Soldier survives sniper shot to the head

[scrockstar]

Read: making a tricky issue simpler by ignoring it and engaging in a war of character. Did you miss the part where that applied to you or how it's opportunistic and vulgar?



The thing that always gets me about moral relativism is how its proponents are paradoxically the most moralistic.

I'm just saying that if Kuya wants to turn a "lulz soldier survives head shot lulz" post into something political at least make a new thread.

[Stumblingdrunk]

I'm just saying that if Kuya wants to turn a "lulz soldier survives head shot lulz" post into something political at least make a new thread.

Yeah, a new thread should be made for every possible opinion regarding a single story, great idea. Or is it just the opinions you don't care to hear? Can you make a list for us?

[Cadsuane]

Kuya doesn't support the troops.

[Howard Roark]

Kuya doesn't support the troops.

you're deeply mistaken, Kuya's right behind the troops


just the other day he said the only thing better than a man in uniform is a man in a man in uniform

[Khamsin]

What would there be to discuss? The implicit assumption that an american soldier's life is worth more than several afghan lives even though the humanitarian excuse for invading that country was about freeing said afghans?

Not those afghans, we're freeing different afghans. The ones that accept our presence and don't try to kill us.

[ZarakiKujata]

seriously, what the hell does that even mean?? you're just putting words together related to arabs/islam trying to sound funny.

you're fucking pathetic.

Learn to take a joke?

[ZarakiKujata]

The facade of american military worship and how it's just a rationalization for the fact that less than one percent of the american populace has to carry the burden of war while the rest stay home and sip on bud lights?

ftfy

[SwampdonkeyPLD]

What would there be to discuss? The implicit assumption that an american soldier's life is worth more than several afghan lives even though the humanitarian excuse for invading that country was about freeing said afghans? The absurdity of the idea that americans have the ability and right to invade other countries and nation build which is essentially a euphemism for the practice of empire, to destroy countries and then install friendly regimes? The hubris of the idea that somehow american exceptionalism will outdo centuries of history that clearly point out that no government or force can dominate Afghanistan? The facade of american military worship and how it's just a rationalization for the fact that less than one percent of the american populace has to carry the burden of war while the rest stay home and sip on martinis? There's a lot to discuss, although, perhaps not all relevant to the news of an american soldier surviving a deadly ordeal.

We invaded Afghanistan for humanitarian purposes?

[Kyreth]

Two special points of discussion would be, do people on this forum (americans) think of the US as a form of empire? We aren't surprised that no attention is placed on the victims of american wars, but should we be surprised that this forum does not pay attention to US military casualties in american wars in any semi regular way (that is, not that a post should appear every time an american soldier dies, but at the very least you would think something would appear every few months, but it doesn't)?

Certainly do think of American interventions as "empire-building"- we maintain standing armies in multiple foreign countries long-term to protect American interests.. However, I still do put more value on American lives than non-American ones.

Generally, I think those Americans shouldn't be over there in the first place. Afghanistan at least has the reasoning that a government hostile to America (the Taliban) openly supported an attack on US soil (9/11) and harbored the parties responsible (Al Queda). Ergo, we hit them back and continue to do so until they're destroyed- they have proven themselves capable of killing innocent Americans, in America and should be given nowhere to hide but the six feet of dirt covering their corpses, or a small concrete cell.

On the other hand, I think the huge military presence in Germany and South Korea is a relic of the past, Iraq was an act of national stupidity, and trillions of dollars are being siphoned out of the economy into supporting an oversized armed forces being used for purposes far beyond defending the nation. And this is from a kid whose father and grandfather were Army. Our reach exceeds our means.

[Faris]

Learn to take a joke?

i take jokes just fine, but what you said, makes no sense whatsoever.

[Jakson]

well, we could list off our beliefs and then evaluate each other's character. that seems to be the point of most arguments, which is not only sad but one of the main ways people are disempowered. by framing politics as a way of staking out your identity and proving that you're a better person than someone else, the possibility of people acting on the truths that they arrive at becomes far less likely. it's a clever trick getting people both on the left and the right to believe that what matters most is that they sound correct/patriotic/compassionate/etc when they talk to someone else.

all of which is relevant to some guy getting shot in the head and living, of course.

