Patterico's Pontifications

12/16/2015

Us and Them

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:52 am



Last night, watching the debate, I witnessed a bizarre interchange in which Hugh Hewitt appeared to assert that it is a necessary qualification for the presidency of the U.S. that one be willing to kill “thousands” of “innocent children.” I figured I would wait to blog it until I could see a transcript, since I could hardly believe I had heard it correctly. Newsbusters has the video and transcript:

HUGH HEWITT: Doctor Carson, you mentioned in your opening remarks that you’re a pediatric neurologist surgeon —

BEN CARSON: Neurosurgeon.

HUGH HEWITT: Neurosurgeon. And people admire and respect and are inspired by your life story, your kindness and evangelical core support. We’re talking about ruthless things tonight. Carpet bombing, toughness, war. And people wonder, could you do that? Could you order air strikes that would kill innocent children by not the scores, but the hundreds and the thousands? Could you wage war as a commander in chief?

BEN CARSON: Well, interestingly enough, you should see the eyes of some of those children when I say to them, “We’re going to have to open your head up and take out this tumor.” They’re not happy about it and they don’t like me very much at that point. But later on, they love me. Sometimes you, I sound like him [Motions to Trump.] You know, later on, you know they really realize what’s going on and by the same token, you have to be able to look at the big picture and understand that it’s actually merciful if you go ahead and finish the job rather than death by 1,000 pricks.

HEWITT: So you are okay with the deaths of thousands of innocent children and civilians? [Audience booing.]

CARSON: You got it. You got it. [Pointing at the audience.]

HEWITT: That is what war— Can you be as ruthless as Churchill was in prosecuting the war against the Nazis?

CARSON: Ruthless is not necessarily the word I would use but tough, resolute, understanding what the problems are and understanding that the job of the president of the United States is to protect the people of this country and to do what is necessary in order to get it done.

I was pleased to hear a Republican audience booing Hewitt. I often worry that we have become very casual about the killing of innocent people, slapping the label “war” on it to avoid thinking about it too closely. The boos told me that not everyone thinks this way.

This is not mere handwringing in an attempt to show myself to be morally superior. This is an attempt to get people to think more deeply about the justification for killing innocent people.

Murray Rothbard said in his classic essay War, Peace, and the State:

If Smith and a group of his henchmen aggress against Jones and Jones and his bodyguards pursue the Smith gang to their lair, we may cheer Jones on in his endeavor; and we, and others in society interested in repelling aggression, may contribute financially or personally to Jones’s cause. But Jones has no right, any more than does Smith, to aggress against anyone else in the course of his “just war”: to steal others’ property in order to finance his pursuit, to conscript others into his posse by use of violence, or to kill others in the course of his struggle to capture the Smith forces. If Jones should do any of these things, he becomes a criminal as fully as Smith, and he too becomes subject to whatever sanctions are meted out against criminality.

This seems easy to understand when “Smith” (the “collateral damage” in the example) is a sympathetic figure. Take the Peasants’ Crusade in the last few years of the 11th Century. Peasants on their way to retake Jerusalem massacred Jews and stole their property. They rationalized that they were on a holy mission, and they needed the money — and the people they were taking it from were nonbelievers anyway, so what’s the big deal? They were embarked on a just war, and in a just war, sometimes innocents have to die.

That example makes the peasants seem like criminals — in part because many do not sympathize with their mission, and in part because the Jews seem sympathetic. But in the 11th Century, the cause appeared quite just to Westerners — and the Jews seemed unsympathetic indeed.

What about drone strikes? Many Americans seem perfectly comfortable with the notion that innocent people must die in drone strikes if that’s how you get the bad guys. I think we tend to assume that birds of a feather flock together. If people are close enough to a terrorist to be killed if you drone-strike him, that’s on them, amirite?

Except that, by that logic, if the government had learned that Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik were jihadis, it would have been justified in drone-striking them and anyone who happened to be at a year-end meeting with them. What are those people doing in the company of a couple of jihadis anyway?

Ah, but those are Americans! It’s not the same in Syria, or Yemen, or Iraq, some seem to think. Over there, if you’re near a terrorist, you’re fair game. Over here, maybe not. Which raises the question, if had we drone-struck a San Bernardino mosque, with Tashfeen Malik and Syed Farook inside, would you have supported that, even if a couple dozen civilians died in the process?

It’s an “us and them” mentality. But we have had that mentality throughout human history. In the 11th Century, the Jews massacred by followers of Peter the Hermit were “them.” Now we have a different “them” — but if they are innocent, they are still human.

The “us and them” mentality seemed to reach peak insanity earlier this week, with the “debate” that arose with respect to the genius idea of “taking out” families of terrorists — not, it appears, because we believe them to be terrorists as well, but because that would be a way to hurt the terrorists. This genius idea was walked back at the debate and afterwards, but it was still said. In America.

Earlier this week, Ken White linked a Boing Boing article on his Facebook page titled Hey, why don’t we store our nuclear launch codes inside some poor guy’s chest. It described a 1981 thought experiment that went like this:

[W]hat if the codes to launch nuclear war were kept inside the chest-cavity of a young volunteer, and the President would have to hack them out of this young man’s chest before he could commence armageddon?

The professor who proposed it is quoted as saying: “When I suggested this to friends in the Pentagon they said, ‘My God, that’s terrible. Having to kill someone would distort the President’s judgment. He might never push the button.'”

Us and them.

In reality, if a President launches such a war, the codes should be inside his own chest. If it’s important enough to kill 100,000 or millions of innocent civilians (“them”), maybe it’s important enough that one of “us” die to allow that to happen. Just a thought to bring home the reality of it.

I don’t think being willing to kill thousands of innocent children should be a qualification to be President. I think a willingness to question that idea should be.

109 Responses to “Us and Them”

  1. is a debt-bloated burgeoningly fascist failmerican whorestate what is not worth dying for really worth killing for?

    happyfeet (a037ad)

  2. Then you are against war period and you hold the Truman was a war criminal . In fact , you hold that the entire enterprise of WWII by the Allies was immoral.

    seeRpea (52281f)

  3. Innocent people are going to die during wars, if one can not handle that than one should not be PotUS.

    seeRpea (52281f)

  4. Go sell it to the moslems. When they buy it, I’ll buy it. You don’t seem to understand but up until the moment Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik opened fire they were innocent civilians by your definition, it was only by the time they were dead they were jihadists. In between they were “radicalizing”.

    Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27)

  5. Mr. Hewitt, when did you stop beating your wife?

    AZ Bob (34bb80)

  6. 1.is a debt-bloated burgeoningly fascist failmerican whorestate what is not worth dying for really worth killing for?

    I killed for it. And if you’re going to allow the death of civilians dictate whether we go to war then you best learn Arabic quickly and study your Koran.

    Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27)

  7. Just one more reason I haven’t read or listened to Hewitt since November 2012. He has lost something.

    Colonel Haiku (382a53)

  8. I agree that the Hewitt question is distasteful and unenlightening.

    It may or may not be necessary for a future President to take actions that will kill thousands of noncombatants. The threat that we were willing to do that (Mutually Assured Destruction, MAD) may appear immoral to you now, but in fact that mutual threat prevented nuclear war between two enemy superpowers for 40 years. And I don’t see how you could respond to the Pearl Harbor attacks if you were not willing to use bombers against Japan. Fortunately, ISIS is not a great power like the Russian, Japanese or German empires, so deaths there will be commensurately lower, even if still in the hundreds or thousands.

    The reason the government shouldn’t bomb a mosque in California isn’t just because the people killed will be US residents (and in many cases US citizens), it is because the US government controls the territory of California and has other options such as sending in armed men to arrest certain people in the mosque. (And if we thought that the mosque would contain arms and people willing to use them, we could instead round them up at night at their homes.) In contrast, sending in armed men to take on ISIS and Taliban overseas requires not only a tactical force to attack them, with deaths expected on both sides, but also a large covering force to prevent attacks from other ISIS troops. This sort of occupying force would likely mean more killing on both sides than does the current use of drones.

    David Pittelli (b77425)

  9. It was, indeed, a troubling question. What does that question tell us about Hewitt’s character? Nothing good.

    And what an odd premise. Doctors make life and death decisions all the time. If there was an individual on stage last night who would be best prepared to make a dispassionate life and death decision it is probably Carson.

    Perhaps the strongest argument for the political outsiders in the race is that, outside government, making tough choices is routine. Deficit spending, the core mechanism of government at the federal level, is an exercise in avoiding tough choices.

    ThOR (a52560)

  10. i’m boycotting chipotle cause of i never went there anyway and now all the burritos have diseases

    but i was never in any danger of listening to hugh hewitt my whole life

    happyfeet (a037ad)

  11. Yes you were happyfeet: brain disease.

    Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27)

  12. It might surprise you to learn that “we” are ultimately responsible for the actions of our government. For example, if the government spends too much money, “we” (meaning our grand children in this case) are expected to pay for its folly in the form of taxes of every type. The “civilians” that Hewitt was talking about are not vegetables or rocks. They are thinking beings, and they have made the decision to support whatever government they find themselves beholden to. This is a rather harsh view, since it is clear that in places like Saddam’s Iraq, only the tyrant and his brood have the power to change things easily. The citizens of such regimes have basically chosen the easiest of some very unattractive options. They haven’t chosen wisely, particularly if they are parents with young children. The populace is the foundation of a tyrant’s power. If you aren’t willing to disrupt that foundation, then you will never topple a tyrant.

    The people of Iran should understand that they are in terrible danger. If their imams decide to nuke Israel, it will be the people of Iran who will harvest the whirlwind. Some might regard these “civilians” as victims. But they enable the theocracy with their labor and the wealth it generates. The same can be said of the Germans in WWII. Hewitt is a fool to use the word “ruthless” to describe Churchill. The allies did what they had to do, but they weren’t merciless nor were they cruel. The German war machine, meaning everything in the country that generated wealth, had to be disrupted. This doesn’t mean you have to turn everything into rubble, although we very nearly did that. The allies targeted certain strategic products (e.g. ball bearings) and commodities (petroleum) for destruction in the hope that this would disable the Nazis. It wasn’t enough, despite the tremendous losses we suffered trying to bomb the factories and oil fields. So the destruction became more wide spread. This was for lack of a better idea, as much as anything. And there may never be a better idea.

    Ruthless is machine gunning men, women and children for no purpose, as jihadists seem to enjoy, and as the Nazi troops did any number of times during WWII, including in the Battle of the Bulge.

    Taking any other point of view regarding “civilian casualties” is to support the enslavement of the entire world. Which isn’t to say that purpose of war is the extermination of civilians, but they are the ultimate source of power for any regime. History has shown that some regimes must be destroyed before they grow too powerful.

    BobStewartatHome (a52abe)

  13. Post 4: Well stated ,Sir.
    Post 6: Spot on.
    Paging Mr. Hewitt: Post 4 and 6 should be required reading for you.

    mike191 (4c004d)

  14. The strategic bombing survey concluded that indiscriminate mass bombings did not deter the German or japanese, the Russian so employ the zombie squad strategy in their zachistas.

    narciso (732bc0)

  15. This is an attempt to get people to think more deeply about the justification for killing innocent people.
    –Fair enough. On that score, it would have been worth querying several of Hewitt’s premises.

    He raises the spectre of “carpet bombing,” for example. Area bombing may have been a strategically acceptable means of reducing German and Japanese war industry and plant seventy years ago; “precision” bombing wasn’t really in the cards until the development of superior bombsight technology.

    Even then, the friction of war, human error, poor intelligence, etc. meant that bombs would go astray and hurt civilians and damage their property. Many would have argued that this was a salutary effect in that it clued ordinary Germans and Japanese to the consequences of their governments’ unprovoked brutalities; well, yes, some strong feelings are evoked by war. It would have been harder to pitch this kind of vindicatory demolition to Allied soldiers who witnessed how many French civilians were hurt by “friendly” bombing and artillery during the Normandy campaign.

    (It should be said that poor targeting wasn’t simply an Allied failure – my grandfather helped dispose of unexploded German bombs which landed on RAF runways *and* in farmers’ potato fields).

    Today? There wouldn’t be much point, morally or strategically, in carpet bombing an entire Aleppo neighbourhood riddled with civilians just to clear out a rebel ammo dump. It says something about the Syrian government that it not only eschews such logic but actively upends it; the Syrian air force barrel bombs such an area because those civilians are “harbouring” a rebel ammo dump.

    Acknowledging that innocent people will suffer and die in wartime is a far cry from being “comfortable” with the inevitability of that fact, much less holding it up to be a righteous deed.

