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Author Topic: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: T+0  (Read 1414310 times)

Sergarr

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: Post-Apocalypse
« Reply #13455 on: November 20, 2016, 06:12:50 pm »

Off the top of my head: Ireland
...I don't think they've actually used suicide bombers, though? And I recall they've specifically warned people so that they could evacuate the area beforehand?

I mean, in the Middle East, they just don't give a shit about civilian casualties, as far as I can see. The only reason why Sunni ain't in the process of being ethnically cleansed from Iraq by Shia militias is because of USA insisting that they won't take part in assault on Mosul, after all.

I definitely would like to know where you got the idea that the middle east doesn't care about civilian casualties.

It definitely seemed like a pressing issue.
Well, there's the missile bombardments of Israel for the past, what, few decades? "Death to the Jews" and all that. I don't think they intend to only kill soldiers when they talk about it...

And in general, it appears that every successful war between ME countries has a corresponding attempt at ethnically cleansing the civilian population by the victor. That may be just my feeling, but I don't really remember any non-genocidal wars there.

Everything is for a reason. The tendency towards using civilians and "sacred places" as shields, as well as suicide bombing, isn't because Islamic radicals are crazy. I mean, they are crazy and that certainly helps, but that isn't the why. It's a fundamentally practical strategy.

The only form of war that can be meaningfully waged against the big leagues, the West, Russia, China, is psychological. Physically defeating any of them is far beyond the capabilities of any dedicated Islamic group, and any group that got big enough for that to become practical would inevitably be culturally infected and turn away from the task (this, for the record, is the real reason why the Islamic State is so utterly draconian towards everyday practices in the territories they control).

Forcing world powers to bomb hospitals and massacre civilians is the real tactic. They're not protecting themselves with it, and it's not "cowardice" like some people insist. It's stacking the deck. You don't bomb the hospital, they live and keep operating. You bomb the hospital, they spread pictures of splattered children all over the internet to gain more recruits and demoralize the general public in nations where that's a serious danger to politicians.

That's the bind, and it's also why so many people seem to want to embrace Islamophobia: it's an easy out. If they're just barbarians and howling lunatics you can justify killing them all to the public anyway. Point-Counterpoint. The darkside is real, is what I'm saying.

What we should really probably do is try to find a paradigm-breaker. I'm sure if you gathered a wide group of people both in and out of the War on Terror echo chamber, you could find something. As long as we're caught up in the trolley dilemma of Bomb Hospital or Don't Bomb Terrorists we will always lose. Stop playing the Islamic State's game.
Orrrr you could just kill people who play that stupid "hurr let's use hospitals to hide our troops in durr" game until they get the message that it doesn't actually help them to do that?

I mean, you know that terrorists used to take hostages a lot in the past decades, right? It was their standard go-to tactic which they used to escape from various situations. When they were negotiated with, they continued to ramp it up.

And they only stopped doing that because at some point, taking hostages became a sure-fire death sentence. It was a policy detrimental to the hostages in short-term, sure... but in the long-term, the constant hostage-taking spree has been stopped.

Why can't we do the same thing with these people?

Also, Islamic State is losing, badly. They've lost about half of Mosul, and SDF is already closing in on Raqqa. With those two out, the only place where they'll still have major presence would be Deir-er-Zor. Our current strategies are working, and working pretty well.

How would you put it better? I mean, they consider using suicide car bombers and anti-population air strikes as legitimate war tactics! Do you know a single civilized-world country that would accept those?

The USA hasn't really done direct civilian targeting with bombing since Vietnam and Cambodia. To the best of my recollection. But that could be because the USA has unilateral power and doesn't need to engage in that. The plan was certainly to nuke all the major cities in Russia with nukes until fairly recently.

