The War on Islam

Jeff Parren wrote to Jim H

And perhaps neither should you (though you would be justified in doing so). But suppose you were a policeman?

There's a strong undercurrent in your posts that suggests that -- unless you personally (or others) have been 'aggressed against' -- defensive actions are unjustified. That's a dubious premise.

Self-defense and, by extension, the actions of officials to act in the stead of others, is justified when individual rights are violated. That can take many forms -- "that," here, being both the form of violation and the self-defense action taken in response.

Well said Jeff, I thought this deserved repeating and highlighting.

Post 101

Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - 7:18am

Jim,

Thank you for your reply. I'll respond at greater length later, if I have time (as I hope to). In the interim, please consider this:

If men in Britain in the 1940s had acted as you recommend, would not their descendants have once again been ruled by Germany (at least for many years after)?

If your friend is getting the crap beat out of him by three thugs, would you not jump in and improve his odds (even though there's no certainty the two of you would win)?

If there had been no government response to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, what do you envision things would have looked like for individual U.S. citizens for the 20-60 years afterward?

---

Apart from the specific principles used to engage in war or the actions taken, there is one thing that bothers me about your view (shared, more implicitly, by many): the sheer lack of realism.

People who hold these views, and so far as I can tell at this early stage you as well, write as if we actually live 500 years hence.

Governments might then be better able to target individual actors without harming innocents. We would have better means of assessing the future more clearly based on decisions made now (now, being 500 years from now, here). We, as individuals acting in small groups or alone, might be better able to defend and repulse forcible violations of rights without large armies or police forces. And, indeed, the world might have progressed to a condition in which the need for large scale violence is unnecessary.

But until then, war will remain a necessary option in order to secure our right to be free.

--

In essence, you are approaching the borderline case in which government (at least in so far as it maintains and uses a military) has no legitimacy. If so, we have what is probably an ineradicable difference of opinion. Here in the U.S. the citizens still retain sufficient freedom to spend most of their lives acting as individuals engaging in trade and personal relationships or alone. Most of the rest of the world is still considerably further behind and some of them, acting as a tribe, are in fact a threat to you and to me personally -- and to many of my friends in New York, L.A., and Washington. I intend not to be silent and idle while mine and their lives remain at serious risk.

Post 102

Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - 9:55am

Jeff, you forgot that FDR engineered the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor as part of his Zionist-Communist plot.

<<disclaimer - this is sarcasm>>

(Edited by Kurt Eichert on 1/29, 1:42pm)

Post 103

Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - 11:00am

Yamamoto engineered the attack against Pearl Harbor. It was his project from planning to execution.

The code that was broken (the diplomatic code) was not used to send messages detailing where and when the attack would take place. The naval code JN-25 was broken later.

Bob Kolker

Post 104

Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - 1:34pm

To illustrate from WWII again -- the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor, while certainly an act of aggression, should not have automatically caused people to think that they personally needed to get involved, much less force their neighbors to get involved.

Wow, Jim. If something like that "shouldn't" compel people to act, I can't think of anything that would. I'm trying to understand your view of human nature in general. Is it that we're all like grazing cattle, happily munching away regardless of what's going on around us?

Ummm, Teresa, my view of human nature is that we are all free agents, who should make up their own minds about what values they hold highest, and act on those values, and not sacrifice them to lower values because that's what society expects of them. I certainly object to what the U.S. government did in instituting a draft after Pearl Harbor, and forcing people to get shot at, rather than relying on volunteers and paying them sufficiently that enough would fight.

Perhaps you feel that is naive, that the exigencies of wartime justified the government essentially enslaving every able-bodied young male and forcing them to risk their life for little pay. Perhaps you feel we would have lost the war without that coercion. Perhaps you feel that coercion was justified and necessary.

But, to clarify what I was getting at -- suppose we examine three theoretical people a bit after Pearl Harbor. One person lives in Honolulu, and was strafed and wounded by Japanese Zeros at Pearl Harbor, and is patriotic to boot. He has acquired a bitter hatred of Japanese because of that experience, and is itching to go and enlist as soon as he heals up.

