age and relation to the terrorists?
There was a great This American Life that talked to a guy whosemilitary job it was to estimate and minimize collateral damage. He said that if the number was above 30 people, someone above him (and I think far above him) had to sign off on it.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 2:15 PM
Tigerhawk's response requires a moral judgment on the dead civilians; they died, but they had it comin'. This seems morally repulsive, especially given that terrorists who we have to kill with airstrikes probably don't advertise "Hey, I'm al-Qaeda's #2 man and it's dangerous to invite me over for dinner." (And the wives and kids get a lot of choice in whom Dad's friends are, as B pointed out.)
But such posturing isn't even necessary; what's wrong with acknowledging that their deaths are regrettable but an unfortunate consequence of fighting a war where the enemy's on the move, etc., etc. What's the extra step of and they deserved it! supposed to be doing here?
Besides giving weighty manly bluster to the discussion, of course.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 2:27 PM
What's the extra step of and they deserved it! supposed to be doing here?
Assuages the conscience. Also keeps people, and Congress, from complaining about it. After all, who cries after a terrorist?
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 2:32 PM
But look, we already know al-Qaeda's bad and that capturing their leaders is a good thing from the American perspective. We also know that outside of Tom Clancy novels, surgery with bombs is impossible It's a war, or something a lot like it; more than just bad guys are going to die. For a war to be correct & moral & all that, we don't have to postulate perfect action, just within acceptable parameters.
The question should be the one Kevin's asking: are 18 innocents worth killing a bad guy? This is a tough question and he asked his commenters and they're doing their usual stupidity dance.
To pretend that all people killed in wars were enemies of the state seems a little fanciful, ya know?
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 2:41 PM
Christopher, BG, the drink-soaked former Trotskyist popinjay. Kidding though. Trotskyist popinjay Hitchens might be, but I'm not waiting on him to lick cream off Rula Lenska anytime soon.
Posted by Paul | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 2:45 PM
capturing their leaders is a good thing from the American perspective
On a bet, TigerHawk's argument is important to him because he wants to argue that the goodness of capturing AQ's leaders isn't dependent on an American perspective. AQ is evil, evil must be fought, etc.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 2:45 PM
Yeah, I sounded a little bit wishy-washy by including the American perspective phrase, but well. I think there are good reasons for preferring the U.S. to al-Q/Taliban (duh), but after reading Drum's site one expects any statement like 'terrorism is bad!' to be met with a whole lot of nathering about how the U.S. is bad, too.
I don't see how erasing that perspective helps TigerHawk, though; surely on his perspective the goodness of killing al-Q's leaders kind of requires the dead people to be al-Q's leaders.
I think I'm being a little bitch now, though.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 2:55 PM
are 18 innocents worth killing a bad guy?
Well, here's the exercise I use in making such judgments: would I be willing to have 18 random people in my neighborhood killed in exchange for the death of this person? What if my family members are among the pool of eligible sacrifices?
Not surprisingly, this exercise tends to lead one toward isolationism.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 2:56 PM
let's all be little bitches!
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 2:57 PM
I have two ex-brother-in-laws two ex-bosses who I'd pay money to put next to Zarqawi right before the missile hit.
Nobody ever talks about the uninvolved, but guilty bystanders.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 3:03 PM
We all got it comin', Emerson.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 3:05 PM
The worst aspect of the TigerHawk maneuver is its explicit assumption that there are no innocents—not just as judged by action (having al Q over for lunch) or relations (being the daughter of the host) but by political affiliation. That the neighbor of the host agrees that America is the Great Satan—that's assumed, and that's enough to write off their innocence.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 3:05 PM
21 gets it exactly right.
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 3:07 PM
I understand the calculus, veil of ignorance, etc, what if it were my family member; I'm just not sure that's a good argument, or at least not an overrideable one.
This isn't really in the abstract given the current situation. The U.S. has decided al-Q's bad because they blew up the towers. Retribution is happening because most of the people want it; if we want it to be retribution that has a decent chance of not being mindless slaughter, we're going to need an answer to how many is too many for al-Q target y that isn't just no one, because that option isn't going to be on the table.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 3:10 PM
Apostropher's thought-experiment would have different results with different people. Quite a few people would be happy to take out their whole neighborhood if they and their property were spared.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 3:23 PM
We (might) have killed 3 or maybe 4 terrorists at the cost of 18 or maybe 24 people of varying degrees of innocence. Was it worth it? We cannot possibly know that until we can accurately determine how many new enemies our actions have created.