    I feel like Carson could have turned the question around: “I don’t know if the killing of innocent children can ever be truly justified – maybe you should ask Planned Parenthood about that. I can only speculate on what the outcomes of *not* acting might be. If inadvertently hurting civilians to incapacitate our enemies now may save many more civilians later, would it be irresponsible of me not to take that action?”

    JP (ed49ce)

  16. I believe that following the Just War Doctrine would prevent the wholesale killing of innocents. Not that there wouldn’t be any innocent lives taken, but that would not be the goal.

    The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:

    * the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
    * all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
    * there must be serious prospects of success;
    * the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

    These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the “just war” doctrine. The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.

    On the other hand, was it wrong to drop the bomb on Japan? Millions of lives were saved, both American and Japanese. Many innocents died and many lives were saved.

    Was it wrong to carpet bomb Germany?

    As a Christian, I have to follow the Bible on punishment of relatives.

    Deuteronomy 24:16

    16 “Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall children be put to death for their fathers; a person shall be put to death for his own sin.

    If the relatives are complicit in the act, then they deserve punishment. I’m thinking of the woman who raises her children to be sent to Israel as suicide bombers. Also, where God called the Jews to annihilate certain populations because of their sins, mostly because of child sacrifice.

    If bombing a city held by jihadists saves American lives and takes innocent lives, where do you draw the line? How many innocents are acceptable collateral damage for each American life?

    Are there really moderate Muslims, or is that just a myth? If the Koran tells a Muslim they must kill all who are not Muslims, then isn’t a moderate Muslim not a Muslim?

    Tanny O'Haley (c674c7)

  17. I do not support Hugh Hewitt’s agenda but I am interested in the larger question of the cost of war. I support Cruz’s Jacksonian approach that we should be reluctant to go to war, and only in to protect our national interests, but we should wage war without restraint if we decide to go to war.

    That means I am willing to kill innocent civilians. But waging war without restraint is not the same as gratuitous killing. As Americans, we try to avoid gratuitous killing and suffering but sometimes it can’t be avoided.

    To me, the best issue to showcase these issues is Flight 93 on 9/11. We would have shot down that plane to prevent it from hitting Washington if the people on that flight hadn’t fought back. We would have intentionally killed American citizens — innocent men, women and children. It’s possible that a fighter plane might have had to hit it to take it down, taking another life. All of this would have been very hard to authorize and do, but decisions like this are supposed to be hard so we never forget the value of life and death.

    DRJ (15874d)

  18. So in Hewitt’s mind, Carson is unfit for command if he can bomb eleventy billion innocent children and he’s unfit for command if he can’t bomb eleventy billion children. Trying to remember anyone running this non-question by Obama. Nope, don’t remember that.

    CrustyB (69f730)

  19. i have to order a rollaway i’m a hop on that widger

    happyfeet (a037ad)

  20. Your view appears to correspond to what Newt Gingrich views as a problem with the modern approach to warfare. If it’s really a war, there will be casualties, and some of them are innocent. That’s what a war is.

    Brad (313ccb)

  21. Clinto avoided targeted ubl at Karnak farms, in 96, 200 some died, same with the galconry camp, 2t00 may not have (the Hamburg cell might have not been in transit)

    narciso (732bc0)

  22. 14.The strategic bombing survey concluded that indiscriminate mass bombings did not deter the German or japanese

    Well, they concluded wrong. I know people who were in the bombings in Germany. They were deterred, demoralized and desperate. Anyone stating differently has an agenda.

    Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27)

  23. Islamic terrorists justify the murder of innocents on the grounds they are both non-believers and are not innocent – as part of Western Civilization they are by implication participants and supporters of the enemy of Islamic supremacy.

    Now, if our police or soldiers are hot on the trail of murdering jihadis, track them to their fortified hive of villainy, surround them, call in heavy firepower, and offer the blood stained murders a chance to surrender peacefully – and the murderers flatly refuse and open fire.

    Should we hold our fire because the families of the jihadis are also inside the fortification? The wives and children didn’t participate in actual murder, but they do aid and support the terrorists, they also refuse the offer of safe passage and are determined to fight alongside the jihadis.

    Should we open up on ’em, take ’em out with prejudice or try to talk ’em out or starve ’em out as the establishment media goes to work making them out to be brave and resolute, fighting for a cause they believe in against impossible odds. An example of the underdog standing up to the man?

    How long would it be before the NY Times and the LA Times starts flaunting the brave heroes fight at the Alamo in the faces of the big bad bully frothing at the mouth to butcher women and children – not in the name of justice, but for the sake of heedless revenge?

    ropelight (dc0972)

  24. #14: narciso, the fact that we studied the bombing program is significant. No one knew whether it would work, and it may not have. However, blockades and sieges do work. Germany in WWI was in desperate straights by the end of the war, and England was severely threatened by the U-boat campaigns in both wars. If we didn’t have Ultra, WWII might have turned out very differently for this reason alone. Which, of course, justifies the measures that Churchill took to keep the code breaking program a secret. That doesn’t make Churchill “ruthless”, it makes him an adult. And the submarine campaign against Japan was so effective that the fraction of the population that relied on the government ration, like our POWs, was near starvation. The problem with using starvation as a tool of war is that it will affect only those with the least power in the regime. But it might make people like Hewitt feel about the whole thing since the actions taken (sinking a ship) are not directed at “civilians”.

    BobStewartatHome (a52abe)

  25. 16 “Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall children be put to death for their fathers; a person shall be put to death for his own sin.

    That is referring to the commission of sins, IOW breaking the law committing a crime, not warfare, Tanny O’Haley.

    If the relatives are complicit in the act, then they deserve punishment. I’m thinking of the woman who raises her children to be sent to Israel as suicide bombers.

    How abut the woman and her children who work in factories to provide ammunition, weapons, bombs, radios, medicine, food, clothing and more to aid and abet the soldiers? Are they complicit? Of course they are so bomb them. We do not go to war against the ARMY of Germany, we go to war against the NATION of Germany.

    Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27)

  26. you have to be able to look at the big picture and understand that it’s actually merciful if you go ahead and finish the job rather than death by 1,000 pricks.

    This. How many children are shot by ISIS goons for playing instead of praying, when bombing the crap out of the ISIS goons might have saved some of them.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  27. Of course the enemy will hide behind the civilian casualties, the first Chechen emir basayev blames a strike for turning him against civilians.

    narciso (732bc0)

  28. Whoops!

    #24: … like Hewitt feel better about the whole …

    BobStewartatHome (a52abe)

  29. Hoagie,

    That’s why the stateless nature of our enemies is do important. Can we blame and bomb France or England because they have jihadis in their midst? What about San Bernardino? This is why Bush 43’s demand was important that nations decide which side they are on.