So I'm like taking the tl;dr version of this as "Neither one of us is likely to or is actively changing American foreign policy, so these kinds of debates are really an effort to show how much cooler I am than you by knowing the atrocities I'm doing nothing about, aside from talking about it on forum spawned from an MMO rather than a more politically minded forum"?

[Kirin]

This is why the US Military's outside contractors print bible verses on sniper sights...to make sure our bullets do their intended job.

[Jefe]

I think the guy is using an MA82A SASR.

[Chun Liroy]

DAMMIT, I MISSED

What I saw.

[Kuya]

Anyway, on foreign policy and why it's not beneficial to Americans, i will use Andrew Bacevich since his book is one of the most recent ones i read.

American foreign policy is bad for Americans, first and foremost, because it is self-fulfulling. In order to satisfy growing American desire for the consumption of resources (such as oil) rather than acknowledge the problem that great dependence of foreigh resources provides for Americans, the decision has been made that in order to secure a stable supply of resources for American consumption, America's vast amount of military power should be used to control regions where resources such as oil are present. Making an already great dependency on oil, for example, even greater. As the US not only becomes attached to the resources of foreign lands, but it becomes bogged down in the geopolitical conflicts on foreign lands (take the Pakistan vs. India issue which is integral to the situation in Afghanistan). Even though, publically, it is constantly talked about that American dependency on oil is a national security issue of dire importance, the american solution to it, american military involvement in foreign nations, only makes the problem even more severe. Of course, i realize that Afghanistan is less relevant than Iraq in terms of oil resources, sans the fact that before the war in Afghanistan an oil pipeline had been planned to cross Afghanistan; it's been, naturally, put on hold. Andrew Bacevich comments that Americans have been associating freedom with the ability to buy more things, a philosophy that if true, is quite troublesome in its foreign policy implications in the sense that it means that it's not just the establishment that needs to be changed, but the way americans act.

The idea of course, that americans can control these regions is inflated by inmense overconfidence in american military might, and merely leads to empire overstretch, especially during a time of domestic turmoil. Paradoxically, this empire over-stretch also decreases the security of americans in america by decreasing the military personel at home, and by causing instability worldwide. Instability in the sense that it makes americans abroad a target for groups with a bone to pick, often exactly because of american foreign policy, and insecure at home by making americans the target of terrorist attacks. As you are already aware, the seeds of the current conflict have been developing before the 1980s, but it was Afghanistan during the Russian invasion that was the catalyst for america's current conflict with terrorist groups. And america's involvement in Afghanistan is just another example of the consequences of american foreign policy, the consequences of using Afghanistan as a proxy battlefield against Russia, using the Afghans as puppets. America, in this case, essentially bred the crows that would in the future peck its eyes out. I am sure you agree, that this little game of empire held little direct benefit for Americans, but has resulted in great danger for American citizens.

The amount of military spending in order to continue this imperial extravagence, takes resources that could better be used in the American homeland for job production. It's also worth noting that this inmense amount of spending was edged on by mere paranoia, which can be tracked as far back as the 1950's NSC 68 by Paul Nitze. Which was bad enough as it was, but became even more dubious when the exburant military spending did not cease after the Soviet empire collapsed.

Certainly do think of American interventions as "empire-building"- we maintain standing armies in multiple foreign countries long-term to protect American interests.. However, I still do put more value on American lives than non-American ones.

Generally, I think those Americans shouldn't be over there in the first place. Afghanistan at least has the reasoning that a government hostile to America (the Taliban) openly supported an attack on US soil (9/11) and harbored the parties responsible (Al Queda). Ergo, we hit them back and continue to do so until they're destroyed- they have proven themselves capable of killing innocent Americans, in America and should be given nowhere to hide but the six feet of dirt covering their corpses, or a small concrete cell.