As usual in economics, it's the costs that are hidden, willfully or no, that will bite you in the ass.
Posted by Kip Manley | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 3:27 PM
that isn't just no one
It's a more complicated question than that, though. We just bombed a country with which we are not at war, a country that indeed is an ally (so far). They weren't in Afghanistan or Iraq. Not that we've declared war there, either, but still.
Or that they even have any idea who was there, for that matter.
As I was saying upthread, nobody actually knows who got blown up.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 3:29 PM
It's hard to discuss in relation to the actual news, though, because at this point my reaction to the announcement that we've identified any Al Qaeda target at all is "Yeah, right." While I can accept that there are circumstances in which the unintended death of innocent people is acceptable if it serves legitimate military goals, I have a hard time accepting any military goals announced by this administration as legitimate. They just lie so much that I have no reason to believe any given claim is true.
So talking about stuff like this, I find myself taking the position that we, now, are wrong to kill any innocents whatsoever, because we have no standing to claim that valid military considerations justified it. This is more an irritable reaction than a thought -- but I think a lot of people are emotionally in the same place I am.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 3:32 PM
Yup, LB, you nailed it.
Posted by Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 3:35 PM
31 gets it exactly right.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 3:35 PM
Isn't this a lot like the headlines we see: "Cop chases fleeing suspect who changed lanes without signaling; 47 killed in ensuing wreck"
Posted by Michael H Schneider | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 3:37 PM
There's separate (tho not wholly unrelated) questions here:
What actions may the U.S. take when trying to fight al-Qaeda?
Is bombing allies acceptable if we're fighting terrorists and nominally working with the country they're hiding out in?
How many casualties would be acceptable in a situation where we had good evidence that we could kill a major leader with an airstrike?
How good would the evidence have to be before such an airstrike should be authorized?
etc.
I took Kevin to be posing the third question (and receiving answers to the first, second &fourth.) I'm not sure I can trust this administration's word on much of anything, but I still am pretty sure that sometimes civilian casualties are okay under some circumstances. And it would be good of the only dialogue on question #3 wasn't of the Tigerhawk variety.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 3:38 PM
31: WHA...? I get the reaction, but it's not a policy. The vast majority of the country supports our actions in Afghanistan. Killing AQ leaders is still clearly something most think is justified. I don't understand the support for #31.
Moonbats.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 3:38 PM
Does the statement "the vast majority of the country supports our actions" alter the moral calculus?
Posted by Michael H Schneider | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 3:42 PM
I deny the existence of anything like a "moral calculus."
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 3:45 PM
WWJD?
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 3:47 PM
I was being sarcastic, and I don't think it's really all that illogical a reaction. We're fighting in country, and we claim to be fighting terrorists--who are, pretty much by definition, non-military combatants. Inevitably, therefore, we are going to be killing people as they go about their daily business. Saying that that's acceptable is one thing; justifying it by saying that people are asking for it--"be neither surprised nor outraged" "you are asking for it" and "you are a combatant"--is a real bit of moral cowardice.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 3:48 PM
Does the statement "the vast majority of the country supports our actions" alter the moral calculus?
I'm not quite sure what you mean by this, but no, I don't think if, say, killing 30 civilians to get 1 bad guy was wrong, that if the country supports it, 30 somehow becomes morally correct. (Politically viable, yes.)
But what the country supports is certainly going to limit the non-violent options.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 3:48 PM
WWJD?
They wouldn't stop believing, that's for sure.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 3:48 PM
that's more like a moral trigonometry.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 3:48 PM
That's a good point, Ogged. I myself would pay anything to roll the dice-- just one more time.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 3:54 PM
36: Oh, I know -- that's why I called it an irritable reaction rather than a thought. But it does mean that my answer to Cala's fourth question is always going to be "More evidence than this administration is giving me. I don't care what they say, I want more, and I want it to be from someone else."