    DRJ (15874d)

  30. Sure am glad my wife loves her new S&W 9mm.
    She is at the range now. Oh, how I love her.

    mg (31009b)

  31. Could you order air strikes that would kill innocent children by not the scores, but the hundreds and the thousands? Could you wage war as a commander in chief?
    — Hugh Hewitt

    I wish all the presidential candidates would be asked that question.

    War is about killing people. No moral person is “okay” with killing innocent people, regardless of quantity. There are often no right decisions in war. War sucks.

    Mistakes are going to occur and atrocities will be committed, innocent people will die; but worse than that — when mistakes are not made and when atrocities are not committed, innocent people will die by our hand.

    Words I often ponder: 1 Samuel 15:3

    Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.
    — God

    Pons Asinorum (c001db)

  32. Btw Serrano has still not corrected his twitter or the front page.

    narciso (732bc0)

  33. than death by 1,000 pricks.

    If there was such a thing Kevin M Madonna would be dead.

    Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27)

  34. @Patterico:I don’t think being willing to kill thousands of innocent children should be a qualification to be President.

    As long as the Constitution makes the President Commander-in-Chief, the willingness to kill thousands of innocent children is a requirement.

    There’s no way to fight wars that doesn’t involve the killing of innocents, directly or indirectly.

    I think a willingness to question that idea should be.

    Of course it should be. We don’t want a President who isn’t bothered by it. But a President who refused to kill innocents under any circumstances whatever would be a disaster for our nation and for our civilization.

    Because a President like that would get a lot of our innocents killed trying to keep his own hands spotless.

    Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1)

  35. If you know what you’re doing, you strike the enemy that can hurt you. The men at arms and the civilian industries arming them and feeding them. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you putz around for ten or twelve years, shooting at little yellow people or little brown people, and them shooting back at you, and getting nowhere fast. But it does help reduce the excess population.

    nk (dbc370)

  36. 29.Hoagie,

    That’s why the stateless nature of our enemies is do important. Can we blame and bomb France or England because they have jihadis in their midst? What about San Bernardino?

    The “stateless nature” of our enemies is the exact reason there should be no moslems in France or England or San Bernardino. It is the very reason I want them sent back to their own crap-hole lands. We can’t bomb those places but we sure in hell can bomb Damascus.

    As you said, they are our enemies and as such don’t belong among us.

    Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27)

  37. How abut the woman and her children who work in factories to provide ammunition, weapons, bombs, radios, medicine, food, clothing and more to aid and abet the soldiers? Are they complicit? Of course they are so bomb them. We do not go to war against the ARMY of Germany, we go to war against the NATION of Germany.

    Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27) — 12/16/2015 @ 10:13 am

    I agree. A lot of the bombing in Germany was the bombing of factories.

    Tanny O'Haley (c674c7)

  38. As I asked in an earlier comment. Was it wrong to bomb Japan? Millions of lives were saved, both American and Japanese. Many innocents died and many lives were saved.

    Can a war be waged without collateral damage, especially when the enemy hides among civilians?

    Tanny O'Haley (c674c7)

  39. Ask the question of Wm T. Sherman…ooh never mind blacks stay on the plantation…

    Al from Chgo (3325f1)

  40. Ever here of hiroshima dresden toyko hamburg nagasaki? or more recently fallujah?

    nate (3ce162)

  41. i’ve heard of tokyo for sure

    happyfeet (a037ad)

  42. Patterico, excellent post. The fact that we sometimes have to pick the least bad choice doesn’t mean it’s not a bad choice. I think that get’s lost in a lot of the rhetoric that was in last nights debate.

    time123@gmail.com (03e182)

  43. If you want to win a war, prepare to bury the innocent.

    If you want to lose a war, prepare to bury your own.

    Rodney King's Spirit (2b29eb)

  44. Ultimately, the safety of this nation depends on the belief of possibly hostile foreign nations that the President of the United States will–in the event of a nuclear or (possibly) other WMD attack against the United States or one of its allies–issue an order for a nuclear retaliatory strike that *will* do all that Hugh Hewitt mentioned, and probably far worse. Anyone who is fit to serve in that office will need to answer that question “yes.” I would also say that any human being who would not be horrified and heartbroken to have to give that order is most definitely *not* fit to serve as President.

    As for the “must kill someone to launch a major attack” suggestion, it’s already been used as a major plot point in a thirty year old Star Trek novel:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwellers_in_the_Crucible

    IIRC, by the end of that story the Federation had decided the idea had a few bugs, to say the least. . .

    M. Scott Eiland (1edade)

  45. It is for this reason that the laws of war exist. They go by intent. If the enemy hides behind women and children, stashes their equipment in religious buildings and hospitals, uses ambulances to cart bombs… then those places become targets, and the death of innocents is on the enemy’s hands, NOT YOURS. If you do not destroy the mosque holding bombs and jihadis, if you do not kill the jihadi hiding behind innocent people, regardless of the safety of those innocents, then the jihadis will continue to use hostages and human shields, and more people will ultimately die.

    If you do not accept collateral damage, surrender now and pray that the chains of slavery do not weigh unduly.

    tweell (3d09de)

  46. It is for these reasons that one uses collateral punishment againat shame/honor cultures. Israel got good results by bulldozing the houses of families whose kids engaged in a suicide attack.

    luagha (d1bf19)

  47. Hewitt strikes me as something of a well-read happytalk dimwit. He acted throughout 2012 like Romney was a lock, yet never grasped Romney’s milquetoast act coupled with MassCare taking Obamacare off the table was death. Persistent problem for the GOPe is they have guys like Rove and Hewitt that talk mostly to each other in a never-ending circle of confirmation bias. The way to 1600 for any GOP candidates is maxing out mostly white middle and working class voters. That means talking about immigration and trade policy and their effects on jobs. And further if you want to talk tough about the Middle East and boots on the ground, that makes you sound mostly belligerent rather than tough.In to echo 45, should you go to war, go Roman or don’t go at all. Rubble don’t cause trouble.

    Bugg (db3a97)

  48. I don’t know what is going on with Hewitt. I think he was somehow trying to discredit Carson because he is not a politician who, presumable, has no problem killing innocents. I like Hewitt and was a listener to his show until the LA station took him off the live broadcast and substituted annoying blowhard Mark Levin. His interviews were excellent but he seems to be obsessed with Trump, like many in the GOPe, division.