The second person is an anarcho-capitalist who thinks the U.S. government is a bunch of brutal thugs, and feels every other government is likewise awful to one degree or another, with the Japanese government slightly more oppressive than the U.S. government. He lives in Maine, about 10 feet from the border with Canada. He is an American citizen, but is of Japanese ancestry, and thinks FDR deliberately provoked the attack on Pearl Harbor by cutting off oil supplies and freezing assets of Japanese corporations, and thinks FDR is a racist who hates Asian-Americans. He wants nothing to do with this war.

The third person is the twin brother of person #2, but is a Canadian citizen living in a house adjacent to his brother's, 10 feet inside Canada. He too wants nothing to do with this war.

So, Teresa, are persons #2 and #3 in your view "grazing cattle, happily munching away regardless of what's going on around us?" Or do they maybe have valid personal reasons for not wanting to be conscripted and shipped off to fight Japanese soldiers, some of whom may be their relatives, on a bloody battle on a Pacific island?

Post 105

Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - 1:50pm

None of us agree with conscription, but that is independent of the discussion on whether or not the US government should have acted.

Post 106

Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - 3:52pm

Exactly Kurt, arguing for self-defense doesn't mean one is in favor of conscription, compulsory taxation or the loss of civil liberties.

Jim

Perhaps you feel that is naive, that the exigencies of wartime justified the government essentially enslaving every able-bodied young male and forcing them to risk their life for little pay.

I don't think it's fair to say Teresa feels that way Jim. She didn't say she likes conscription only that it was justified to combat Imperial Japan in response to their aggression.

I could also throw this argument back at you for domestic crime. Are you against putting murderers away in prison under our justice system that is funded through compulsory taxation? If you are to be consistent with this you should also advocate criminals in our country should be set free unless our justice system is completely privately funded.

Post 107

Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - 5:13pm

Ummm, Teresa, my view of human nature is that we are all free agents, who should make up their own minds about what values they hold highest, and act on those values, and not sacrifice them to lower values because that's what society expects of them.

Just "free agents," Jim? What the hell does that mean? Something like puffy floaty clouds?
What is "mind?" What is "society?" And what is "value?" Define your terms.

I certainly object to what the U.S. government did in instituting a draft after Pearl Harbor, and forcing people to get shot at, rather than relying on volunteers and paying them sufficiently that enough would fight.

So we should just forfeit the win, shouldn't we. Know any WWII vets? Ask them what they think. Or would you rather tell them what they think? Who's father here, besides mine, lied about their age to get into the service during WWII? Show hands...

Did we need the draft 60 years ago? Probably not. Does that change anything now? Nope. Why argue over what is past, Jim? I don't understand the bitch, unless it's only to complain about how we won the fight. What's your point?

Why aren't you answering Jeff, or Peter, or Mike Dickey?

(Edited by Teresa Summerlee Isanhart on 1/29, 5:16pm)

Post 108

Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - 11:43pm

Wow, I certainly seemed to have stirred up a hornet's nest here.

In reply to Teresa's lament about why I only responded to her post -- I had other stuff to do, and your post seemed to be the one that I would most enjoy responding to. ;)

"Thank you for your reply. I'll respond at greater length later, if I have time (as I hope to). In the interim, please consider this:

If men in Britain in the 1940s had acted as you recommend, would not their descendants have once again been ruled by Germany (at least for many years after)?"

I'm saying that each person should decide for themself whether to volunteer to fight, or do something else productive with their time and energy that would also be useful in the war effort. I'm also talking about individual men, not the collective "men". Many men would have volunteered. Others would have said, no, at least not at the wages you proffer considering the risk involved. Britain would still have rustled up enough men to fight, but it would have cost a lot more in taxes, because if you have to pay the market rate for labor it costs more than enslaving people. The reality is that soldiers in combat do not fight for their country, they fight for their own survival and for the survival of their squadmates with whom they've bonded, and if they're conscripts they're far more likely to not ever fire their weapon even when under fire.

"If your friend is getting the crap beat out of him by three thugs, would you not jump in and improve his odds (even though there's no certainty the two of you would win)?"