On Cala's third question, answering it as if I had any faith at all in the data we're getting, my answer is still "Very few," but I could be talked out of it. The impression I have is that the Al Qaeda leaders we're talking about are individual conspirators, not irreplaceable masterminds -- that Al Qaeda is going to go on without them, and a year from now no one is going to remember or miss them and the terrorism situation will be the same. If I thought (A) that destroying Al Qaeda as an organization was likely to have a large effect on the total amount of world terrorism (it might -- I just don't know. Don't we keep hearing that a great deal is done by copycat organizations with no actual connection to Al Qaeda) and (B) that killing these guys was likely to have a large effect on the destruction of Al Qaeda as an organization (it might, but I don't hear that claim being made, and I don't know that I'd believe it if it was) I could be talked into condoning the death of a larger number of civilians.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 3:54 PM
I don't know how well that works as a strategy, Labs. Some will win, some will lose and we won't be any closer to finding out whether the people we killed were streetlight people.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 3:59 PM
Gawd, I hope you had to look up the lyrics to remember the "streetlight people" bit.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 4:02 PM
I'd suggest a few additional questions to add to Cala's list in 35:
What's our motive? if we are seeking retribution against those who did bad things in the past, our justification for injuring innocents is a whole lot weaker than if we're trying to prevent future deaths of innocents.
What alternatives are there? If there are less risky ways to accomplish something, aren't we obliged to choose the least risky alternative?
I agree with what I think LB is saying - given that our information on all these questions is highly dubious, it's very hard to agree that any action resulting in the death of non-targets is justified
Posted by Michael H Schneider | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 4:04 PM
Are you kidding, Tim? My memory is made of silver, not of clay.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 4:06 PM
48: Yep.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 4:08 PM
Thank you for the confirmation, LB. I think I'm falling back on the old question of who has the burder of proof. I'd say that the party who killed the non-targets has the burden, and they have some serious credibility problems. I think it goes back to what Cala and Matt Weiner were talking about yesterday, about the agency of the witness and the necessity of contemplating the possibility that the testimony is simply a lie.
Posted by Michael H Schneider | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 4:13 PM
It strikes me as odd that Tigerhawk creates an exception for churches, mosques, and hospitals. What is different about these places? What is his standard such that the members of the household are nonrelevant, but the people of the mosque are? I can't figure that one out. And how are the people of the hospital significantly different from, say, a shopping mall? (Or bazaar, as the case may be.) This is probably a minor quibble, though. I doubt Tigerhawk would have complained if it had been a church, or mosque, or hospital.
A bit more serious. As MHS noted, our motive is relevant. It's reprehensible to kill bystanders simply to kill a man, or men, for the sake of revenge. The only moral argument here is that the evil of killing the bystanders is less than the probable evil of inaction. And we can look at this backwards or forwards. We can second guess the call, saying that there's only a probability that Zawahiri was there, only a probability that the attack would kill him, only a that there wouldn't be another, better chance, and only a probability that he would do more damage in the future, if the attack was not made. Of course, there was also, I imagine, only a certain probabilty of collateral damage. So, they took a gamble. Was it right to do so? I'm glad no one's asking me.
Now, looking backwards, the only questions are 1) Is anyone getting any compensation for this? and 2) How dangerous was Zawahiri? I'm under the impression that he is about the samer priority target is bin Laden. However, I'm one of those people who's not that scared of AQ. As the Righties have trumpeting all day; they're on the run, they can't do much of anything. Despite all the glaring security holes in this country, AQ in Afghanistan/Paskistan hasn't managed anything since 9/11.
However, even if one buys into the idea of this sort of calculation, the only one that I see available, it still doesn't go anywhere because it can't be made; the variables simply can't be filled in. There are other fators; the damage to the US reputation, to how others perceive the US, but taking these into account seems to be making an amoral condemnation of the US for seeming to be amoral.
The whole problem appears to be even looking for the morality of this situation. Practically, there doesn't appear to be any moral perspective. I don't actually think that there was any sort of moral calculation like I walked through above. Those who gave the order were not likely considering the moral rights of bystanding Pakistanis.
If we consider the moral rights of the Pakistanis at all, we're thrown into an unsolvable moral quandry. I can at least say that that in itself is something which I do not like. I think I'm going to have to stand against the strike. Maybe it's ridiculous, but what if we had simply fired a rocket off to the side? A message, "we could have done it. we could have killed you. but, it wouldn't have been right."
Impossible to tell what would have resulted from that. But surely it may have done something to help our image, to show off that we're not the evil that Zawahiri accused us of being.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 7:18 PM
That is such a great song.