But you know, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden. etc etc. They fit what you said exactly:

- anti-population air strikes
- legitimate war tactics
- a single civilized-world country that would accept those
I'm pretty sure that WW2 countries weren't civilized, by our current standards. Even USA still had mass-spread government-supported institutionalized racism at that point. Japanese internment camps, anyone?
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Frumple

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: Post-Apocalypse
« Reply #13456 on: November 20, 2016, 06:16:56 pm »

And they only stopped doing that because at some point, taking hostages became a sure-fire death sentence. It was a policy detrimental to the hostages in short-term, sure... but in the long-term, the constant hostage-taking spree has been stopped.

Why can't we do the same thing with these people?
There's been some pretty major changes in the nature of communication and the available relevant infrastructure since then, serg. That'd be why similar actions aren't getting similar results. Twenty, thirty years ago the chances of hearing about the results of a kill-the-hostages-too was much smaller and the likelihood of it actually seeing much dispersion even if anyone did hear about it was slim to none. The political cost and knock-on consequences weren't nearly as large. Nowadays? Things ain't like that anymore.
« Last Edit: November 20, 2016, 06:19:32 pm by Frumple »
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Sergarr

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: Post-Apocalypse
« Reply #13457 on: November 20, 2016, 06:19:23 pm »

And they only stopped doing that because at some point, taking hostages became a sure-fire death sentence. It was a policy detrimental to the hostages in short-term, sure... but in the long-term, the constant hostage-taking spree has been stopped.

Why can't we do the same thing with these people?
There's been some pretty major changes in the nature of communication and the available relevant infrastructure since then, serg. That'd be why similar actions aren't getting similar results.
I'm pretty sure that you can't say that it would not get the similar result when we have yet to actually try it.
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Frumple

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: Post-Apocalypse
« Reply #13458 on: November 20, 2016, 06:21:38 pm »

... are you somehow under the impression we (major nations in general) haven't been willing to accept civilian collateral these last handful of years? That... seems to be what you're saying. If so, you've been missing a bit of what's been going on, heh.
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Reelya

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: Post-Apocalypse
« Reply #13459 on: November 20, 2016, 06:26:08 pm »

USA bombed Tripoli 1986 to coincide with the 7pm news:
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/u-s-bombs-libya

According to Chomsky, the broadcast included pre-placed eye-witnesses from TV networks who knew where to report from, so as not to be bombed.

There's your "civilized" rules of war in action. Bomb civilians if it makes a good TV moment to boost the presidents polling.

Baffler

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: Post-Apocalypse
« Reply #13460 on: November 20, 2016, 06:26:48 pm »

We all remember this thing. Or maybe we don't.
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Reelya

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: Post-Apocalypse
« Reply #13461 on: November 20, 2016, 06:32:51 pm »

Or the time USA bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. Goddamn Chinese weirdos had the gall to be upset about something that was clearly an accident.

Let's not even get into the USA's actions in Nicaragua.
https://politicalcrumbs.wordpress.com/2012/08/08/the-united-states-v-nicaragua-1984/
« Last Edit: November 20, 2016, 06:36:03 pm by Reelya »
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MetalSlimeHunt

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: Post-Apocalypse
« Reply #13462 on: November 20, 2016, 06:33:50 pm »

Orrrr you could just kill people who play that stupid "hurr let's use hospitals to hide our troops in durr" game until they get the message that it doesn't actually help them to do that?
Because, as I explained, bombing the hospitals is a winning outcome for the Islamic State. They lose what, forty men and a rocket site in exchange for everybody in the world coming that one step closer to going out in the streets and chanting "Death to America" (and it wasn't even us this time)? That's a major fucking victory for them. They aren't fighting with lives; especially not the groups less centralized than the IS.
Quote
I mean, you know that terrorists used to take hostages a lot in the past decades, right? It was their standard go-to tactic which they used to escape from various situations. When they were negotiated with, they continued to ramp it up.

And they only stopped doing that because at some point, taking hostages became a sure-fire death sentence. It was a policy detrimental to the hostages in short-term, sure... but in the long-term, the constant hostage-taking spree has been stopped.

