AP IMPACT: study suggests drones kill far fewer civilians than many Pakistanis believe

[MadHound]

49. Geez, where to start

OK, let's start with the basics, namely the language and terms that you use. "Fascist-terrorist", really? First of all, brushing aside the fact that this sounds like something you picked up from hate radio, your use of this term shows a profound lack of understanding about what fascism, and terrorism is.

Fascism is the melding of the corporate and the state for greater control and power. Since Afghanistan has no real corporate power base for the government to use, there really can be no fascism. Totalitarian government are not, by definition, fascist governments, there are many flavors of totalitarianism, learn them. For words and concepts matter, and if you are using the wrong words, engaging with the wrong concepts, then you aren't fully comprehending what you are doing, and hamstringing yourself. This relates to the war of ideas that I mentioned earlier, and the need for understanding.

Speaking of the war of ideas, since you don't seem to grasp it, let me explain it plain for you. A war of ideas is a conflict of cultures, beliefs, modes of approaching the world. Sometimes a war of ideas is fought concurrently with a physical battle, such as what occurred during the Vietnam War, sometimes not. During the Cold War we were engaged in a war of ideas with the Soviet Union, vying with them for control of large swathes of the world. Socialism vs. capitalism, democracy vs. an totalitarian oligarchy. Though much of this war was a physical conflict, many of it was simply a battle for hearts and minds, and in some cases, we lost badly. Let me give you an example from Afghanistan/Pakistan.

Back in 2005 there was a devastating earthquake in the Kashmir region of Pakistan, just across the Afghan border. While the US eventually provided a substantial amount of aid, the folks on the spot, the first responders, were members of al Qaeda. Instead of taking time out to help our fellow humans, and garner a great deal of good will for ourselves, we continued on with military operations across the border. It wasn't until we belatedly realized what a PR nightmare this was did we start aiding our fellow humans, but by then it was too late, we had lost that battle in the war of ideas.

We just lost another battle in that war of ideas the other week, with the discovery of those burned Qurans. Yes, yes, I know that it is fashionable to dismiss this as overreaction due to religious fanaticism, but the fact of the matter is we've stuck our foot into this tiger trap more than once during this war, you would think that we would have learned by now. Instead, we've come out looking like ugly Americans, with no cultural sensitivity and no respect for those we are supposedly saving from, well, whatever it is we're supposed to be saving them from. Another battle in the war of ideas lost.

You may think that a war of ideas is meaningless, that it doesn't contribute anything to winning the physical battles, but you are wrong. Winning the war of ideas, winning hearts and minds, is the most important thing, a fact that has been recognized by leaders and political experts for eons. Some contrast and comparison.

We failed badly in the war of ideas in Vietnam. We failed to show that we were a people who were kind, generous, and dedicated to something nobler than our own vision of empire. This is why the NVA was able to operate in South Vietnam with relative impunity, why the Viet Cong weren't lacking for recruits, why the people of Southeast Asia did not want our presence in their country. You cannot win a war if you do not have the people of the countryside on your side. Yes, you may pound your enemy into tiny pieces, you may stride across the country in question like a Collosus, but you won't win in the long run, but your enemy will continue to reform from the ashes of defeat, only to attack you again and again until you are bled dry or leave. We saw this with our own Revolution. We did not win militarily, we won less than a handful of major engagements, our capital was captured, our major ports of commerce were occupied or blockaded for a good portion of the war. Even the belated entry of the French did not swing the balance of the military scales. What won the Revolution far us was the fact that we had already won the war of ideas. The British were being bled dry in a war that they could not win because they did not have support of the people of this country, so their only other option was to leave.

Now compare our actions in Vietnam, and Iraq, and Afghanistan with our actions after WWII. We deliberately set out to win the hearts and minds of our former enemies after the conclusion of hostilities. We poured money, manpower, and material into rebuilding both Japan and Germany, showing them our generosity, kindness, respect and humanity. It was a wise decision, one inspired in large part by the disaster of the post war settlement of WWI(which essentially led to WWII). This post WWII war of ideas was won by us, even though we leveled Germany, and unleashed the scourge of atomic power upon the Japanese. We kicked their ass, yes, but then we showed them that we had a better way, a better idea, and that is what truly put the seal of victory upon WWII.

