Military spending vs societal benefits

[Politesse]

FFS, why do YOU believe that wars can only be won by committing massive amounts of war crimes?

I don't. I do believe that atrocious actions are taken in all wars, and that major escalations immediatedly and inevitably mean an increase in instances of social violence. I'm not advocating those acts, I oppose using warfare at all, except as a measure of absolute last resort where all other forms of diplomacy have failed, primarily because I know what war means for the civilian populations subjected to them.

 

[Politesse]

Dude, that's EXACTLY how modern warfare works.

Fantasy land. Give me an example. What "modern war" of a scale similar to or larger than the Afghanistan campaign included only Emily-approved tactics?

 

[Politesse]

The US has the technology and the ability to destroy the hydra's heart - but many don't want us to, because it's "destroying a culture" or "interfering with someone else's beliefs", and because it would take a very clear directive of killing ALL the heads and piercing the heart.

This is your way of trying to palatably describe mass killings of anyone determined to be a "terrorist", correct? At a minimum, tens of thousands of individuals. Yes?

Not that describing it as "killing all the heads and taking the heart" doesn't sound like dismemberment anyway...

 

[Politesse]

It isn't something I invented out of whole cloth. It is what has ahppened in every military campaign in recorded history, including the specific war you are claiming would have been "won" had we escalated it further. If your views on military policy and effectiveness aren't based on reality, what good are they? If we pushed out into the Aghan countryside to blow up every single house with terrorists in it, that would be placing even more soldiers in long term postings in hostile environments with minimal oversight, exactly the conditions that are known to result in incidents like those cited.

Is it your view that the only reason the Allies won WW1 and WW2 was by brutally torturing and raping Axis soldiers?

No. However, torture and rape occurred on massive scales during both of those conflicts. Demonstrably and beyond any measure of reasonable doubt. This became an inevitable outcome the moment mobilization began.

"Axis" and "Allies" were terms only used in the Second World War, by the way. The principal alliances in the Great War were the Allied Powers and the Central Powers.

 

[bilby]

Did you mock and pick on people from other countries because they "don't talk right"?

Only if they were American

 

[Toni]

It isn't something I invented out of whole cloth. It is what has ahppened in every military campaign in recorded history, including the specific war you are claiming would have been "won" had we escalated it further. If your views on military policy and effectiveness aren't based on reality, what good are they? If we pushed out into the Aghan countryside to blow up every single house with terrorists in it, that would be placing even more soldiers in long term postings in hostile environments with minimal oversight, exactly the conditions that are known to result in incidents like those cited.

Is it your view that the only reason the Allies won WW1 and WW2 was by brutally torturing and raping Axis soldiers?

No but only someone who is willfully blind fails to acknowledge that with every single war comes rape, disease, famine, starvation, the deaths of noncombatants including elderly, disabled, children, pregnant women, more.

Every single additional day of armed combat includes all of these things.

If war only encompassed the deaths and injuries of the armed combatants, that would be evil enough. But it doesn’t. It never does.

 

[Toni]

Your explanation does not obviate your seeming fixation of 'correcting' or otherwise finding fault with Americans

You misunderstand. I am not "correcting" or finding fault with Americans; I am laughing at them.

Their oddities are hilarious. The more so as they seem incapable of seeing the slightest humour in them.

There's a reason why the 'straight man' in a comedy duo is traditionally paid more than his partner.

So... do you think it's somehow better that you're mocking americans with condescension rather than "correcting" us? You think derision is better than nitpickiness?

Of course it is.

Everyone deserves a good laugh, and ridicule is perhaps the most powerful weapon in the global struggle for equality.

Patriotism is evil; But it's also ridiculous, and so we have a moral duty to ridicule it at every opportunity.

I just would like to point out that here you are again, still wrong and I am somehow able to point it out without ridiculing you, even as you confuse objections to your anti-American bigotry with anti-patriotism.

 

[bilby]

Also, why do you think patriotism is evil,

Observation, plus reasoning and logic.

Patriotism is the assignment of the achievements of others to your own moral credit; And the abandonment of reason, in favour of unthinking support of strangers who happen to be born near to your own birthplace.