Why can't we do the same thing with these people?
Because war is an ever escalating attempt to outwit your opponents and force them to lose. Nothing you're saying is untrue, but it's antiquated now. Yes, we still use machine guns and have hostage standoffs. But now the world is (god I hate that I have to use this seriously now) controlled by memes and the public is more malleable than ever.

We can't do the same because they found the counterpoint to the "no negotiation, no saving people" strategy that negated the popular form of hostage-taking. In all the ever-fucking twists and turns of human strategies, they actually found a way to turn getting bombed and killed into a strength. Continuing to try and outkill the enemy regardless of collateral is no longer how victories are achieved. I'd be in awe of its brilliance if it wasn't so horrible.

The way to really win is to find the new counterpoint. Guerilla and...(sigh) "meme" warfare has finally matured. Kill the leadership, they crop up again. Be utterly brutal, they get more popular. Don't be, they get more popular. The only way out of a situation like this is to develop the next revolution in war, or otherwise keep doing this shit forever, which we can't do because the collective ideas of the public are what are really being attacked.
Quote
Also, Islamic State is losing, badly. They've lost about half of Mosul, and SDF is already closing in on Raqqa. With those two out, the only place where they'll still have major presence would be Deir-er-Zor. Our current strategies are working, and working pretty well.
Yes, yes, they're getting utterly fucked on the physical battlefield. But as fast as they're falling down, remember how quickly they rose in the first place. The overall situation is only deteriorating. Iraqi and Syrian societies at this point are nearing having lived literal generations of near-constant warlike conditions. There will be another IS after Aleppo falls. Every dead father, brother, or friend is another incentive to join up with whoever seizes the title next time. Escalating poverty and injuries are the same way.

Imagine the difference between this and, say, the end of WWII. Germany was defeated. Iraq has never been defeated. The US Military destroyed their society, but people kept fighting. Hell, they only fought more pervasively because of it. Destroying comprehensive organizations can be done with military force, but that's not actually the basis of the fucking problem.
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Shadowlord

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: Post-Apocalypse
« Reply #13463 on: November 20, 2016, 06:38:07 pm »

Um, ISIS is not in Aleppo.
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Culise

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: Post-Apocalypse
« Reply #13464 on: November 20, 2016, 06:38:33 pm »

How would you put it better? I mean, they consider using suicide car bombers and anti-population air strikes as legitimate war tactics! Do you know a single civilized-world country that would accept those?

The USA hasn't really done direct civilian targeting with bombing since Vietnam and Cambodia. To the best of my recollection. But that could be because the USA has unilateral power and doesn't need to engage in that. The plan was certainly to nuke all the major cities in Russia until fairly recently. Plenty of generals called for pre-emptive nuclear strikes.

But you know, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden. etc etc. They fit what you said exactly:

- anti-population air strikes
- legitimate war tactics
- a single civilized-world country that would accept those

Plenty of Americans continue to justify those as legitimate war tactics even today, even though all of those were designed to shock the enemy by killing large numbers of civilians (those cities did not contain military targets).
Oddly, in spite of the above, the most common justification is that all of these three did contain legitimate military targets.

Hiroshima: Headquarters for the Second General Army (responsible for the defense of southern Japan) and 59th Army.  Major military manufacturing complex for military armaments, though untouched because few airplanes were manufactured here.  Major port for shipping, hence why significant stockpiles of armaments had been emplaced.

Nagasaki: One of the largest sea ports of southern Japan.  While lacking in major military emplacements apart from a major POW camp, what it hosted was several major shipyards key to the IJN, an armaments plant, and a combined steel/armaments plant which combined accounted for 90% of the city's industrial output.

Kokura (oft-ignored in these lists; Nagasaki had always been a fall-back option for when sightings couldn't be made on this city): Home of one of the, if not the largest single munitions plant in Japan, if I recall properly.  More importantly, however, the target for the Kokura run (obscured by smoke) was the nearby Yawata Steel Works, which in itself produced a quarter of the entire rolled steel yield of Japan. 