Begs the question of whether this situation is at all parallel to war as it is fought nowadays. Let me rephrase it to reflect, say, the situation as it appears to exist in Iraq: "If your friend got drunk and belligerent in a bar and picked a fight with a much smaller and weaker opponent over some imagined slight that, upon sober consideration in the morning, would have appeared to be inconsequential, and succeeded in winning that fight, but then a bunch of buddies of the victim piled onto your friend and proceeded to give him an arguably well-deserved and entirely predictable beatdown, would you not jump in and slightly delay the time before you and your friend got pummeled into unconsciousness, when your friend could in fact just run out of the bar at any time and thus end the fight, but he's a belligerent asshole who can't admit he's wrong -- ever?"

Umm, no, I'd keep sipping my beer in that situation and maybe consider getting a new and better set of friends with better anger management skills. ;)

"If there had been no government response to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, what do you envision things would have looked like for individual U.S. citizens for the 20-60 years afterward?"

I'm not saying there should have been no government response to Pearl Harbor. I'm saying there should have been a far less coercive response, preferably not run by a socialist son-of-a-bitch who was by far the Worst. President. Ever.

Love to chat some more about why our government isn't an entity that should be entirely trusted to at all times conduct a rational foreign policy, but House has finished taping and I'd like to watch that lovable libertarian curmudgeon before bedtime. Later. ;)

Post 109

Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - 7:55am

Jim,

If all you are asserting is:

a) conscription is immoral

b) the U.S. would be better off with Presidents who are in favor of voluntary relations between free agents

you'll get a lot of agreement around here, myself first in line.

FDR was a socialist son a bitch. Whether he was the worst President, he certainly makes the top 10.

And forcing men to go fight in a war is certainly wrong, even if the given military action itself is fully justified.

and,

"our government isn't an entity that should be entirely trusted to at all times conduct a rational foreign policy" Jim H.

No fooling. Neither foreign policy nor anything else.
(Edited by Jeff Perren on 1/30, 7:58am)

Post 110

Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - 8:03am

Following up on #99 I did not find Rand used "preemptive" anywhere on the Objectivist Research CD-ROM. Her article "Collectivized 'Rights'" addresses the issue somewhat:

It is not a free nation's duty to liberate other nations at the price of self-sacrifice, but a free nation has the right to do it, when and if it so chooses.
This right, however, is conditional. Just as the suppression of crimes does not give a policeman the right to engage in criminal activities, so the invasion and destruction of a dictatorship does not give the invader the right to establish another variant of a slave society in the conquered country.
A slave country has no national rights, but the individual rights of its citizens remain valid, even if unrecognized, and the conqueror has no right to violate them. Therefore, the invasion of an enslaved country is morally justified only when and if the conquerors establish a free social system, that is, a system based on the recognition of individual rights.

I was stunned by the unrealistic constraints she included in the last paragraph. Of course, the scenario does not have the free nation facing immanent threat from the slave country. I've seen the first paragraph used several times by self-described Objectivists to justify the U.S. attacking another country, as if the last paragraph didn't exist.

Post 111

Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - 9:43am

A slave country has no national rights, but the individual rights of its citizens remain valid, even if unrecognized, and the conqueror has no right to violate them. Therefore, the invasion of an enslaved country is morally justified only when and if the conquerors establish a free social system, that is, a system based on the recognition of individual rights.

...and to an extent, however flawed, that is what the US is trying to do in Iraq and Afghanistan. It did this in Germany, Japan, Italy, and South Korea.

Post 112

Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - 11:08am

Mike Dickey original wrote:

Pre-emptive war is not intrinsically just nor unjust, its like asking "is it right for me to hit someone before he hits me" depends on the context. In most cases, no, but if he has proceeded down a line of people, punching one after the other, as the next person in line do you actually need to wait until his fist is flying at you? Do you need to wait until it makes contact?

To which Jim seemingly missed the point:

If someone was foolish enough to pull such a stunt, I imagine some of the intended victims of this transgression would run away, others would swing back, others with concealed carry weaponry would pull it out and take aim and possibly fire,

Yes Jim, and what would you call "others with a concealed carry weapon pulling it out to take aim and possibly fire", hmmmm perhaps that's a pre-emptive action?

