Good guys are nothing without bad guys to destroy

Sarah says:

08:12am | 09/05/11

I havent seen that footage in years. Sitting at my desk at 8am on a rainy morning and watching those planes plow into the buildings - my heart just breaks for the poor people on the planes and in the towers. How can so many lives just be snuffed out - for either a) the excuse of creating a war - ala Dubya or b) by hate-filled terrorists hell bent on destroying America (pick whichever theory you prefer). Either way - those poor people, I can’t begin to imagine the sheer terror they experienced in those last few minutes.

Dieter Moeckel says:

09:38am | 09/05/11

Sorry to report that with your vitriol you’ve just emasculated neigh on all your sometimes sensible comments. Good bye.

Tchom says:

02:41pm | 09/05/11

@St Michael

No one hates the left wing (or right wing) as much as I do, but your argument doesn’t quite make sense. You said that the left-wingers at home are the reason that the US will never win a convential war, but all the protests didn’t change anything, so I can’t see how that can be linked to the military’s failures.

Secondly, the war in Afghanistan isn’t a convential war. Its not a war against a state with clearly delineated fronts, its a campaign against insurgents.

The only sources in your article were links you were using as part of an ad hominem attack. Your theory that Arts/Law students have some kind of enlightenment after having children and that we should ignore all the world’s problems until we achieve some kind of utopia here are also questionable. Perhaps children in countries that we’ve invaded in the name of our own safety might grow up radical and resentful by the time that today’s Arts/Law students are having families. And why do people without children not have an opinion? They pay more tax. Similarly, the ABS has projected that couples without children are likely to outnumber couples with children somewhere in the next decade (http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4102.0Main+Features20Dec+2010).

Any way, I hope this helps you to flame article online more convincingly rather than relying on stereotypes and sweeping generalisations

St. Michael says:

03:12pm | 09/05/11

@ Tchom:

(1) Conventional war isn’t the right term; I should’ve used asymmetrical.

The issue with asymmetrical wars is that they can’t be won by the larger, technologically superior force unless it has sufficient political will to actually win them.  As in: shooting through human shields and actually applying the Geneva Convention which deems an uniformless combatant as an unlawful combatant and therefore not subject to the said Conventions.  Unless and until you take those measures, the insurgent always retains the advantage.  Always.

I didn’t say this would be a pretty measure.  C’est la guerre.  But as I said, because the Left seems determined to tell governments that you can practically fight wars with kid gloves on, it only prolongs the very conflicts we’re fighting.  Far as I’m concerned, if you mean to declare war or start a military conflict, you commit fully to it, you do what’s necessary and legal within the Geneva Conventions to win it and make your win stick, and then you leave.

(2) “Your theory that Arts/Law students have some kind of enlightenment after having children and that we should ignore all the world’s problems until we achieve some kind of utopia here are also questionable.”

For someone trying to instruct people on how to debate, you have a funny way of going about it by standing up the straw man so early.  Read my post again.  I said “When you’re all growed up and with your own kids and with a little more life experience than just crying over a few third world kiddies”.  I also used the words “young and naive”.

See the theme there?

The young don’t know how the real world works.  That’s mostly because they’re young.  It’s also because they have no life experience of any real length.  Speak to any old person, up to and including Helen Mirren who was active in politics: “I don’t do that anymore, because it’s all the same—nothing ever changes.”

Winston Churchill had it right: “A man who is not a liberal when he’s 20 has no heart.  If he’s not a conservative by the time he’s 40 he has no brain.”

I really don’t understand what point you’re making about families or tax rates.  You seem to have drifted off to straw man territory there as well.

The point I do make, though, is that when Sophie has a few more years under her belt, and possibly has children of her own whom may well have to go and fight Australia’s wars (albeit I doubt it) she might have a somewhat different perspective on her government unilaterally deciding to commit those troops with one arm tied behind their backs in a conflict it’s deemed necessary to win.

At least I would hope she does consider that, because by definition it is young men and women who fight Australia’s wars, not old, bitter Lefties or fat old right wingers.