It leads directly to pointless wars and needless suffering.

It's self-evidently evil.

and where the fuck do you get off assigning the moral high ground to the destruction of it? Who the fuck made you the god of morality?

I did.

Duh.

 

[Shadowy Man]

That explanation would hold far more water if I hadn't heard a large number of instances of Americans using "argue" to mean "argue against", in a variety of contexts. It's difficult to make a typo while speaking

It's certainly a difference in grammar; And those who do it are, in my experience, invariably Americans. Whether it's a widespread dialect in the US, or an uncommon one, it's certainly not always an unintentional error.

And it's in keeping with the "everybody is not guilty" construction that I juxtaposed with it; That's not a typo either.

Sorry to jump in late on the grammar/usage point here, but I have *never* in multiple decades of living in America and speaking to Americans in American English from geographical areas spanning both coasts and the Midwest heard what Bilby claims he has heard. I'm not saying he hasn't heard it, but I would argue it is not widespread usage in American English. If it were, I would have just said "I would argue it is widespread usage in American English."

 

[Emily Lake]

It isn't something I invented out of whole cloth. It is what has ahppened in every military campaign in recorded history, including the specific war you are claiming would have been "won" had we escalated it further. If your views on military policy and effectiveness aren't based on reality, what good are they? If we pushed out into the Aghan countryside to blow up every single house with terrorists in it, that would be placing even more soldiers in long term postings in hostile environments with minimal oversight, exactly the conditions that are known to result in incidents like those cited.

Is it your view that the only reason the Allies won WW1 and WW2 was by brutally torturing and raping Axis soldiers?

No. However, torture and rape occurred on massive scales during both of those conflicts. Demonstrably and beyond any measure of reasonable doubt. This became an inevitable outcome the moment mobilization began.

You keep being very non-specific about who is doing the torture and rape. "It occurred on massive scales" - perhaps... but were the tortures and rapes being committed by both sides at the same rates? I rather doubt it. I'm rather of the opinion that the Nazi's did a fuck-ton more torturing than the Allies did.

"Axis" and "Allies" were terms only used in the Second World War, by the way. The principal alliances in the Great War were the Allied Powers and the Central Powers.

I don't particularly care about trying to maintain two different sets of nomenclature for the two wars, when everyone clearly understand what the divisions represent. All it does is add more words for no additional meaning.

 

[Emily Lake]

It isn't something I invented out of whole cloth. It is what has ahppened in every military campaign in recorded history, including the specific war you are claiming would have been "won" had we escalated it further. If your views on military policy and effectiveness aren't based on reality, what good are they? If we pushed out into the Aghan countryside to blow up every single house with terrorists in it, that would be placing even more soldiers in long term postings in hostile environments with minimal oversight, exactly the conditions that are known to result in incidents like those cited.

Is it your view that the only reason the Allies won WW1 and WW2 was by brutally torturing and raping Axis soldiers?

No but only someone who is willfully blind fails to acknowledge that with every single war comes rape, disease, famine, starvation, the deaths of noncombatants including elderly, disabled, children, pregnant women, more.

Every single additional day of armed combat includes all of these things.

If war only encompassed the deaths and injuries of the armed combatants, that would be evil enough. But it doesn’t. It never does.

Yeah, I haven't suggested that it never happens.

On the other hand, I very strongly object to Poli's assumption that military victories can only be achieved by the victors being barbaric rapists that torture everyone with zeal.

Seriously - do you think Israelis are raping and brutalizing Palestinians with the same degree that Hamas does? Do you think that American troops engaged in anywhere near the same amount of rape, torture, beheading, and other barbaric behavior as the Taliban?

Poli's framing creates a false dichotomy where one can only ever resort to the worst kind of uninhibited savagery or lose - one cannot win without becoming an unrepentant villain. It's a stupid assumption and a bad argument.

 

[Emily Lake]

Also, why do you think patriotism is evil,

Observation, plus reasoning and logic.