    Israel got good results by bulldozing the houses of families

    Israel is the best example I know of doing a good job of waging asymmetrical war against an unethical enemy.

    Mike K (90dfdc)

  49. It was a silly, unenlightening question. A nation wins a war not when it kills more people than the other guy but when it breaks the will of the enemy. So piling up bodies with no strategic vision is savage. Thus we dropped atomic bombs on Japan and firebombed German cities to break the will of the enemy, not for the thrill of killing.

    What is disgusting to me these days is how our country will arrest jihadis here and kill them over there with no thought to collateral damage as long as the operation is secret. So that’s why they want NSA so much and drones so much: they think they can pander to jihad in public, unwittingly strengthening jihad, and kill them in private.

    Patricia (5fc097)

  50. Cheese dip ryan is a- them.

    mg (31009b)

  51. In your example, with Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik, suppose they had taken shelter in the Mosque AFTER they attacked the Christmas party? And just suppose there was no possible way to storm the mosque? And from their safe refuge in the Mosque, they taunted you, and encouraged others to repeat their acts? In fact, inside the mosque they are busy financing, training, and equipping other terrorists for further acts of violence.

    Now suppose there are some innocent people who are coming and going from the mosque, unaware (or just uncaring) what Farrok and Malik are up to.

    What then?

    Look, we can end ISIL tomorrow. Just nuke Mousel, Ramadi, and Raqaaa. Send in whatever forces we need to mop up. This thing would be over in a month. We don’t do this because we are moral. And the bad guys know we won’t do this, and use it against us.

    Eramus (2cd2ac)

  52. I believe the Geneva Convention puts the blame for civilian casualties on the side which chooses to set up among civilians. The attacking side is required to use no more force than necessary. For example, if there’s a sniper in an apartment block, you use something less than a half-ton bomb. We have various items, in the field and in testing, which can take out the sniper and not harm others in the next room. Problem is, if you can see his place, he can see you and you want to outrange him, which reduces accuracy. However, if the intent is to use the least necessary, you’re not committing a war crime.
    Once the enemy finds that hiding behind civilians doesn’t work, because we shoot right through them, he’ll have to be moving instead of staying in fixed positions. And that means no more civilians at risk, plus we win in wars of maneuver. Fewer people killed, including civilians.

    Richard Aubrey (472a6f)

  53. What the heck was Hewitt up to? If he was checking to see if Carson had the stones to order an attack that might kill “thousands of innocent children”, he really doesn’t know what a neurosurgeon does. One slight slip of a knife or a moment of inattention can cause catastrophic damage to the patient on the table. It takes more courage and straight out guts than Hugh Hewitt will ever have to step up to that task on a daily basis.

    Comanche Voter (1d5c8b)

  54. Good comment, Patricia.

    DRJ (15874d)

  55. I think a lot of the commenters here are deflecting. Hewitt didn’t ask Carson “are you willing to kill thousands of kids for no reason” and commenters railing against Hewitt are pretending that he did and getting indignant.

    There is no war in which innocents do not die. Carson does have to be willing to kill kids and so does anyone else who is going to be President.

    Gabriel Hanna (e4d0d0)

  56. Do you think Hewitt was pushing the Overton window for a future question for Hillary:
    “Senator Clinton, where will you find the balls to be Commander-in-Chief?”
    “I’ve got Bill’s. Right here in my purse.”

    nk (dbc370)

  57. i only have on more person to buy for and it’s that sister-in-law person

    she’s really hard usually i do a family gift for them but they’re coming to the chicago and so their main gift is I’m picking up all the restaurant checks

    but i have stocking care packages for them when they get here and hers is kinda skimpy so far

    as far as i know amazon isn’t marking the echo down

    ooh!

    ALORA!

    i’m so on it

    happyfeet (831175)

  58. how did tonto, put it on the Lone Ranger:

    http://rightwingnews.com/column-2/vetting-obamas-witless-vetters-at-dhs/

    narciso (732bc0)

  59. okey doke i went with this and got the diffuser and the spray

    that’s very america

    happyfeet (831175)

  60. Patricia, they also have no problem with American casualties, so long as they are secret.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  61. My sisters thank you, happyfeet.
    again.
    Merry Christmas to you and your family.

    mg (31009b)

  62. you too Mr. mg

    happyfeet (831175)

  63. Why not ask what American should do when Iran starts using nuclear weapons.

    AZ Bob (34bb80)

  64. Stop being scared of what-ifs for a start.

    “When one creates phantoms for oneself, one puts vampires into the world, and one must nourish these children of a voluntary nightmare with one’s blood, one’s life, one’s intelligence, and one’s reason, without ever satisfying them.” —ELIPHAS LEVI

    I’m sick of people trying to scare me with boogeymen so that I’ll give them my vote, my money, and my freedom. I’ve got your nuclear Iran right here.

    nk (dbc370)

  65. vampires, are not real, but their nuclear program was until 2009, that’s when the IAEA stopped investigation,

    narciso (732bc0)

  66. when the lights flicker out on either coast, they will say, oops.

    http://news.yahoo.com/iaea-board-closes-iran-nuclear-bomb-probe-diplomats-150036456.html;_ylt=A0LEVigdOnJWrLUAD_APxQt.;_

    narciso (732bc0)

  67. Greatgrandad killed Oct 23 1918, Egypt. Buried and still in Damascus SYRIA. Grandfather severely wounded, crippled and taken prisoner 1942 again Egypt El Alemein. Father wounded USAF Korea. Brother USAF Pilot, nephew, wounded USMC 2004 ANBAR PROVINCE IRAQ.

    Kill the enemy until they are DEAD and COLD. Then discuss how BAD we are/were.

    Gus (7cc192)

  68. NK. God bless you. Fortunately Johnny Catsup and Flappy ears Mommy Jeans, have negotiated terms with IRAN!!!!!!!!!! WHO THE FLOCK is THAT STOOOOPIT??????

    Gus (7cc192)

  69. I once asked folks here if they were more scared of terrorists or government.

    (Maybe it’s time to ask again.)

    Most said government.

    People seem fine with killing innocent people including children to get terrorists.

    But they are more scared of government.

    So if you think what Tim McVeigh did was wrong, why?

    (Obviously, so this is not taken out of context by evil people, I am not arguing that what Tim McVeigh did was right.)