Me, I don’t think we should be in Afghanistan at all.  There is no reason to be there and we put the troops we have there at enormous risk for what is in all likelihood going to be a short term and meaningless gain.  But I don’t attribute the reasons to being there to a cynical US government that’s determined to paint people into Good and Evil camps.

I attribute the reasons to us being there in summary as governments having insufficient will to say “If we are going to commit thousands of our youngest and best to war, we had damn well be serious about it, and we had better commit with such resolve to win it, and win it as completely and soon as possible.”

That insufficient will is partially the Left’s fault, because it constantly demands that if wars are to be fought, they are to be fought half-arsed.

Tchom says:

04:38pm | 09/05/11

@St. Michael

Thanks for the reply. Much better than your original post

You’re right, I was being a bit snarky. But hey, I’m commenting on The Punch, right?

I’m still confused by this concept of fighting a half-arsed war though. What would be done different militarily if the government had the full support of the public?

My thoughts are that procedures such as fair trials and abiding by the Geneva convention are things that make civilisations great, and things that generations in the future can be proud of. And of course there is a moral grey zone. The hot topic at the moment is human shields. Should a soldier fire through a foreign civilian if allied soldiers are at risk? I can imagine its a difficult decision to make in the moment, but the way I see it, it does more damage to gun through the civilian and become the villain than it does to expose the enemy as hostage-holding cowards.

I also still struggle with the idea of ‘life-experience’ being tied to the legitimacy of arguments. Zealots come in many different sizes, colours and ages. After all, OBL was 54. A good argument should come from objective reasoning and evidence. Sure, people’s priorities change when they get older, but young people are still part of the world, they can still be well-read and they can still have a sense of morality. Problems occur when people take a political position like how they’d pick a football team to support.

St. Michael says:

06:36pm | 09/05/11

@ Tchom: (bugger, I almost put your name down as TChong… :D )

“I’m still confused by this concept of fighting a half-arsed war though. What would be done different militarily if the government had the full support of the public?”

In short: don’t do what the West is currently doing in the Gan, which is to fight guerrillas on their own terms.  (And which they’re doing because the media and therefore by definition politicians and the public are squeamish about what war entails.)

Instead, choose the battles that play to the West’s strengths, which are chiefly:
(1) Numerical superiority
(2) Technological superiority
(3) Ordnance superiority.

Of course, followed to the hilt these methods of engagement would have meant we wouldn’t have been in Afghanistan at all.  Well, maybe for roughly twenty minutes or so, which would have been the time period required to fly over Al Qaeda’s camps from several thousand feet up and vaporise them (which I mean quite literally.  FAB bombs, for example.)  If Al Qaeda comes back, bomb them again.  And again.  And again, until Afghanistan or whoever is running it get the picture and kick Al Qaeda out.

If, by some insanity you have to go in with boots on the ground, you similarly play to your strengths.  If you’re going to occupy a place, give notice to the inhabitants that if you stay past a given date, you will be deemed an enemy combatant.  Then act on it.  Interestingly, this approach tends to create more refugees, but a lot less “innocent civilians” in the mentioned zone.

“The hot topic at the moment is human shields. Should a soldier fire through a foreign civilian if allied soldiers are at risk? I can imagine its a difficult decision to make in the moment, but the way I see it, it does more damage to gun through the civilian and become the villain than it does to expose the enemy as hostage-holding cowards.”

I agree with you completely, albeit for different reasons.  Chiefly, the benefits of shooting to avoid human shields outweigh shooting through them in the long run.  Shooting to avoid human shields has many similarities with the concept of paying ransom upon kidnappings.  With both, the more you do it, the more human shields or the more kidnappings you will see.

Paying a ransom in the big picture is actually a selfish act that puts yourself ahead of the rest of society: if you pay the ransom, you encourage other potential kidnappers to kidnap for ransom because they know it will produce a benefit.  That is why the Somalian pirates generally capture and ransom oil tankers: because they know from prior experience that someone will pay.

Similarly with shooting to avoid human shields: you might avoid killing the human shield in question, but you indirectly put more prospective human shields at risk, since the enemy knows that using them compromises your ability to kill them and it will keep on using them.