Patriotism is the assignment of the achievements of others to your own moral credit; And the abandonment of reason, in favour of unthinking support of strangers who happen to be born near to your own birthplace.

It leads directly to pointless wars and needless suffering.

It's self-evidently evil.

That's some ideologically twisted bullshit. IMO.

Overextended patriotism - jingoism - can definitely be bad. But patriotism by itself produces a sense of community, shared values, and bonding for a culture and a way of life. That is not "self-evidently evil" in any rational sense.

and where the fuck do you get off assigning the moral high ground to the destruction of it? Who the fuck made you the god of morality?

I did.

Duh.

I'm sure you think you're being funny, but in truth you're only reinforcing my view of you has being an arrogant bigot.

If patriotism is so bad, then wouldn't one also have to accept that hating on people and deriding them for their place of birth is also self-evidently evil?

 

[Toni]

It isn't something I invented out of whole cloth. It is what has ahppened in every military campaign in recorded history, including the specific war you are claiming would have been "won" had we escalated it further. If your views on military policy and effectiveness aren't based on reality, what good are they? If we pushed out into the Aghan countryside to blow up every single house with terrorists in it, that would be placing even more soldiers in long term postings in hostile environments with minimal oversight, exactly the conditions that are known to result in incidents like those cited.

Is it your view that the only reason the Allies won WW1 and WW2 was by brutally torturing and raping Axis soldiers?

No but only someone who is willfully blind fails to acknowledge that with every single war comes rape, disease, famine, starvation, the deaths of noncombatants including elderly, disabled, children, pregnant women, more.

Every single additional day of armed combat includes all of these things.

If war only encompassed the deaths and injuries of the armed combatants, that would be evil enough. But it doesn’t. It never does.

Yeah, I haven't suggested that it never happens.

On the other hand, I very strongly object to Poli's assumption that military victories can only be achieved by the victors being barbaric rapists that torture everyone with zeal.

Seriously - do you think Israelis are raping and brutalizing Palestinians with the same degree that Hamas does? Do you think that American troops engaged in anywhere near the same amount of rape, torture, beheading, and other barbaric behavior as the Taliban?

Poli's framing creates a false dichotomy where one can only ever resort to the worst kind of uninhibited savagery or lose - one cannot win without becoming an unrepentant villain. It's a stupid assumption and a bad argument.

I think that it is inevitable that even if by some miraculous change in human nature and the reality of being in combat for months to years at a time so that no sexual assaults happened during war, we would still see enormous loss of life among non-combatants and civilians, including the elderly, women and children and the disabled. Some directly as a result of armed violence and some because of destruction and re-distribution of food supplies, medical care and suppli s, drinking water and more.

I think it is a fantasy to imagine that this will not continue to happen, just as injured, sometimes permanently and severely disabled soldiers will remain among us in any armed conflict.

War is evil. Sometimes it is inevitable and perhaps even necessary to stop a greater evil but I think we must acknowledge the death and destruction, the raping and pillaging, the disease and famine that accompanied all war. And decide it’s enough. No more.

 

[bilby]

It isn't something I invented out of whole cloth. It is what has ahppened in every military campaign in recorded history, including the specific war you are claiming would have been "won" had we escalated it further. If your views on military policy and effectiveness aren't based on reality, what good are they? If we pushed out into the Aghan countryside to blow up every single house with terrorists in it, that would be placing even more soldiers in long term postings in hostile environments with minimal oversight, exactly the conditions that are known to result in incidents like those cited.

Is it your view that the only reason the Allies won WW1 and WW2 was by brutally torturing and raping Axis soldiers?

No. However, torture and rape occurred on massive scales during both of those conflicts. Demonstrably and beyond any measure of reasonable doubt. This became an inevitable outcome the moment mobilization began.

You keep being very non-specific about who is doing the torture and rape. "It occurred on massive scales" - perhaps... but were the tortures and rapes being committed by both sides at the same rates? I rather doubt it. I'm rather of the opinion that the Nazi's did a fuck-ton more torturing than the Allies did.

"Axis" and "Allies" were terms only used in the Second World War, by the way. The principal alliances in the Great War were the Allied Powers and the Central Powers.