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 8:36 PM
I have to admit that I have liked and still like some Journey songs.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 8:39 PM
Dude! I was being "explain health care economics to a stranger in a hotel lobby" sincere. That's really an excellent song.
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 8:55 PM
You're still not over that, are you? I was serious too.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 8:58 PM
It is very painful to be confronted with one's vices.
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 9:05 PM
That one's right up there with "likes to boil enemies in camel oil."
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 9:10 PM
And *then* I talk about vaccine pricing. It's diabolical.
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 9:14 PM
You're right, camel oil is quicker.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 9:16 PM
"That is such a great song."
(l/p: apostropher/7W8E6W)
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 9:27 PM
It's a horrible song, but Perry has a great voice, and it reminds me of a fun time of life.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 9:31 PM
candy is dandy
but camel oil is quicker
Ogg'd 'n Nash
Posted by camelman | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 9:32 PM
What are the truly awesome Journey songs? "Don't stop believing" is definitely one, but what about "open arms" and "any way you want it"?
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 9:38 PM
"Oh Sherry." One of the first music videos I can remember.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 9:47 PM
Boy! This thread has an urgent need for some bestiality.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 9:47 PM
Wasn't that a Steve Perry song?
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 9:48 PM
Solo? Really? Huh.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 9:56 PM
Think so. Could be wrong. Forgot how to use pronouns.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 10:04 PM
Fontana is right.
While a lot of Journey is fine, "Don't Stop Believing" is the only *truly awesome* track of theirs, in my judgement. That one goes on the spaceship when the sun goes nova.
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 10:07 PM
"Fontana is right" refers (in this case) to 'Oh Sherry' being a Steve Perry song. But he's right about it being ok to kill 100 innocents to singe Al Zarqawi's beard, as he argues elsewhere.
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 10:09 PM
This exchange will soon be the lead Wikipedia entry for prissy.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 10:09 PM
I can't hear you, Apostropher, I'm jazzercizing.
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 10:13 PM
I can't help thinking that the collective energy we spent inventing "prissy" could have been put to better use, like rescuing kittens.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 10:24 PM
But he's right about it being ok to kill 100 innocents to singe Al Zarqawi's beard, as he argues elsewhere.
You read the Gayatollah too narrowly. That the 100 innocents might choose their own lives over singeing Al Zarqawi's beard proves that the 100 are morally complicit with Zarqawi. Collective punishment is collective justice!
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 10:27 PM
Also, "prissy" isn't quite right...
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 11:01 PM
Oh lord, let's not get into that again.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 11:06 PM
But Baa's correct; "prissy" isn't it. I was wondering earlier today why no one nominated "high maintenance" at the time.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 11:22 PM
I know, and I was never happy with it. I was just content to let the whole issue die.
(And isn't "high maintenance" rather sexist? Who's doing the maintaining?)
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 11:25 PM
(Questions in parentheses don't require answers.)
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 11:26 PM
Or massaging our eyeballs until we saw Jesus. Or making fragile puppets out of dryer lint. Or making lollipops, in general, more aerodynamic.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 11:36 PM
If we made fragile puppets out of dryer lint, we could count on a link from BoingBoing. In "our" present incarnation, not so much.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 11:42 PM
But Baa's correct; "prissy" isn't it.
No, I guess a bunch of grown men fawning over Journey in 2006 is just plain old
gay.Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 11:43 PM
The puppets would be both structurally and emotionally fragile. Weeping, lacerated emo lint puppets.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 11:46 PM
why no one nominated "high maintenance"
Because it doesn't connote lameness.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 11:47 PM
Why would you want a link from BoingBoing?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 11:53 PM
If you wanted criticisms of your lint-puppet modelling technique? If you wanted a reader to point out prior lint-puppet construction projects that you clearly ripped off? If you wanted a reader to compare (unfavorably) lint-puppets with used Q-Tip-puppets?
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 12:03 AM
86: Why wouldn't you?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 12:06 AM
'cos BoingBoing sucks.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 12:09 AM
But getting linked doesn't. I have a link on the front page of pajamasmedia.com right now (thanks to Gaijin Biker) and they really suck.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 1:33 AM
Not necessarily fragile. (Home page.)
The soundtrack is a remix of this.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 6:29 AM
If you wanted a reader to point out prior lint-puppet construction projects that you clearly ripped off?