The simple fact of the matter is that if you don't win the war of ideas, you will never win the physical war. Empires, and people, throughout history have recognized this simple fact. That was how Alexander the Great held his empire together, the same for Rome, they presented a better idea, and thus rather than endlessly fighting their enemies, they made them a better offer, gave them a better set of ideas. Moving on.

Logic. You lack it, at least to some degree. You are falling for the that old trick that if something is popular with most of the people, it is right, good. That is a fallacy. Millions of people in the South for over four hundred years thought that slavery and Jim Crow, American apartheid, was a good thing, a right thing, even Biblically sanctioned in some cases. But really now, was slavery right, or good? The same applies with drone strikes. Just because people think it is a good think doesn't make it so.

Back to definitions, let's hit on "terrorism". Terrorism is how the weak, the poor fight back against a stronger, wealthier foe. At one time American Revolutionaries were deemed to be terrorists by the British. The same with Christians and the Romans, Native Americans and the US, on and on. When in reality it is the only way the poor can fight back. They don't have the money to buy drones, they don't have the manpower to line up in a straight line and slug it out, so they work with what they've got. They are not evil, at least no more evil than their opponents, but just poor.

Yes, they kill civilians, guess what, warfare in general kills civilians. We've killed tens of thousands of civilians in Afghanistan in the past ten years, and will wind up killing thousands more before we're gone. And again, what have the Afghan people done to us? It was Saudis who flew those planes in those towers, Saudis who planned the operation, yet we land with both feet upon the Afghan people? Where is the justice in that? Hell, the vast majority of Afghans don't even know about 911. They think that we're invading their country, and they are simply fighting back, by whatever means necessary. If the situation was reversed, you know as well as I do that Americans would also fight back, with whatever weapon came to hand. Terrorist is, in reality, simply a matter of perception, a term that is used to demonize the enemy of the moment, the dreaded "other."

I'm not trying to get a personal dig in at you because you've not been in war, I am trying to get you to empathize with the people of Afghanistan. How would you feel if a vastly superior military power came in and, oh, say, killed your bride, your friends, your family, all on your wedding day? That this crime was carried out by a man halfway around the world sitting behind drone controls? Repeat this scenario a few dozen times, perhaps you'll get the idea. Besides, never, ever believe the propaganda. "Smart bombs" were supposed to minimize civilian deaths, when in reality they didn't, and haven't, worked as promised.

Empathy, it is part of what makes you human. Yet you show little empathy. That's not surprising, millions of Americans aren't showing much empathy either. They, like you, are ill informed, and thus parrot the propaganda that is put out there. And yes, they use many of the same terms that you do, fascist, terrorist, and worst. What is interesting however is that most of the people who buy into this bullshit are on the political right, addicts of Fox news and hate radio. What is your excuse?

One other thing before we go. You are essentially calling me a conspiracy theorist when you question the veracity of my statement about bin Laden and the rejection of school funds by the US. I assure you, I deal only with fact, for I'm a historian, with the parchment and publications to back it up. The fact is, we did deny Afghanistan funding for rebuilding their education infrastructure. Hell, that's pretty common knowledge, a part of the Congressional record, even a part of pop culture, having made it into the movie "Charlie Wilson's War". Furthermore, bin Laden, by his own admission, on the record, stated that this denial of funding was what originally turned him against the US. It is an on the record interview.

I could give you links for all this, spoon feed it to you like one does to an elementary school student. But the fact is, you're an adult, and you need to start taking the initiative to educate yourself. What I say is true, the information is out there, go find it on your own, and learn even more in the process. For you desperately need to learn, to educate yourself. The terminology you use, the assumptions you make, your lack of logic, all of this shows a person who is ill educated, at least in matters of history, politics, and philosophy. That isn't just your problem, but a societal problem. But it is one that you can correct. Stop getting your information from just right wing sources, but rather get a diverse range of views. Educate yourself on philosophy. Machiavelli and Plato may seem like dry, dull, irrelevant reading, but trust me, they are part of the essential curricula of those in power, as is Sun Tzu and many, many others. Study your history, not just what you get from the school textbooks, but from the primary sources. Yes, it possible for informed people to reach different conclusions, but frankly, we are not equally informed people, that much is obvious. You need to correct that deficit. Do so, and then we can talk, and probably agree on much.