This’ll sound contrarian, and brutal, but: commencing shooting through human shields would shortly thereafter mean they were no longer used by the enemy.  That would be so because the human shield is only a shield so long as the Westerner refuses to fire.  If a Westerner is going to fire whether there’s a human shield or not, the insurgent is much more likely not to use a human shield at all—mostly because bullets tend to go through human shields as opposed to more conventional shields like walls and buildings.

Shooting through human shields also, as I think you’ve obliquely referred to, begins to shift responsibility for civilian casualties back to the insurgent using the shield.  “We gave you due notice we were coming with overwhelming firepower.  You decided not to vacate the village.  You put your women and children in front of your guns.  We levelled your village for those reasons.  The responsibility for those deaths is on your heads, not ours.  If you’d like to avoid civilian casualties, feel free to come out and fight us in the open.  We’ll be glad to accommodate you there.”

But as I said: the Left wants the US to fight its wars with one arm tied behind its back—in effect, half-arsed.  That approach is going to kill more innocent civilians (or “innocent civilians”) in the long run.

St. Michael says:

06:50pm | 09/05/11

@ TChom: reading comprehension fail on my part.  It seems I actually *disagree* with you completely, with the same reasons.

John Smythe says:

09:14am | 09/05/11

Dunno…I reckon there’s more to her article than what you say there Eric. Marilyn below hits on it a bit as well.

Barry says:

09:01am | 09/05/11

And just to burst bubbles, there has never been a trace of evidence producing the remotest link between Bin Laden and the attack on the US, he was never listed as wanted and he most certainly had zero to do with the Bali bombings, that was a result of a long standing internal Indonesian struggle where we got in the way.

Bahaha seriously some people are just unbelievablly stupid.  Are you sure there isn’t a slight trace of evidence?  Not a remotest link?  Are you really sure about this Marilyn?

Barry says:

09:24am | 09/05/11

Unbelievably*

Dieter Moeckel says:

09:45am | 09/05/11

Marilyn,
While perhaps a little overstated your opinion here is spot on - drone attacks in Pakistan not only kill civilians by the score but continually breach Pakistani sovereignty.
3 000 US citizens equates to how many ignorant ‘towl-heads?
But after all it depends on which side of the fence you stand on.
French freedom fighters in occupied France were terrorists to German occupiers. The Moro were terrorists to US occupiers.

Jarrod says:

10:15am | 09/05/11

On the September 11 attacks Marilyn is wrong (Bin Laden claimed responsibility in a video) but on the Bali bombings, she is, possibly accidentally, correct. 

Jemaah Islamiya grew out of the fundamentalist muslim separist group from Aceh which has been conducting terrorist attacks for decades in an effort to gain Daerah Istemewa (literally “special area”) status for the region of Aceh - essentially self-government rights, such as exist in some parts of Java, which in this case would allow Aceh to operate under Sharia law instead of Indonesian law.  They have more in common with the Taliban than Al Qaeda, though I fear most people would not understand the difference. 

Their increased operations can equally likely be attributed to the removal of Suharto as Indonesian president as the “war on terror” against Al Qaeda, as Suharto’s methods of dealing with such groups, while justifiably considered extreme and inhumane, were certainly effective.

james says:

12:14pm | 09/05/11

Jarrod

JI did not grow out of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), it is a splitter group from Darul Islam (DI). The Acehnese were a seperatist movement based on legitimate grievances against the Indonesian state and they never targeted western nationals. Although it is right to compare GAM to the Taliban, ie does not have a global jihadist agenda (although they are no where as extreme or brutal as the Taliban), JI is much more comparable to AQ. Until recently, most of JI’s attacks targeted western nationals. They have publicly stated their anti-western jihadist ideology on many occassions. Those who dispute it, such as Marilyn, are naive in the extreme and dont know what they are talking about.

St. Michael says:

12:31pm | 09/05/11

@ Dieter: “While perhaps a little overstated your opinion here is spot on - drone attacks in Pakistan not only kill civilians by the score but continually breach Pakistani sovereignty.”

Perhaps if the said sovereign nation of Pakistan were not overtly supporting Al Qaeda or the Taliban, it would not be subject to drone attacks?

