[jaebrown]

Some of the comments on Salon are just sad. A death is a death. Whether it's 900 or 2, drone strikes that kill innocent civilians are unacceptable. Trying to justify it by saying that there is only a small death toll number is inhumane. We can not say are objective is to protect innocent life and then take innocent life. Giving precedent to American life makes us and NATO forces seem like evil pretentious bastards. We constantly create enemies with these tactics. If your mother, brother, sister, etc.. was killed during one of these attacks, it makes it easier for you to join an extremist group to bring down the countries that had anything to do with their deaths.

From my readings, it seems that a lot of these group's efforts are a lot less religious motivated and more revenge motivated now of days, hence the increase in extremist groups post 9/11. The US foreign policy since President Truman has set precedent on innocent American life and those of our allies. Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist but I think all of this boils down to three words a woman from Brooklyn, NY famously said best in a popular Pop-culture rap song "Money, Power, Respect". In that order as well.

War is money, so keeping an enemy is important. If the US ended its War on Terrorism today, there would be no other organization, faction or nation willing to step up to be Public Enemy #1. Sure we have those that could be considered (Iran and North Korea) but they tremble in a NY minute if chosen to take up the title. A defense budget pumps trillions into the US economy; which creates return for shareholders, jobs, tax revenue (personal income), and enforces the US Foreign Policy of democracy everywhere. More spending, more borrowing; which has been the trend of the US in the past decade.

Power and respect are essential to America's continued dominance as a super-force and leader amongst nations. We take a different stand on power than other rich nations. We concentrate on using our power for evil instead on good by focusing on fear. We attempt to bully with the fear of us stepping into a foreign situation; which has been manipulated over time and thru history to seem that are presence brings a win for us or our allies.

Respect gives others faith to continue to believe in the US; which means continued belief in the US dollar. Any lack of faith in the US dollar means lack of investing; which then turns into countries like China trying to salvaged what money they have left on their US bonds and other securities; which do not allow them to hit maturity. We then pay out what we owe; which will be nothing because that is what we have. The results are a depression because our debt is now our currency to the world and that is deflation.

Just my thoughts, first time I typed them out or shared for anyone to hear other than the audience I gather when talking about tech, startups, student load debt, sports or politics. Sorry about no data or sources, I just got into the zone typing but this comes from my research as an undergrad and somewhat grad student.

[coldtea]

>Some of the comments on Salon are just sad. A death is a death. Whether it's 900 or 2, drone strikes that kill innocent civilians are unacceptable. Trying to justify it by saying that there is only a small death toll number is inhumane.

It's because those assholes didn't have the same thing happen to them, much less frequently.

So they have the luxury to discuss it philosophically.

They also probably feel that the others are less human than their families and friends, being in the third world and all.

[PavlovsCat]

War is money, so keeping an enemy is important. If the US ended its War on Terrorism today, there would be no other organization, faction or nation willing to step up to be Public Enemy #1.

I think this is a reasonable assumption. Consider that during the Cold War, US military spending was justified by the Cold War. Then the USSR collapsed, and noboody blinked or even skipped a beat (military spending wise), because hey, the world's still dangerous (not in small part thanks to the weapons sold around like candy during the cold war?), and also Saddam, Somalia, whatever; sarcastically you could call it lots of make-work until the War On Terrorism could begin proper.

Then everybody is more or less instantly told that this "war" may take a long time, many generations, and that these are oh so tough and dangerous times, like setting someone's house on fire and then saying it's gonna get warmer. The huge surplus Bush turned into debt, that money ended up in the coffers defense contractors and whatnot; whoever has it now, it's not like fairies took it away to outer space (which is kind of how you're supposed to think about it: out of sight, out of mind).

"War is a Racket" [1] is such an old book... and no matter how true it might have been back then, it certainy seems true today. A very costly, lethal or profitable racket, depending on your part in it.

[1] http://archive.org/details/WarIsARacket

[6d0debc071]

> Trying to justify it by saying that there is only a small death toll number is inhumane. We can not say are objective is to protect innocent life and then take innocent life.

You can.

I mean I don't agree with what they're doing, (because I don't think that they're instituting socio-economic changes that will have a long term positive effect,) but this is the old 'Is it better to imprison an innocent man than let a guilty one go free?' conundrum.

When you use force as an instrument of policy, innocent people are always going to get hurt. It even happens domestically with the police. What's the alternative? Become total pacifists - completely eschew force? The world where all good people are total pacifists does not look like somewhere I'd want to live.

So you have to reason: When do police become violent enough that their role is no-longer justified. What's the line, what numbers for what benefit?