On the other hand, I think the huge military presence in Germany and South Korea is a relic of the past, Iraq was an act of national stupidity, and trillions of dollars are being siphoned out of the economy into supporting an oversized armed forces being used for purposes far beyond defending the nation. And this is from a kid whose father and grandfather were Army. Our reach exceeds our means.

I agree with you in some senses, but i have to clarify. The Taliban (and not Tehrik-i-Taliban) hosted Al-Qaida, but they played no part in the attack on the US, which was also not planned in Afghanistan but in Europe (you have to remember that Al-Qaida works as individual cells). The Bush administration attacked Afghanistan because the Taliban wanted to negotiate rather than inmediately throw Al-Qaida out, the Bush administration did not accept this position and so they attacked. The Taliban itself is influenced by neo-deobandi that was in turn changed by the Russian invasion of Afghanistan around 1979. The Taliban is largely composed of Pashtuns who were displaced by the Russian invasion and fighting against US sponsored guerrilas, and taken up by the neo-deobandi movement in these refugee camps, inspired into reaction by what was going on in Afghanistan. This means that the Taliban developed separately from the Pashtun tribes (who follow Pashtunwali and not any fundamentalist Islam) however they were largely formed because and are animated by the expelling of foreign invaders from their ancestral land. The Pashtuns want the foreign invaders(Then Russia, now the US) out of their land, and the Taliban, which is composed of Pashtuns also shares this desire, add that to the fact that what created the Taliban was a neo-deobandi reactionary movement in the refugee camps against what was perceived as godless invaders (the Russians), and you get a pretty good idea of what the Taliban are and what they stand for.

If what i mentioned before is not clear, then i shall clarify by simply saying that the Taliban is a somewhat fundamentalist organization composed of Pashtuns which is largely concerned with local matters of autonomy. The Pashtuns themselves are not fundamentalist like the Taliban organization itself, but they support it (and dislike their religious austerity) because they fight to expell invaders. The Pashtuns have a long history of having to drive out overbearing governments trying to impose themselves on them (the British, the Russians, the Pakistani government).

My point is this, which i shall use to answer cadsuane: The Taliban are not Al-Qaida. They are not driven by a mission to attack America. They are a movement created in reaction to foreign invaders (Russians) in the 1980s, and they are reacting to what they perceive as more invaders. Defeating Al-Qaida in Afghanistan may have been necessary, but what the US should have done and must still do is, after having crushed most of Al-Qaida, they should have moved their troops out and cooperated and treat with the Pashtuns (and the Taliban) in order to strike a deal to keep Al-Qaida out. The Kabul government can't control those craggy areas of Afghanistan (they never did), and many in the top positions in the Kabul government are themselves warlords known for murder and rape. They are creeps and nobody wants them. The Taliban rules most of the area where the Pashtuns live, and the Pashtuns compose 40% of the population in Afghanistan. You can't defeat the Taliban, as long as they are the alternative to warlords, and foreign military is invading the land, you should deal diplomatically with them, because they were never about attacking America in the first place.

[Chun Liroy]

That's a mighty big wall. Bet a bullet would just bounce off.

[Kuya]

My sources on the Taliban are:

Juan Cole's Engaging the Muslim World

And Stephen Kinzer's Overthrow

[pahnphoenix]

So I'm like taking the tl;dr version of this as "Neither one of us is likely to or is actively changing American foreign policy, so these kinds of debates are really an effort to show how much cooler I am than you by knowing the atrocities I'm doing nothing about, aside from talking about it on forum spawned from an MMO rather than a more politically minded forum"?

the tl;dr version is a) that wasn't a very long paragraph, so there's probably a more honest acronym you could find, and b) no, it's that people are systematically disempowered by adopting the easy assumption that the point of having opinions about world events is to establish your own character, and the point of argument is to demonstrate your character. it has no implication regarding whether a given individual works for change in any way. i was talking more about political argument than personal action, though what i had to say about political argument is relevant to personal action generally. also, my 'v' key seems to be sticking, which sucks.