I don't particularly care about trying to maintain two different sets of nomenclature for the two wars, when everyone clearly understand what the divisions represent. All it does is add more words for no additional meaning.

Tell that to Japan.

 

[bilby]

If patriotism is so bad, then wouldn't one also have to accept that hating on people and deriding them for their place of birth is also self-evidently evil?

Yes, of course. And it is.

 

[Politesse]

You keep being very non-specific about who is doing the torture and rape. "It occurred on massive scales" - perhaps... but were the tortures and rapes being committed by both sides at the same rates?

So, what, it's a rape contest? Grow up.

On the other hand, I very strongly object to Poli's assumption that military victories can only be achieved by the victors being barbaric rapists that torture everyone with zeal.

No. Wars result in atrocities. Both "victors" and "losers" engage in those atrocities. I don't know what points you think you're winning by saying "yeah, well, the other guys raped way more women than we did". The victims don't care about the whose tally board they're on, I can assure you.

I don't particularly care about trying to maintain two different sets of nomenclature for the two wars, when everyone clearly understand what the divisions represent. All it does is add more words for no additional meaning.

How quickly we went from "you can't possibly know as much about miltary matters as I do, you're not married to any soldiers!" to "Who really cares who the belligerents in the largest wars in human history were, or what they called themselves"? Your dismissal of simple and obvious facts about warfare is really eroding the convincing qualities of your claims to tactical expertise on more complex matters, here.

Come to think of it, I'm starting to wonder whether you even know who exactly we were fighting in Afghanistan, either. Is it just "the terrorists", in your comprehension of the matter? It seems to be all you know to call them. You must be really confused as to why the war took so long... It was just some random terrorists hiding in caves, right? Why didn't we just bomb the caves with some super big bombs? Show those bad guys what for?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Armaments have directly saved the lives of millions in Eastern Europe. Abundant arms are most likely stopping wars in Korea, and the countries around China. It's sad, but very true that the only way to stop aggressive invaders is with a strong defense.

Exactly. Military spending is horrible. Not engaging in military spending is even worse, though.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Yes! I did favor the Clinton days "peace dividend". Those were calmer days, more peaceful. It made sense then to start deleveraging our military spending (although it didn't go very far to be honest). IMO, today is the most dangerous time for the world in a generation. We need more arms to stop the current war and prevent future wars from breaking out. Perhaps if the smaller countries facing off against bullies can sufficiently ally up; and can be armed sufficiently; we can stop imperialism today and have a future with a true peace dividend. But we have to stop the wars first...

The "peace dividend" was an illusion. The Russian bear took a nap, it never went away.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I think it's because a multiway Prisoners' Dilemma is vastly more complicated and difficult to find a way out of than our old two-way game with the Soviets. If we and Russia disarm too much that just makes China more powerful.

There's also the issue of cheating. Do countries actually tell the truth about their nuclear arsenals? There's not much doubt about the big stuff--we know their silos, we know their silos, we know their boomers, they know ours. We even have a pretty good idea on bomber counts. Inspection treaties can confirm compliance. But what about things like cruise missiles? There is no functional difference between a conventionally-armed cruise missile and a nuclear-armed one. And some missiles are built for variable payloads (do you want to hit one hard target or do you want to hit an area of soft targets?), what's to stop a country from having bombs in storage that can quickly be placed onto "conventional" missile frames?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

However, for ages Congress looted the surplus that SS/Medicare was supposed to be building up for the boomers.

No, they did not. SS & Medicare funds are held separately. People are simply living longer, and the funds collected are insufficient to meet the current payout level, thus the funds are being depleted.

Note the "supposed to". They are "held separately" in the form of government bonds and thus spent. (The whole idea was stupid--there's no bank big enough to stick that money in.) The funds were expected to be depleted, it was a correction for the fact that we have a demographic bubble from the baby boomers. People are living longer (and, more importantly, spending more on medical care) which means the numbers don't balance, but the big issue is the boomers. It's not going to take much of an increase to balance the overall books--but the trillions that were supposedly in reserve are a bigger issue.