It's a horrible, disgusting thing to have to say, I don't like the idea that people will get hurt, but someone's got to:

Even if you were totally self interested, if you were reasoning from behind Rawl's veil of ignorance, then you'd always choose to live in the world where force had been used by the 'good' side and where the numbers had worked out better for more people as a consequence.

[jaebrown]

This may be my optimism talking but I don't think violence solves any problems. We will continue to have enemies as long as we kill innocent people. Now that may be the objective; which refers back to my point that war is money. But you can not tell me that in the history of civilization that line of thinking has ever worked. People will always rebel when they consider the force governing or dictating their fate to be unconcerned with their true value or to be evil.

You bring up our police forces domestically; which have in the past decade gotten the reputation of being too militarized. This has not resulted into anything positive for police. Violent crimes are still high and innocent people are outraged and always lashing back. It has been more of a win for people like you and me, with the Supreme Court ruling that we have a constitutional right to record; which majority of police despise. There has also been an increase in lawsuits; which results to a decreased budget next fiscal year for the departments. That money comes from the taxpayers in the end but the real lost is clearly on the departments. [1] A lesser budget; which means fewer jobs created and less resources to invest in upgrades and new tools (more stress to do more with less). [2] Continuing to battle public opinion that you're needed and that you're there to do good and not evil. Next time a vote comes up on the ballot for anything that has to do with the police department; which way do you think people are going? [3] Congressional and legislative scrutiny because they have become the safe attack to ensure that they're getting constituents votes in the next election. I'm just pointing out the obvious but I believe this trend to be getting worse. This is a whole other topic though.

If our interest were to have peace in this region, we would approach the situation diplomatically but our interest are economically motivated. We have never approached this situation diplomatically since day 1.

[6d0debc071]

> This may be my optimism talking but I don't think violence solves any problems. We will continue to have enemies as long as we kill innocent people. Now that may be the objective; which refers back to my point that war is money. But you can not tell me that in the history of civilization that line of thinking has ever worked. People will always rebel when they consider the force governing or dictating their fate to be unconcerned with their true value or to be evil.

Rebellion didn't happen for the Jews, it didn't really happen for the majority of slaves throughout history, it didn't happen for the African Americans, it didn't happen for those sent to the gulags, it didn't happen for those under Mao, it didn't happen for the thousands that Saddam killed, it hasn't happened for women in the Middle East.

If violence didn't get people what they wanted at all, then even bad people would never use it. Rebellion against powerful and abusive forces is the exception, historically speaking. It has to be so almost by definition, they'd never have got to be large powerful forces if abuse hadn't been working for them.

For better or worse, you can break and abuse people. And if they grow up without any thought of something better, or can be convinced that they still have something left to lose, then you have to push them very hard for them to risk it all against you. It's often after the fact, looking back, that it seems people abused by even absurdly brutal regimes talk about rebellion -

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"What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, polkers, or whatever else was at hand? After all, you knew ahead of time that those bluecaps were out at night for no good purpose. And you could be sure ahead of time that you’d be cracking the skull of a cutthroat. Or what about the Black Maria sitting out there on the street with one lonely chauffeur – what if it had been driven off or its tires spiked. The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!

If… if… We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation. We spent ourselves in one unrestrained outburst in 1917, and then we hurried to submit. We submitted with pleasure!

We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward."

- Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn

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I'd be the first to agree with you that violence is rarely a good answer.

But then... what about World War 2? The war itself may not have solved the underlying economic inequalities that caused the war, that came later, but do you think that World War 2 could have been resolved favourably without the use of force on the part of the allies?

Or a father (I use the term loosely) who abuses his children? Do you think that can always be resolved without the use of the police to stop him? Certainly it won't solve his mental problems but it solves the problem of the children being beaten and/or raped.

I think the use of violence is like trying to use the accelerator to gain traction in a car. You can use it to get around small, immediate problems, long enough - if you're lucky - to look at the underlying cause of that problem and correct it. However, if the group using violence is going somewhere very bad; if the society, for instance, has an abusive criminal justice system; then that group using more violence seems likely just going to take them somewhere they don't want to go with a great deal less control.

...

If it's a cohesive group. That's the kicker in all this I think - what makes pacifism not make sense as an absolute:

You don't pay the above cost - unless someone imposes it on you from outside - if you don't share a destiny with the group you're thinking of attacking.

When you can meaningfully call it Us against Them, then violence seems like it would be far easier to justify as a tool to solve your immediate problem because you've relatively little invested in the long-term relationships.