Eric, Prince Of Blackwater

[Marauder]

Marauder,

As has been brought up many, many times already, just because some enemy break the rules does not give us permission to.

Also, grouping all of our enemy in the same pile is also a mistake. 

Are we in the CF responsible for the Abu Gharib prison photos?  Of course we are (to them), because over there we all look the same.

We have more access to information than they do and we still lump them all in as Taliban even though it would be incredibly rare for your average Afghan insurgent to even imagine cutting someone's head off.  But yet we still paint them with the same brush.

So first, you're going to have to point me in the direction of the part of my post in which I advocate that we in the CF should "break the rules”, or that any Western contractors have or should “break the rules” as it relates to the treatment of captured enemy combatants (be they TB, AQ, HiG, or any other brand name of ******* they associate with). I reread my post and still can’t find that part, so one is left to assume you either fabricated that strawman or just weren’t paying attention.

I admit some confusion as to your second point, where you advise that lumping the muj together is a mistake, but in the next breath seem to see some validation in their possibly thinking CF members had some part in the Abu G debacle, because WE “all look the same”.

As to your final little pearl of "observation",  perhaps I shall take the opportunity to remind you that this is an open forum, and perhaps it would be best if you leave your pontificating to the closed confines of your particular Mess.

 

[zipperhead_cop]

However, where they are, what do you think they focus on in village and market chats?  Probably NATO driving through their fields and dropping bombs randomly from the sky murdering hundreds of innocent people...making us look like savages (so a lot of them see all of us like that).

What the hell tour were you on where this was happening?!  I don't recall that. 

We are exactly comparable to them, in that most of them just want to do their job and stay alive if at all possible, and hoping the whole thing ends soon so they can get back to their families.  Also, comparable in that the actions of a few make the actions of the many seems questionable.

It speaks to motivation.  The Afghans know we are there to try to help.  They just think we are rather useless and are going to bail on them so there is no really good reason to side with us.  They aren't wrong.  The Taliban in their current incarnation are petty criminals and it is widely known that their movement has nothing to do with Islam any longer.  If we had caused a legitimate government to evolve out of this, the people would have rallied to us. 
So no, we are in no way shape or form comparable to them. 

 

[SeanNewman]

Marauder / Zipperhead,

Everything I have posted is based on the mindset of the Afghan on the street.  What concerns me is the generalization of the "other guys", and I am stating that the same is done to us.  They will tell us that we are their favourite, and they will tell Americans and Brits the same thing, because it's polite.

It does not matter that the CF was not at Abu Gharib and it does not matter that the CF has not dropped bombs that have killed hundreds of people.  We are (for the most part) lumped in the same pile when we are talked about so that is what I mean when I write that their perception is that we are the barbarians (infidels, invaders, etc).

It's not at all to state that anyone in the CF has done anything wrong, it's about being guilty by association in the same way that some on this board have made all Afghans guilty by their association or all insurgents capable of cutting off heads or blowing themselves up.

People should get defensive when they hear that everyone in NATO acts like the Abu Gharib crew, and they should get defensive if it's stated that anyone does anything bad to captured people.  But if we generalize "them" as all beheaders and suicide bombers, why should we expect any different?

 

[TimBit]

Moral relativism. Fail.

Why? Demonstrate moral universality to me. You can't.

Morality is based upon education and social values - change those, you change values. How do you think SS managed to smash jewish infants' heads on trees? Suggesting they were all morally sick is not all... there clearly was conditionning at work here. I cannot accept your demonstration with only "Fail." as an argument.

 

[vonGarvin]

Why? Demonstrate moral universality to me. You can't.

Morality is based upon education and social values - change those, you change values. How do you think SS managed to smash jewish infants' heads on trees? Suggesting they were all morally sick is not all... there clearly was conditionning at work here. I cannot accept your demonstration with only "Fail." as an argument.

*ahem*
Objectivism is what you perhaps you intended to put here.  Morals (what is right, what is not right) is considered by about 99% of Philosophers to be objective, that is, not subject to opinion, time, manner or place.  It is considered as universal as mathematics: 2+2=4 is true today, was true for Og the caveman and will be true for ZLort, Imperial Overlord of the Gamma Quadrant in four gazillion AD.  Even though Og had no concept of mathematics, 2+2=4.

The same holds true for "right" and "not right", or "good" and "evil".  The challenge, however, is what is right and what is wrong.  That is the challenge.  Some philosophers contend that the rightness of "things" depends on the outcome of acts.  This is called consequentialism.  Some contend that it is based on the person, and some would call this "virtue" ethics (such as that brought forth or proposed by Aristotle and Jesus Christ).  Still other contend that the acts themselves have intrinsic values.