Arguing civvie deaths is actually a repainted “human shields” argument.  Its logical failing is that Pakistan that puts its own civilians at risk of death by supporting terrorism in this way.  The blame falls on Pakistan, not on the US; the US didn’t have any problem with Pakistan at all until Pakistan decided it’d be a cool idea to support the insurgency without declaring war on the US or without openly decrying the US’s involvement.

Seriously, anyone who thinks that Pakistan isn’t at least playing both ends against the middle needs to read a few more newspapers.

Shenanigans says:

09:39am | 09/05/11

I dislike Yanks for their ‘all guns blazing for no reason’ attitude as much as the next Australian, but I’m fair sure if terrorists blew up some buildings with heaps of people in them in Australia you would all be up in arms about hunting down these terrorists.
Its hardly a ‘callous murder’ as you put it, its more ending the life of a man who ordered and arranged for the needless deaths of thousands. one can hardly imagine the carnage that would ecome from him being taken into custody and brought before the world court, or don’t you pacifists think of things like that?

Dieter Moeckel says:

09:48am | 09/05/11

Peter agree with you but perhaps the US celebrations have shown that the terrorists and and their supports are as human as the sanctimonious Amercians.

St. Michael says:

11:26am | 09/05/11

The only problem with howling at the US as “self appointed global policeman” is the question: if not the US, then who? Because, whether you like it or not, most Western nations without nukes on their turf survive only because of the “self appointed global policeman.”  Even if you disarm every Western nuke following peaceful protests by people like Sophie, the remaining Eastern or nutcase nations will not disarm.  And protests in those countries will not be peaceful, albeit made so by the ruling juntas there, not by the protesters.

But let’s go back to the question: if you don’t want the US as global policeman, then who?
China? As in, our closest trading partner that also likes to censor Google and likes to roll over democracy demonstrators amongst their own people in tanks?
India? Not if their military organisation is anything like their Commonwealth Games organisation.  You’d have the beat cop taking cash from countries to avoid their obligations.
Russia? Are they even a country anymore, much less trustable as a global policeman?
Iran?
NATO? This would possibly be more acceptable since it’s a conglomeration of several countries rather than one, except for the fact that the US basically bankrolls and provides the overwhelming majority of the materiel and manpower to make it exist at all.  NATO in the main contributes zip to worldwide defence.

How about the UN? Well, as a planet we’ve already tried that and it hasn’t really worked out so well.  The first significant time was Korea.  In that case, again, it was mostly the US who bankrolled the defence of South Korea.  But it was a UN operation.  Result? Well, not fantastic insofar as world policing is concerned: technically there’s still a war going on over there—it’s in a state of ceasefire, not peace, and North Koreans live in a murderous, nuclear-armed regime that survives mainly because the mentioned China is protecting it.

It’s a worse story if you look at situations where the UN has greater control or the US is not involved.  Rwanda, and in particular the film “Hotel Rwanda”—UN troops, for some odd reason but obviously on UN instructions were ordered to stand aside from sectarian violence.  Basically genocide happened while the UN was standing right there at the time and doing nothing.

The recapture of Kuwait was under the auspices of a UN resolution, so in theory the UN was the global policeman in that case—except everyone remembers the US basically running the operation and US lives spent recapturing Kuwaitit ground.

The US didn’t really ask for this role, it was essentially thrust on them by World War 2 and every bombed-out country following WW2 that needed someone to make sure it didn’t happen again.  Pacifist idiots might like to remember that prior to Pearl Harbour, the US was very, very isolationist in policy.  Electorally, they really didn’t want to get involved in Europe - it was the Old World’s war, not theirs.  They only did when Hitler declared war on the US following Pearl Harbour, thereby committing the second biggest mistake of the war.  Like it or not, the US was strategically unassailable combined with a massive manufacturing and manpower base, and—for which everyone on the planet should be thankful—a secular democracy that explicitly enshrined freedom of speech in a Bill of Rights.  There haven’t been many countries able to fight on two fronts and win both wars.

The US administration came in for serious criticism at the time even selling arms to Britain under Lend Lease—and it’s well-understood that without those arms and munitions, England would have fallen to Germany long before.

So please.  It’s easy to yell “F**k tha poleez” when you’re living in suburbs that are patrolled, protected, and defended by the said police.  If you think there can be a utopia without a cop on the beat, think again.