    Patterico (86c8ed)

  70. Suppose ISIS sets up head quarters in a hospital. They defend it with a SAM missile battery on the roof. They iterate this across their territory. Suppose the majority of important concentrations of ISIS fighters are surrounded by and intermixed with civilians except when they are extending their boundaries.

    Are we then not allowed to strike at ISIS anywhere except the little tongues of aggression that have not yet acquired their civilian shields? Or do we say prayers for the well being of innocents we must kill to put down ISIS and then do whatever is necessary? This is especially important in this set of battles in the almost 14 century long series of battles for the expansion of Mohammedanism and genocide of all other cultures.

    If you have the guts to read the Qur’an and Sunnah to learn what we are facing you will see we are facing being bugs smashed in the genocide against us. Look at the Armenians in Turkey for some of the more recent victims. See the Mohammedan expansion and exterminations in Africa. Check out the estimated 270 million historical deaths of Hindus in the extermination of Hindus in the Hindu Kush. In the face of that are we forever forced to avoid striking our enemy if faced with the death of one possibly innocent civilian? Two? Three? How many before they become get out of jail free cards in a genocidal war?

    I’m sorry I cannot provide an answer. I cannot even begin to guess what WE might be like if we survive the genocide and put a firm total and very long lasting finish to it. Can we do this without becoming the monsters we slew? (Look at the Soviet Union. We slew that dragon and now we are them and they are freer than we were since the 50s. On the other hand, can we in good conscience let the dragon win? I wish I knew. Younger people than I am will have to sort this out. They are not going to have fun doing so. The war has already begun, whether we declare it or even acknowledge it let alone declare it. So you really don’t get the “this is all a hypothetical nonsense proposition” out. Decisions must be made. And they must be lived with. Any decision has long range consequences, too.

    In proposing answers you might consider putting down your economics books and reading in more detail about WW-II and what it took to win. In the Pacific even without considering the nuclear weapons we had to kill innumerable civilians. The enemies both decentralized production. They moved shops into homes. We’d bomb them out and they’d rebuild even more decentralized. Tokyo was as bombed out as Hiroshima or Nagasaki. It just took a whole lot more bombs and bombing runs. And “civilian” casualties were incredibly high no matter how you define “civilian”.

    With that history lesson in mind, is Ben Carson ready and able to make the really REALLY hard decisions – the ones I am eternally grateful I do not have to make? Trump is crazy enough he probably is capable. Most of the other candidates have not figured out precisely what they are facing. Santorum, of all people, seems to get it enough to mention it. Maybe Fiorina does. I don’t believe Rubio comes close. Cruz may have glimmerings. Huckleberry is floundering. Christie is determined people who WILL need to defend themselves won’t be able to with his anti-gun stances. And so forth. Is Gentle Ben able to put some serious steel in his spine? I believe that is what Hugh Hewitt was asking.

    {^_^}

    JDow (c4e4c5)

  71. Patterico, despite Trump and Cruz getting grilled by Blitz Wolfer and CNN, I know of NO ONE, who is comfortable with KILLING CIVILIANS. INCLUDING CHILDREN. Tim McVeigh was a CRIMINAL and Tim McVeigh killed nearly 200 peeps, including 30 some children, but Tim McVeigh was not FIGHTING TERRORISTS in Okie or the Murrah building. War is tough, decisions are tough, it is not a zero sum game. WE WILL SAVE COUNTLESS LIVES by eradicating this NON-MUZZLIM horde known as ISIS/ISIL, or whatever COOL NEW NAME, Johnny Catsup Husband comes up with tomorrow. NOT DESTROYING the KOBE BRYANT JAYVEEEEEEEEEEE, yet running his Barnie Fife looking mouth, has caused THOUSANDS of deaths, and countless RAPES etc etc. 20,000 JAYVEES have become 50,000 oil rich VARSITY and beheadings, rapes and enslavement has ensued. Obama having no brain, no balls, no strategy and no resolve, has resulted in THOUSANDS of innocents dying. It’s time to RIP the bandaid off, and get this shit over with.

    Gus (7cc192)

  72. Perhaps more to the point: if you think abortion is murder, which is worse: a guy who murders an abortion doctor, or a President who drone strikes a terrorist knowing it will
    probably also kill 3 children?

    Say the terrorist kills 50 people a year, none of them babies, and the abortion doctor kills 200 babies a year.

    You would condemn the shooter but probably not the President, right?

    Why?

    Patterico (958cf0)

  73. Isis was the JAYVEEEEEE!!! The had Kobe Bryant Jerseys!! Hospitals, schools, kids, babies, CHRISTIAN RAPE VICTIMS, lions, tigers and bears. When the SHYTE hits, the fan, an American leader makes a tough decision. He or she acts, because NOT ACTING creates a much much much much bigger problem.
    He doesn’t golf, lie and bullship. Obama does.

    Gus (7cc192)

  74. The ABORTION DOCTOR saves how many lives by KILLING the baby??? I’ll wait.

    Gus (7cc192)

  75. I’m gone, I’m so sorry. Decisions and morality is so hard. I have ZERO problem with making the right call. Bye.

    Gus (7cc192)

  76. I mean, with all the hard-headed purely utilitarian arguments I am seeing here, surely someone will offer up a defense of how we need to shoot abortion doctors on account of “this is war.” Right?

    Again, a warning to those who would rip this out of context, I am NOT praising shooting abortion doctors. But with the logic I am seeing, surely someone will.

    Also, I encourage everyone to read the post again. I did not blanketly say tough decisions can’t be made, but that they should bother us more than they seem to bother many people. I often feel like concerns about killing innocents are dismissed with a shrug and a flip “this is war” comment. I did too, for years. Now I am bothered by it and I want people to think about it more seriously.

    Patterico (958cf0)

  77. Mostly police are there to protect criminals from us. I fear the government would disarm the population, restrict access to information, condemn people who propagate wrong think, which would result in our being blind, dumb, and defenseless, to infiltrators like ISIS.

    How dare you carry a loaded weapon. How dare you speak ill of muslims. How dare you log onto patterico. The government is monitoring them so you don’t need to know, don’t need to watch out, don’t need a gun.