The irony of your statement is that no matter how hard you try (and many have), no person can make a logical argument for moral relativism.  Maybe smashing baby heads on trees was a "right" act.  Whether the SS believed it was, or I believed it wasn't, is immaterial.  We are bound by logic to determine what is good and what is not good.  Some things are known a priori, and others a posteri.  "A Priori" knowledge tells me that it's not a good act.  For many, the litmus test is in the behaviour of children.  They almost always know what is right and what is not right.


So, all this to say: an argument that says "they believe it to be right, therefore, it *is* right" is a bullshit, fail answer.  Were that the case
then we would not have been "right" to blow up German cities, or condemn AQ for murdering those thousands in NYC in 2001.  Moral relativism is akin to Anarchy and political correctness on acid.  And it's downright dangerous.

 

[SeanNewman]

+1 to Techno's stance (even though it has nothing to do with Blackwater).

Ethics is not the study of what is wrong because that is impossible to do, but it studies the decision processes that people use to decide.

If you put your emphasis on the decision itself (rule-based) you are a deontologist.  If you place your value on the outcome (the best decision results in the most good for the most people) you are a utilitarianist.  If you base your decision on the best outcome for you, you're a hedonist.

Someone using a deontological system would never hit a baby against a tree no matter what you promised them in return, but if you told someone who made decisions based on utilitarianism that if they smashed a baby against a tree that 100 kids would be set free from certain death that baby would get killed.

You might think it's completely wrong to you to eat your baby if it died because of your culture, but some island in the south Pacific may believe that is the way to keep their soul alive and en route to heaven, and you putting them in a box in the ground may be the most heinous thing they could think of.  Who are we to say we're right?  We can say that our culture has set rules to live by where we are, but those are hardly universal.

 

[armyvern]

Wow, this thread has now officially become a mini-OPME school.

:

Still nothing to refute the fact that the enemy routinely and deliberately targets an innocent civilian populace while we do not. I am not them, nor is anyone that I know and those of you in this thread who continue to insist that we somehow 'are' the same ... just Wow. Wow.

I am a legitimate target. Women and children going about their business in the souk are not. That is the difference between them and us.

 

[SeanNewman]

Vern,

I 100% agree with you that in some cases, our enemy deliberately targets civilians.  No questions there.

However, we have access to all the world's information at our finger tips.

The average Afghan doesn't, and who is he to argue with the guy who tells him at the market that the NATO bomb that killed 10 innocent Afghans the night before wasn't deliberately targeting innocent Afghans?

If that's the perception, then that's their reality.

That's where I have been coming from with this debate and how easily it is for us to be viewed as the barbarians/invaders.  The less information people have of the whole truth, the easier they can be swayed by one source of information (village elder, madrassa, etc).

We (NATO) give them all sorts of reasons to dislike us being there.  If we don't acknowledge the terrible things we do to them (run them off their own roads and drive through their fields to avoid IEDs) then we fail to understand the COIN environment and we lose.

 

[Dissident]

To paraphrase from BHD:

"Do not think that because I grew up without running water that I am simple, General Garrison."

The lack of internet does not preclude the average Afghan person from knowing what is what.

 

[armyvern]

Vern,

I 100% agree with you that in some cases, our enemy deliberately targets civilians.  No questions there.

However, we have access to all the world's information at our finger tips.

The average Afghan doesn't, and who is he to argue with the guy who tells him at the market that the NATO bomb that killed 10 innocent Afghans the night before wasn't deliberately targeting innocent Afghans?

If that's the perception, then that's their reality.

That's where I have been coming from with this debate and how easily it is for us to be viewed as the barbarians/invaders.  The less information people have of the whole truth, the easier they can be swayed by one source of information (village elder, madrassa, etc).

We (NATO) give them all sorts of reasons to dislike us being there.  If we don't acknowledge the terrible things we do to them (run them off their own roads and drive through their fields to avoid IEDs) then we fail to understand the COIN environment and we lose.

You know, for a guy who seems to be dead set against any friendly forces "widely brushstroking" the Taliban (you'll note that you repeatedly resort to neglecting the "Taliban" bit and inserting wider-group words such as "ALL Afghans" or "ALL Muslims" into your response instead as "our" words) ...

You sure as heck don't mind tarring those "average Afghans" as a majority being "unable to distinguish" between "deliberate" and all "anti-western" for that is all that they "know".  How absolutely ironic is that??