Horace says:

04:00pm | 09/05/11

I’m not sure who is calling ‘f**k tha poleez’, but surely you can agree that governments should fully explain their reasons and objectives to their citizens before going to war. How do we know when we’ve ‘won’?

Furthermore, shouldn’t we also investigate the causes of terrorism? Terrorism is largely decentralised, so while we can break up terrorist cells (and we should), large scale collateral damage like what has been caused will guarentee that more enemies will rise up to replace them. Fear is a tactic that works against the west because we have something to lose. Use fear against someone that has lost everything, they’re going to lash out.

I’d question your ideas on our protection under the US nuclear umbrella as well. If we didn’t have the US, realistically, who would have nuked us by now? No government has anything to gain through that.

As for the US’s stake in WW2, they didn’t actually get involved until war was declared on them, as you mentioned. America’s interests are self-serving, which isn’t atypical of world nations, but perhaps it isn’t in our best interest to align ourselves so closely with them. Economically, they are screwed. Militarily, they are going to fall behind emerging superpowers very quickly. In terms of social policy, Americans are slipping. Any country that fights tooth and nail against universal healthcare has some serious straightening up to do. Their foreign policy makes them a lot of enemies.

Do we really want to have to rely on this country?

St. Michael says:

06:47pm | 09/05/11

“I’d question your ideas on our protection under the US nuclear umbrella as well. If we didn’t have the US, realistically, who would have nuked us by now? No government has anything to gain through that.”

China, for one.
Or Russia back in the day.  The US does have military assets here, even if they’re under an Australian flag.  Pine Gap is part of the US signal intelligence network.  And perhaps more importantly Sydney/Melbourne/Fremantle are all friendly deep ports where a US carrier can tie up and resupply.  Hell, if you had an abundance of nukes you’d point one wherever a US carrier was in the Pacific, simply because they carry aircraft.  If that happens to be in Sydney at the time ...

A nuclear exchange is unlikely, I grant you.  But the umbrella is still important.  We literally came about as close as we could to nuclear war over nothing more than a bit of beachfront property on a pissy little island in the Caribbean ruled by a Marxist moron.

It’s a game of hypotheticals—but given a nuclear war could start over something as small as that, the hypotheticals lean towards getting nuked rather than away.

Having said that, all due respect, but you don’t seem to have answered my question: if not the US, who?
Churchill also used to say that democracy was the worst system of government on the planet ... except for all the other ones.
I think the same analysis lies here.

marley says:

09:26am | 09/05/11

You are wrong about 9/11 not being a crime.  Under the terms of the Hague Convention of 1907,  military forces are required to wear identifying badges and carry their weapons openly;  they are required to give advance warning before launching a war; and they are prohibited from attacking or bombarding undefended buildings.  Under Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, those engaged in warfare are required to distinguish between military and civilian objectives, and to direct their attacks towards the former only.  9/11 attackers did none of these things.  It was a terrorist attack,  not a lawful military operation.

As for the status of the combatants, lawful combatants can be either soldiers or resistance fighters, but are required, again, to wear insignia and carry their weapons openly.  Arguably, the Taliban when fighting in organized combat meet that definition, while those melting away into crowds or carrying suicide bombs or hidden weapons, do not.  Lawful combatants are covered by Geneva Convention III and are entitled to be treated as prisoners of war. Unlawful combatants (and the term has existed for a century at least) are specifically excluded from Geneva III, and are not entitled to the same protections as soldiers, though they do have some protections under Geneva IV.

Dieter Moeckel says:

02:23pm | 09/05/11

Marley, where was the Hague convention in the bombing of Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Of course it was a terrorist operation. But in “total war” none of the conventions come into play.

St. Michael says:

02:13pm | 09/05/11

“Young and naive” is probably repeating yourself, so don’t feel the need to add more than one of the two descriptors.

By the way, your anti-US invective on how the struggle has been “played to the public” makes for intriguing reading given the recovered tapes from the SEALS showing Osama working on massaging his own media image and looking that much more pathetic for doing it.  Funnily enough, that subject hasn’t made it into your commentary.