See, BoingBoing is unnecessary.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 6:31 AM
"Dryer lint is disgusting."
Not to everyone.
That's surprisingly poignant.
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 8:51 AM
The "not to everyone" is also part of the article; my html just sucks.
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 8:52 AM
I think I'm developing a blog crush on apostropher.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 9:06 AM
Matt F -- it wasn't you, it's the site. You have to start over again at the beginning of every paragraph. Blame ogged.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 9:29 AM
Coming into this late, but here're my two cents: I used to work for the US government overseas. I was repeatedly amazed by what the filter of government secrecy and press ignorance did to the reporting of events I was privy to. I never had a hand any intentional obfuscations, not to mention directed ones, though it was easy to imagine.
Still, it amazes me that everyone is talking about the CIA bombing by Predator aircraft and precision guided bombs. Might as well call them TEAM America. Aren't they supposed to be covert? And the story about who got killed changes like every 8 hours. The easiest explanation is that the confusion is to blame, and that the changing story is approaching truth over time.
But I can almost as easily engage in fantasy, James Bond style. Say you know some bad guys might attend a dinner in a village in Pakistan. You can get those guys, and I mean nab, capture, take away, and interogate using the Bulgarian Field Guide to Prisoner Questioning in Wartime even. You could nab them as they arrive, or as they leave, or during the dinner. Easiest is at the dinner, the location is known and that reduces risks to the mission. Problem is, if you take them, and AQ knows you got them, they then know which of their plans and operations are potentially compromised. The trick then, is to capture persons, without anyone knowing you got them. In other words, I'd be willing to believe that the carnage and the confusion is the result of violence done just to cover up kidnapping.
On the other hand, there seems to be a pattern of CIA assassinations, in cases where abduction seems the far more desirable option strategically. Is the only good AQ lieutenant a dead lieutenant or a captured lieutenant?
Whatever happened to "stick'em up!"? To "Come out with your hands up!" Did this Americanism die at Waco with the oh-so-flawed "we'll smoke'em out, see?"
It seems we really have changed. We are now terrorizing the terrorists: a dinner party for a wedding party, a village for a train, a mountain for a skyscraper. We're taking or fight to...
Posted by Mr. B | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 9:34 AM
or s/b our
Posted by Mr. B | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 9:35 AM
95:
You wanna go blog steady?
__Yes __No (check one)
SWAK,
'r
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 9:35 AM
Thanks, Matt W. Cheryl's a friend of mine, and her lint stuff is brilliant. I could hardly believe that it came up here.
I'd vote for Wheel in the Sky as a decent Journey song, but a thumbs-down to Open Arms (which I think was the "theme song" to my Junior Prom)(And this was not in 1984, either. Go figure).
Posted by JRoth | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 9:38 AM
X Yes __No (check one)
(As long as you can accept my innate capriciousness.)
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 9:42 AM
Okay, now that a friend of the creator of the prior lint puppet project has showed up to testify, I am willing to concede that BoingBoing is unnecessary.
(JRoth, holy freaking coincidence!)
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 9:48 AM
And surely the greatest Journey song is the one that ends "na-na-na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na"? (I may have miscounted.)
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 9:50 AM
I think you have two too many, MW, if my clay memory serves.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 9:52 AM
JRoth, you're welcome. We surely know some people in common -- well, I've met Cheryl a few times, and my mom was working with her on some project once I think, but probably more than that. I was in Pittsburgh till '03.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 9:53 AM
I can't believe Ogged is willing to ignore the terrorist threat even as Glenn puts it in perfectly clear language for him:
Can't you understand that these terrorists are so dangerous that they turn anybody who's within a bomb-blast radius of them into a terrorist too! If this ever came to the US, it'd be worse than Night of the Living Dead! I'm concerned that the entire eastern seaboard could become terrorists within hours!
Posted by neil | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 9:57 AM
Yeah, Matt, I first came across your blog right around that time, discovering that you had left. In Pittsburgh, it's maybe 3 degrees of separation - at most. (As a regular patron of Cupka's 2, I figure I'm probably just 2 degrees from that Steelers fan who had the heart attack last week, and was mentioned in the NYT yesterday).
Posted by JRoth | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 10:09 AM
In high school, a Chinese restaurant my friends and I frequented played a lot of "elevator muzak" and we'd amuse ourselves while waiting for our food by playing a game my friend Paul invented, called "Foreigner or Journey?"