Fortunately, I am able to read/view docs and commentary from "average Afghans" online with a little digging to find out that the "average Afghan" doesn't toe that line after all and that they do recognize the difference between us and them too. Unfortunaely - if the average Canadian sticks to MSM Canadian media to get their "facts" - they'd never realize that ... and would end up speaking & posting just as you seem to be - from their holier than thou and 'we know better' platform based on nada but what the MSM deems worthy of reportage.

 

[SeanNewman]

Vern,

You are right that my post seems a bit narrow.  You saying that it's ironic is to show that you have not gotten the point I have been making the entire time that if we generalize them (and I have demonstrated how we do that), how can we expect not to be generalized back?

However, I didn't think too many people would be interested in the 100 novel encyclopedia that would have to be attached to my post to explain the complexities and motivations of all the different people in Kandahar.

 

[armyvern]

Vern,

You are right that my post seems a bit narrow.  You saying that it's ironic is to show that you have not gotten the point I have been making the entire time that if we generalize them (and I have demonstrated how we do that), how can we expect not to be generalized back?

However, I didn't think too many people would be interested in the 100 novel encyclopedia that would have to be attached to my post to explain the complexities and motivations of all the different people in Kandahar.

No, I get your point. And, I disagree with it; sorry, I really really thought that was rather obvious.

Now, why don't you 'prove your point' to me by explaining just how it is then, given your dropped bomb in the market example, how it is that the average Afghan distinguishes then decides that the bomb was deliberatly targetted but that the suicide bomber, VBIED, bike bomb etc with no NATO troops in sight was somehow 'not' a deliberate targetting of them by the Taliban?

Hmmmm ---- me thinks perhaps they DO know the difference and that you just fail to give the average Afghan enough credit.

And, you've done it again with the above quoted post Mr Petamocto --- point out just one SINGLE post in this thread where I (or anyone else) have generalized about average Afghans, ALL Afghans, or ALL Muslims.  I distinctly used the words 'Taliban, insurgents, terrorists etc' ... rather it is you who chooses to take statements made by others about 'specfic' groups and then respond to them with a BIG BROAD brush by inserting a wider-group word such as ALL Muslims instead of the actual word used (Taliban) and then claiming it is we doing such.

Your spin is good, but it is wayyyy off target.

 

[Dissident]

I <3 Vern and TV.

 

[SeanNewman]

Hmmmm ---- me thinks perhaps they DO know the difference and that you just fail to give the average Afghan enough credit.

You are wrong as demonstrated by the many Afghan polls that have been done on the topic.

Some educated Afghans may know the difference, or the ones who deal with certain people on a regular basis (district leader, chief of police, etc), but to the vast majority of Kandaharis we are a big green machine with no home country or different morals.

Luckily, some Afghans see us as different from the Russians.  Small victories.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

You are wrong as demonstrated by the many Afghan polls that have been done on the topic.

Some educated Afghans may know the difference, or the ones who deal with certain people on a regular basis (district leader, chief of police, etc), but to the vast majority of Kandaharis we are a big green machine with no home country or different morals.

Luckily, some Afghans see us as different from the Russians.  Small victories.

Will you ever decide to back down and just admit that you pull stuff out of your ass to feed your own misguided sense of self worth?

No need to answer as it was more an opinion, spoken by of all of us here, than a question.

Kinda like all those Afghans you know so well and keep quoting.

 

[SeanNewman]

Will you ever decide to back down and just admit that you pull stuff out of your *** to feed your own misguided sense of self worth?

Is this another time when I get called out to provide proof of what I am saying, and then when I provide 10 references that I get called out for having the audacity to support my side of the argument?

Have you focused on the Afghan people for years of your life (including operationally)?

I can't say you haven't, but if you want to call me out on this one you will lose.

 

[armyvern]

Is this another time when I get called out to provide proof of what I am saying, and then when I provide 10 references that I get called out for having the audacity to support my side of the argument?

Have you focused on the Afghan people for years of your life (including operationally)?

I can't say you haven't, but if you want to call me out on this one you will get owned.

YOU have, numerous times now, in this thread, accused both myself and others of "broad brushstroking ALL Afghans/Muslims" and grouping them into "one group".

I have asked you at leats twice now to back up those claims of me "doing this" with a SINGLE quote from this thread where that occured. You have yet to do so. You will also not ever be doing so, because there isn't a SINGLE post in this thread where I or any other person did such a thing as you claim --- other than your own posts using the big brush on the Afghan people.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

What was this thread about??

 

[SeanNewman]

What was this thread about??

The smartest thing the last 10 posters (including me) have written.

 

[armyvern]

The smartest thing the last 10 posters (including me) have written.

That's not unusual.