    That’s what I fear from the government. Not that gov agents are going to drop out of the sky to kill me, but rather they will facilitate the stray terrorist through sheer laziness and the fact it’s much easier to rack up work performance by disarming the public in a can’t miss situation, than it is to sift through emails and ferret out a bonafide terrorist.

    papertiger (c2d6da)

  78. Patterico, your concept of what constitutes an “innocent” is the heart of the matter. We can agree that children, up to some age, are innocents. For the rest of us, we are not innocent in any meaningful sense. I didn’t contribute as much money to Romney as I could have, nor did I volunteer to do footwork for the campaign. I might have cost the silly man three or four votes due to my choices. About sixty million people voted for him, and very few did more than fill in their ballot on election day. So we all bear some responsibility for the re-election of the feckless narcissist in the WH. Admittedly, those who didn’t bother to vote, and those who actually voted for this dreadful man in the WH, bear a greater responsibility, but it doesn’t lessen mine.

    This man, and the stooges he hires as cabinet officers, have given nuclear weapons to Iran. When Iran decides it is time to use them on us, I will bear some responsibility for not doing my utmost to stop this. And my responsibility is much greater than a civilian in Iraq or Iran because my form of government actually gives me the tools to make significant, peaceful change without threat of death or imprisonment. But that doesn’t lessen their responsibility for allowing the creation of truly horrible governments in their countries. Likewise the Germans, the Russians, and the Japanese ultimately bear responsibility for the thugs who ruled their countries. To suggest otherwise to say we are all victims. It is to suggest that democracy is based on a false assumption, the assumption that the citizen can behave responsibly.

    We fought a Civil War because enough people like you and I decided that it was time to take responsibility and end the immoral actions that supported slavery. We read about draft dodgers and rich men buying out of their responsibilities, but they must have been very small fraction of the populace in the northern states, or the war would never have been prosecuted.

    The religious sects that advocate peace and nonviolence are parasites. They pretend that they can avoid all responsibility for the misadventure of the society that nurtures them. I put libertarians in the same camp. We can tolerate them, but they are not role models. They are not bearing their share of the load. They rely on others to ensure their safety and prosperity.

    So this gets back to the children. In my view, they are the responsibility of their parents, and if their parents make foolish choices, horrible things can happen to their children. Children living under a tyrant are in danger both from within and without. Their parents need to take action. If I need to destroy the tyrant to protect my children, the lines are drawn and considerations of morality are cast aside.

    BobStewartatHome (a52abe)

  79. @Patterico:People seem fine with killing innocent people including children to get terrorists.

    But they are more scared of government.

    So if you think what Tim McVeigh did was wrong, why?

    Because motives matter, and so do forseeable consequences.

    Motives are best dealt with here, as anyone who was online in 2003 remembers. If you don’t have time for that, reflect on William F. Buckley’s parable of the man who pushes old ladies into traffic, and the man who pushes old ladies out of traffic.

    Foreseeable consequences matter. The disease has to be worse than the cure you have in mind, or a different cure should be applied. We do not cure headaches with an axe.

    The government probably would find it much more convenient if we were all less free. However, a non-violent process exists to change the government’s intentions and capabilities and the government is somewhat responsive to it, and as long as that is the case, violence directed at the government will have worse foreseeable consequences for the innocent that following the non-violent process.

    But nothing Timothy McVeigh planned to do was going to have any more effect than killing a lot of innocent people and provoking more repression, rather than less.

    My government poses a greater threat to my freedom than ISIS does; just as my immediate family poses a greater threat to my safety than criminals do. (Threats are not intentions, they are capabilities.) If ISIS wants to kill me it will take a great deal of expense and planning and a very low chance of success. If my wife or my son wants to kill me they need only wait until I am sleeping, and can do it with anything they happen to find around the house. If the government wants to kill me even the local cops are quite capable of doing so at any time–and this happens with no-knock raids on the wrong house.

    However, that does not mean I am justified in offering violence to my family or my government without an immediate threat of violence from them, no matter how threatening they are. I am justified in holding an uninvited stranger I find in my house at gunpoint and calling the cops, even I do not know he has done anything wrong or plans to. I am not justified in doing the same to my wife or my son, unless I know for a fact they have done or are immediately going to do something very awful.

    Gabriel Hanna (e4d0d0)

  80. This pig ryan should be hung from a sturdy oak branch, what a pathetic barbie doll, buns up and kneeling obama is wheeling and dealing. Impeach ryan now. About time politicians families suffer instead of the taxpayers families footing the bill for these traitorous bastiges. team republican deserves to lose every seat in the house and senate. All done with these putrid pos. This prick deserves tar and feathers before hanging.

    mg (31009b)

  81. b!tchboi ryan is exactly who they are though

    he’s unimpeachably republican

    like filthy hyperentitled jeb or smug weirdo mitt or meghan’s cowardly brainwashed disgrace to the uniform p.o.s. daddy

    this is who they are

    happyfeet (831175)

  82. Ryan is a sic phluck. I hope da donald comes out against this pandering by cheese doodle if he does I think his poll numbers will soar. Killing speaker ryan is the right thing to do.

    mg (31009b)

  83. yes yes i’d be very grateful to Mr. The Donald if he’d lay down a marker here

    happyfeet (831175)

  84. cheese doodle may have just elected da donald. Mo-fo’s like me are irate.

    mg (31009b)

  85. A beard does not mean you are a man, cheese whiz.

    mg (31009b)

  86. ryan should be tied to stakes in one of his funded sanctuary cities. Pathetic barbie doll, he is.

    mg (31009b)

  87. Have known Ryan was a squish since he took a total powder in his debate with Ryan. Split the difference, follow GOPe and CoC nonsense bromides and smile a whole bunch.On every important issue his whole career-spending, immigration, war-Ryan has buckled to his knees at the first opportunity.

    Bugg (fa64ec)

  88. We’re stuck with Paul ‘Turncoat’ Ryan, he’s untouchable. Democrats in Congress will protect him so long as he passes their priority legislation, and he’s dependent on them because his own party knows better than to trust him.