Posted by Matt #3 | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 10:19 AM
Damn, I thought totally owned that lint puppetry idea. At least I have the aerodynamicker lollipops as consolation. Don't I?
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 10:22 AM
Back to the topic of the post, if you'd like a more detailed, coherent version of some of the arguments made upthread, please see Tristero at Digby's.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 10:31 AM
Never neglect the lit search, Standpipe.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 10:43 AM
True Confession: I used to google my comments' turns of phrase before posting, weeding them out if they weren't reasonably original. This was around the same time I was chiding Ben for concerning himself overmuch with avoiding triteness. The shame, the hypocrisy!
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 10:54 AM
Luckily, I don't do that sort of thing anymore.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 11:55 AM
That whole comment was a mistake from first to last, an utter failure.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 11:57 AM
But you were chiding Ben for bemoaning triteness. Silent avoidance was never chidden.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 1:12 PM
Re: 103
MW, the song in question is "Lights." That is a good one.
Re: 104
Yes, MW has two "na"s too many.
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 1:22 PM
re #110
Interesting, Apo. I haven't looked at the link, but in the past I've found tristero's arguments entirely unhinged. But you find him (her?) worthwhile, and I find you worthwhile. You'd think there would be some sort of transitive law involved.
I keep waiting for the fucking Philosophy professors to tell us whether or not we are trapped in our own pool of subjectivity. If they say, strongly, that we're not, maybe I'll go read the link. But I'd guess they're too busy correcting grammar.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 1:27 PM
I'm pretty sure it's "Lovin Touchin Squeezin," though it took a little searching to figure out exactly which three participles were involved.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 1:28 PM
Correcting Journey titles, beyotch.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 1:29 PM
117: Not unhinged when he's agreeing with me.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 1:30 PM
in the past I've found tristero's arguments entirely unhinged
Me too, absolutely, but this one's surprisingly decent.
I'm still burning with rage over the idea that my liberalism equates me with Osama bin Laden, a meme that Digby responds to very effectively but still makes me so mad I can barely see.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 1:32 PM
in the past I've found tristero's arguments entirely unhinged. But you find him (her?) worthwhile, and I find you worthwhile. You'd think there would be some sort of transitive law involved
I think tristero is policy-wise very sensible and reasonable; I have certainly had occasion to think that s/he was overly hostile toward political opponents, to the point where I was left thinking "Oh, that really isn't going to help." But the linked post is dead on what I wanted to say above -- if you thought I had a point at all, you should click through and read.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 2:16 PM
Belated philosophy professor response to 117:
If the question is "Should I read the link?" this is something I'm kind of an expert on, and the answer is "yes." The question is "Is it worth spending the energy to read tristero's arguments, and then, is it worth spending the energy to think about them?" You start out with a pretty strong reason to believe that the answer is "no," because tristero's track record makes you think he's not worth reading. But Apo's track record makes you respect his recommendations about what's worth reading, so now you have some specific reason for paying attention to this piece of tristero's. Double now that LB has also endorsed it.
There would be some cases where someone's past reputation is so bad that an endorsement from someone with a good reputation doesn't help. If someone I respected said "This is a good Ann Coulter column," then I would lose respect for them; it would take a lot before I clicked the link. But I doubt tristero is that far gone.
This actually relates to the actual substance of the argument. The Bush Administration's track record is so bad that many of us don't think their testimony provides any evidence of anything. They've just made too much stuff up. So even if we think that it would be OK to drop a bomb on this house if there were terrorists inside, we don't think we have any reason to believe that there were any terrorists there. Hence the reluctance to support this action, because we feel that our support is likely to turn out to be based on false premises.
It's unfortunate that, given this, if the Bush Administration had actually killed some terrorists we wouldn't be giving them credit for it. Sucked for the boy who cried wolf, too.
(as for the question, is it OK to kill civilians while taking out a Bad Guy like whatsisface, it's more Labs' department. It seems to me that this is the sort of thing that happens in wars of any sort, which is part of the reason that war is always a bad thing which may nevertheless be sometimes justified (and in the case of the war on Al Qaeda, I think it obviously is justified). And then there are the questions about blowing up stuff in Pakistan, about which I pass.)
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-21-06 12:37 PM