Dresden: Reputedly requested as a target by the Soviets in order to prevent withdrawing German forces from using it as a regrouping point for a counterattack during the Vistula-Oder offensive, but more practically (and irrespective of these claims, which I suspect of being rather dubious) playing into British concerns that the Germans might hold on into late in the year if they could stop the Soviets from taking Silesia. A transportation nexus for the area and the location of an estimated over-100 medium-to-large munitions factories, including poison gas, anti-aircraft, and field guns.

Let's be honest, in the decision-making process, the people in charge were actually more likely to reject a valid military target for cultural reasons than the converse; Kyoto, famously, was scrubbed by Truman personally for this reason ("Even if the Japs are savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic, we as the leader of the world for the common welfare cannot drop that terrible bomb on the old capital [Kyoto] or the new [Tokyo]. [Stimson] and I are in accord. The target will be a purely military one.").  Its elimination on cultural grounds was actually what paved the way for Nagasaki to be added to the list.  Nagasaki, had almost anything gone differently, would not have been nuked: if Kyoto had not been cut for cultural and historical significance, if Bockscar had not had a faulty fuel pump, if the observer craft had not been half an hour late (forcing Bockscar to burn fuel circling), if Kokura had not been obscured by smoke and clouds, or if there hadn't been a pure last-second break in the heavy cloud cover at Nagasaki. 

Regarding Dresden, the more effective arguments against it were not that it was not at all a military target, but rather that its military value was not the primary reason that it was attacked; the suburban areas where manufacturing was concentrated went largely untouched, key military targets to the north were ignored, and while the devastation of Dresden did prevent effective communications through the city, the scale seemed to go far beyond anything necessary for those grounds.  Nukes, by contrast, were not entirely clear in their long-term effects or the sheer scale.  Through the 40s and early 50s, most military planners considered them very large, very efficient bombs, and nothing more.  Much of the modern revulsion against them simply did not exist for lack of experience and knowledge at the time.
« Last Edit: November 20, 2016, 06:41:46 pm by Culise »
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MetalSlimeHunt

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: Post-Apocalypse
« Reply #13465 on: November 20, 2016, 06:41:43 pm »

Um, ISIS is not in Aleppo.
Your article says Assad and Russia don't have control of eastern Aleppo, where this took place?

There is no war in Aleppo.
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MetalSlimeHunt

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: Post-Apocalypse
« Reply #13466 on: November 20, 2016, 06:45:38 pm »

Ah yes, the eponymous Rebels. It seems like they're practically everywhere these days. We'll get their shadowy and charismatic founder Rebel Leader one of these days.

Well, whatever. Strategic point stands regardless of who's conducting it.
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Neonivek

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: Post-Apocalypse
« Reply #13467 on: November 20, 2016, 06:59:08 pm »

And as Starwars have told us, Rebels are always higher minded and more moral then their parent country.
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Reelya

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: Post-Apocalypse
« Reply #13468 on: November 20, 2016, 07:04:37 pm »

And as Starwars have told us, Rebels are always higher minded and more moral then their parent country.

That makes the bad guys Darth Assad and Emperor Putintine.

Admiral Barackbar realized it was a trap however.

smjjames

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Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: Post-Apocalypse
« Reply #13469 on: November 20, 2016, 07:05:46 pm »

On Hiroshima and Nagasaki, you have to realize that this was when we had beaten the Japanese back to Japan and the only thing left would have been a massive invasion of Japan, but a land invasion of Japan would have been massively costly in lives on both sides and we needed a way out, and so, we really didn't want to have to do that, and the Japanese refused to surrender. The nukes had been developed because we initially thought that Hitler was working on a nuke.

And as Starwars have told us, Rebels are always higher minded and more moral then their parent country.

That makes the bad guys Darth Assad and Emperor Putintine.

Who are ISIS then?

Ewoks? Evil ewoks at that.
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