    Additionally, Wisconsin has an open primary so registered voters can vote in their choice of primary elections, so again Ryan will be protected and co-opted by Democrats. The more he alienates Conservatives the deeper the Democrat grip on him becomes. He’s a man who lost his soul.

    ropelight (c29409)

  89. We are destined to have many innocents killed with Obama’s stupid, reckless policies.

    DRJ (15874d)

  90. — What is the least dangerous animal to humans?
    — The anaconda.
    — Say what?
    — Yup.
    — Dude, like that’s a giant carnivorous snake forty feet long that will wrap itself around you and suffocate you or drag you under water and drown you.
    — Sure, but you have to do some hard traveling to the middle of the Amazon basin to find one to do all that to you.

    nk (dbc370)

  91. There’s lots of ’em in the Everglades. Imported and subsequently released. They’re thriving.

    ropelight (c29409)

  92. Ah-ha! Some idiots brought them a long way, through our borders, and then let them loose. Same as the 9/11 hijackers; same as the San Bernandino jihoochie.

    nk (dbc370)

  93. Hope there’s open season on them, at least?

    nk (dbc370)

  94. From Florida Fish and Wildlife:

    Hunters may harvest Burmese pythons and other conditional reptiles on four Wildlife Management Areas: Everglades and Francis S. Taylor WMA, Holey Land WMA, Rotenberger WMA and Big Cypress WMA, and on Rocky Glades Public Small Game Hunting Area.
    Hunters must have a valid hunting license and WMA permit, unless qualified as license exempt. Conditional reptiles may be harvested during any established hunting season on the WMAs listed above, but hunters must follow the rules for each season (i.e., no use of guns during archery season). Three WMAs (Everglades and Francis S. Taylor WMA, Holey Land WMA, and Rotenberger WMA) have a special season for conditional reptiles that begins after the last day of small game season and ends on the second Sunday in April. Regulation brochures for each WMA list season dates, legal methods of take, and include area maps.

    ropelight (c29409)

  95. Excerpt from NY Times, 4/5/15:

    The Sanke That’s Eating Florida

    …One issue with Burmese pythons is that people cavalierly bought them when they were maybe a foot long. In short order, those little fellows grew to eight feet, 12 feet, 16 feet. Talk about buyer’s remorse. Unable to deal with these giants, owners often dumped them wherever seemed feasible. One way or another, snakes in South Florida found their way to the Everglades. There, they multiplied, again and again. Recent estimates by the National Park Service put the numbers there as high as 100,000. Walter E. Meshaka Jr. was the supervisory curator for national parks in southern Florida from 1995 to 2000. Even back then, Mr. Meshaka told Retro Report, the question was whether the python population would explode. And, he said, “Lo and behold, it did.” […]

    ropelight (c29409)

  96. You can’t take your garden spade to one on your lawn?

    nk (dbc370)

  97. BTW, this post is tailor made for virtue signaling. And, commenters didn’t disappoint.

    ropelight (c29409)

  98. The most effective way to dispatch snakes (well over 50 years experience) is with a scatter gun from about 5 to 10 yards. Something hefty for big ones, but what ever’s handy will do in a pinch. They don’t usually wait around, they’re skittish and they’re stealth hunters. They’re usually after pets or small children. Shoot for the head and have a 2nd or 3rd shot option.

    ropelight (c29409)

  99. “I often feel like concerns about killing innocents are dismissed with a shrug and a flip “this is war” comment.”

    Killing anybody should be disconcerting, shouldn’t it?

    I resent that this President seems so cavalier about denouncing “boots on the ground” while having SOF sent off to kill tiresome, difficult, insecure people who can’t reconcile themselves with the more idle facts of the world (e.g. women will occasionally show their ankles in public).

    It would be nice if these tedious mixed nuts could go home or surrender, or at the very least leave innocent people out of their eschatology.

    JP (ed49ce)

  100. The dhs social media policy goes back to 2011, before snowden, after manning. Maybe Serrano will get on it now.

    narciso (732bc0)

  101. he still found time to post abcarian’s diss of the huntress, because the two minute hate, must be observed, priorities.

    narciso (732bc0)

  102. The true terrorists still not recognized.

    http://www.americanthinker.com/images/bucket/2015-12/195759_5_.jpg

    Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27)

  103. The American president owes an obligation to protect Americans, not foreigners. He should value American lives significantly more than foreign civilians. How much is certainly a question we could debate: is it worth killing 10 civilians to save 1 American life? I would say yes. 100? Maybe.

    Yet another reason I’d never be elected President.

    egd (1ad898)

  104. Even more troubling is our default financial aggression:

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-17/financial-warfare-big-reset

    Ugly American never took an hiatus. Pursuing our interests can be undertaken with wisdom but that is definitely not what we get, and not what ‘the people’ have unknowingly supported.

    Our system is insidious, rotting from the head, and must ultimately fail.

    DNF (755a85)

  105. HH seemed to be spot on to me. We’ve become so afraid of “innocent” people that we’d rather lose wars (and we do, often) than win them by killing more people. These savages we are fighting against can pacify a huge area with almost no troops, they go in, hack up some tribal elder with an axe and everyone for miles understands who is in charge. We let those same villagers shoot at our men and often we won’t return fire because other “innocent” people may be hit. Guess who the villagers think is the stronger side?

    Wars are not won by killing soldiers, they never have been. Battles are won against soldiers. Wars are ALWAYS won by crushing the morale of the people wanting to wage it. Bombing the living hell out of them, razing their villages to the ground, killing anyone who even looks at our troops funny, these are the ways wars are won. With directed brutality. You’re talking about how to lose wars while holding your head high, confident that you’re the better man. Me, I don’t need to be the better man, I’m only interested in winning and if winning means we kill millions of people because they all prefer death to living in peace, then I’ll push that button without a seconds hesitation.

    The enemy isn’t just the man holding the rifle, it is EVERY man whose heart holds evil towards us. Most of them are too cowardly to fight us directly but they’ll provide lots of indirect help to their sides war effort. They are still the enemy and they still have to die. In a cultural war like this where almost everyone on their side hopes we die, there is virtually no “innocent” person there. They may be non-combatants, but they are not innocent. They are part of the enemy machine of war.

    Mr Black (3efb66)

  106. As a conservative estimate (that means on the low side), we could have saved 400,000 American lives from murder over the past 40 years, if we had started aborting every black baby 60 years ago. And eliminated 90% of all other crimes in the process, too.

    Or to put it another way, go play with your GameStick, Mr. Black.

    nk (dbc370)

  107. What keeps America’s brains in? Her tinfoil hat:

    http://wolfstreet.com/2015/12/12/bank-of-canada-crushes-loonie-dollar-creates-mother-of-all-shorts/

    108. The ingenuity of unintended, disregarded consequence:

    http://wolfstreet.com/2015/12/10/world-most-exposed-ever-to-the-explosive-strong-dollar/

    and

    http://wolfstreet.com/2015/12/16/perverse-unpredictable-effects-of-negative-interest-rates-mortgage-rates-soar-in-switzerland/

    High consumer inflation with catastrophic capital asset deflation, simultaneously. How special!

    DNF (755a85)


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