You also might think again before parroting Bob Ellis at the ABC, too, in regard to coronial inquests.  Particularly given your intended qualification includes Law, on which you seem to have missed the bit where they were teaching about “jurisdiction”.

There can be no coronial inquiry because a US Coroner’s powers end at the US border; a US coroner doesn’t have the power to investigate something that happened off US soil, not to mention a US coroner doesn’t have the power to investigate the death of someone who was not a US citizen.  Perhaps you could instead ask Pakistan to empanel the appropriate Coroner’s Court and investigate for itself?

Oh wait, that’s right, they don’t have one.  And if they did I doubt very much they’re interested in drawing even more attention to either their tacit support of Osama, a monumental stuffup by their security services in letting two US choppers full of SEALS get across the Pakistani border and back, or that they possibly aided the US in taking Osama out.  Or—which is entirely possible—all three.

acotrel says:

12:36pm | 09/05/11

Dieter, I was happy when the A bomb was dropped. It meant my father was coming home alive.  It doesn’t make the use of the weapon a good thing.

Dieter Moeckel says:

02:36pm | 09/05/11

acotrel - dead right! I try to differentiate between the emotional and the logical/ethic. bin Laden is gone Good. Was it done ethically, legally and morally? depends on the philosophy you support.
My old man was in the German Army in WW2. Without him surviving ...
I lost two uncles and a grandfather (who enlisted months before the end and was killed 10 days, in the hearing of my mother before capitulation) in WW2 both on the wrong side as it turns out. But they did their duty. Dumb buggas.
Although it really beside the point I have had to argue and understand two sides since I was a nipper. Amongst my heros are Justice Michael Kirby and Geoffrey Robertson both elegant jurists, who have distinguished between appropriate and right.

Lisa H. says:

01:39am | 10/05/11

i agree this article is very juvenile in tone…my first response, saying exactly that, was not published.
I feel upset by your comment about her being a woman, as I know very many opinionated young men who would take up way too much airspace at a dinner table with exactly this kind of talk.
It is disappinting though that published women continue - as a rule - to be ‘light-weight’ in both their choice of topics and treatment of same.
As a woman, I at least have the cognisance to be suitably embarrassed.

The Vivid Writer says:

06:19pm | 09/05/11

Don’t worry.. She’s just trying to be “punchie” to stir debate..look she even got 37 comments.

The reason they are called “Terrorist Training Camps” is because they are run by C.I.A. and using such lingo helps deniability.

http://thevividwriter.wordpress.com/2011/05/09/americas-frankenstein-is-finally-dead-edited-version-for-the-punch/

The Vivid Writer says:

07:35pm | 09/05/11

I mean, imagine someone accused C.I.A. of using their Al-Qaida assets (majority of Al-Qaida) under the guise of “disrupting” terrorist networks in order to stir instability in oil-, gas-, gas-pipeline-, opium-, cocaine-smuggling-routes rich regions. In other words, imagine C.I.A. were accused to be behind most of Al-Qaida attacks (especially the ones meant to cause sectarian muslim vs muslim strife) that occured in the past 2 decades. Would it be too difficult to believe? Given Robin Cook’s statements, and a history of failures by C.I.A. - and M.I.6 - it is definitely not far fetched. Just one example, the failed op on the border of Iran and Iraq some years ago where a group of British SAS were caught trying to inflame shiah vs sunni violence in the wider Basra area.

And a more recent example, 31-Dec-2009. A “double agent” detonates a charge and kills self and approx 006 x C.I.A. personnel.

What some term as “double agent” is the top layer [transitional layer] of the chain of command..from C.I.A. at top to a middle man such as the muslim “double agent” down to the lowest common denominator - some naive, wanna be jihadi who thinks he’s killing ANA or ANP or schoolgirls in the name of some imaginary friend called Allah and Islam. That is also the means by which some think they should fight counter-insurgencies, by trying to conduct such operations and see to it that insurgents loose face in the eyes of the locals. Not sure if it’s causing anything but utterly needless mayham for the profiteering needs of the militarists.

http://thevividwriter.wordpress.com/2011/05/08/if-i-were-a-delta-airlines-pilot/