From: Mark Steven Heyman (markheyman@infoproconsulting.com)
Date: Sun Dec 12 2004 - 14:41:04 GMT
Hi Sam,
Looks like one longish response has come in, after I'd already split
it into three sections. Sorry for the redundancy. Meanwhile, here's
more response to your original post in this thread.
> Sam says that Western style governments are better than the
alternatives...
msh says:
Sure. Better than the alternatives, in some ways. And it's
interesting that the values you mention [trial by jury, justice for
all, etc] are intellectual not social, in terms of the MOQs moral
hierarchy.
sam:
Why interesting? I would call them eudaimonic rather than
intellectual though, but I don't want to provoke a semantic debate.
msh says:
Interesting, I think, because these values were DQ-Inspired
intellectual patterns that offered some evolutionary "lift" to the
static social level pattern of patriarchal authority. And I know
that you prefer the term "eudaimonic" to "intellectual." I admire
your paper on the subject, and agree with much of it, but wasn't
quite convinced that emotion should be regarded as the Quality equal
of intellect. I think I would argue that much emotion--fear, anger,
jealousy--have deep biological level roots. But that's another
story...
> msh said:
> But there are many other so-called American or Western values that
> are not so clearly worth defending:....
sam:
Absolutely. The issue is which system is more likely to foster
dynamic improvements, ie which system has the capacity to 'better
itself' over time. It's the political equivalent of Pirsig's point
about the pencil being mightier than the pen, isn't it, which is why
having a regular 'reset' mechanism through democratic elections etc
gives a high Quality balance between static and dynamic, which has
generated all the good things we enjoy now - like this forum.
msh says:
I don't know about "democratic" elections in the UK, but here they
hardly appear to be a "reset" mechanism. More like a Quadrennial
Circus resulting in the occasional transfer of power from one faction
of the American Business Party to another. There are lots of reasons
for this, but it is due primarily to the influence of wealth over
politics. My guess is, even in the UK, you're not getting as much of
a reset as you imagine. This might be a sub-topic in the Quality of
Capitalism thread.
sam said about precision warfare..:
I still think that our munitions are greatly more targeted than they
have ever been before, and we take much more care to avoid civilian
casualties than other cultures.
> msh responded:
Well when I hear about "precision bombing" I can't help but think
about that wry description of Organized Crime: it's not all that
organized. Here's how I see it. If someone drives a bus at high
speed through a crowded neighborhood and kills a dozen people, ok
that's an accident. But if the same guy does the same thing the next
day and the next day and the next, in what sense can we claim that
the deaths he causes are unintentional?
sam:
OK, but isn't the argument - we used to have to use a dozen buses,
now we only have to use one? (For the sake of argument, assuming that
the main target is a legitimate one)
msh says:
Not sure I follow this. It's more like, in the case of the missile
attack on Baghdad, they used a thousand busses.
> msh before:
It's clear to me that governments use aerial assaults rather than
direct infantry attacks because such assaults, especially when we are
talking unmanned missiles and stealth aircraft against primitive or
non-existent anti-aircraft activity, are essentially risk-free to the
aggressor.... But massive bombing of civilian areas ALWAYS results in
the indiscriminate killing of civilians.
sam:
The issue is one of proportion, ie are the civilian casualties
disproportionate to the war aim gained? You haven't made an argument
here that they are disproportionate (tho' that argument might be
made, especially if that 100,000 figure is anywhere near accurate).
msh says:
Oddly enough, my argument is fundamentally Christian. No innocent
life is any more or less valuable than any other. I'm surprised I
have to remind YOU of this :-). But I've made this point elsewhere,
and will wait for your response.
> msh continued:
What follows from this is obvious: the lives of the aggressor's
fighting men are considered of greater value than the lives of
innocent civilians living in the nation under attack. This, to me,
is morally indefensible.
sam:
I mostly agree with this. The 'mostly' is because I don't think it's
wrong to try and minimise the casualties on your own side. But there
is something dishonourable about sitting in absolute safety and
pressing buttons, whilst human beings are being blown apart as a
result.
msh says:
But I think it IS wrong to try to minimize your combatant's
casualties at the expense of the lives of innocent non-combatants,
you know, women and children sleeping in their apartments. After
all, this is what the Geneva Conventions are all about. FYI:
An indiscriminate attack affecting the civilian population or
civilian objects and resulting in excessive loss of life, injury to
civilians or damage to civilian objects is a grave breach of the
Geneva Conventions. ( Protocol I, Art. 85, Sec. 3)
In fact, there have been SO MANY US/UK violations of the GC in the
prosecution of this "war" that these alone sort of let the air out of
your "Upholding International Law" argument, which comes next.
But this is a good place to break. A proper response to your 8-
pronged argument supporting the attack on Iraq will require a look at
the actual history leading up to the attack.
Talk later,
Mark Steven Heyman (msh)
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