Yeesh! Talk about being concrete bound.

Then Jim goes on to say:

Jeff -- you make some interesting points about whether or when one is entitled to act in defense of someone else, if you can reasonably ascertain that your remaining neutral will likely result in harm to you in the future. Let me try to clarify my POV:

The NIOF principle seems a bit fuzzy to me here, because while you're always justified in defending yourself, it could be construed in some circumstances as some of that horrible, horrible altruism if you jump to the defense of others who are the victims of the initiation of force.

Not if it serves your own rational interests. If aiding others in their defense means you decrease the chances of being a victim yourself and having harm befall onto you, how can that be construed as altruism? Of course one should take such an action if one believes there will be a net benefit to that action, another words the risk of harm from aiding someone in their defense should not outweigh the benefit received from that act.

Now we get to Jim's moral relativistic outlook on life:

I think the key words in the initial paragraph above are "reasonably" and "likely", since pretty much every war can be justified by both sides, or at least rationalized, by some creative stretching of these two concepts.

Do you mean Jim that there is no such thing as valid concepts? Or do you mean that all justifications of war are never right or that there is no rational measure for determining if a justification for war was valid?

So, unless Objectivism is to be used as a justification for any and all wars, I would suggest that extreme skepticism and conservatism be used in whether to employ force on behalf of others, that one should not be afraid of thoroughly erring on the side of caution in engaging in force, and that this should be an individual decision to take action, not a collective decision.

Meaning what exactly? When the police are called to a scene of an ongoing crime are they responding "collectively"? Was the decision made "collectively"? When the US goes to war the decision is made by the President and with the authorization of Congress. So is that an individual or collective decision? I'm confused by what you mean here.

And, since wars are one of the most empowering events imaginable for collectivism, people who value individualism should hold virtually all government-run warfare as a violation of their values, and thus something to be opposed unless it's almost crystal clear that your individual values would be harmed by your inaction.

I'm confused, how can one virtually hold all government-run warfare as a violation of their values (oddly too our justice system is government-run, is it almost always a violation of our values?) and yet take action only when it is crystal clear? What is the standard of evaluating when something is clearly in service to your values or not? The only standard you offer seems to be if the government is operating the war, and that it should de facto mean it's not in your interests, but then you give us an "out" by saying well if it's crystal clear it's in your interests then you should act. Since you don't seem to offer any standard of evaluation other than it "virtually" never is in service to your values but there may be instances where it is, you essentially said nothing.

EDIT, originally put incorrect quote

(Edited by John Armaos on 1/30, 11:14am)

Post 113

Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - 11:30am

"If all you are asserting is:

a) conscription is immoral

b) the U.S. would be better off with Presidents who are in favor of voluntary relations between free agents

you'll get a lot of agreement around here, myself first in line."

Jeff, thank you for summarizing, in a far more succinct manner than I did, most of the main points I was trying to make.

The other main point I've been trying to make is that, considering that we don't seem to elect Presidents who much believe in your point b) above; and given that the government has a strong vested interest in engaging in the near-continuous warfare outlined in Orwell's "1984" in order to expand its powers; and given the long and sordid history of U.S. involvement in wars in which we could have stayed neutral without anything particularly bad happening to our citizens, and in which we were oftentimes, in retrospect, the aggressor -- it follows we should be extraordinarily skeptical about getting involved in any conflict that takes place outside U.S. soil, and in particular if we haven't actually been attacked first in an incident involving the deaths of thousands of U.S. citizens.

We're better off risking occasionally taking a damaging first punch, while maintaining an overwhelming retaliatory capability to discourage such events. We'll take a lot less damage on average with that policy.

Post 114

Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - 11:37am

Ummm, my previous post should have read "involved in any conflict that takes place entirely outside U.S. soil". Must. Preview. Better.

* smacks forehead

Post 115

Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - 11:49am

To Robert Kolker:

Regarding your comment that only the diplomatic code was broken prior to Pearl Harbor, Robert Stinnett has recently written a great history book Day of Deceit: the Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor. The book presents credible evidence that the Americans, British and Dutch had broken the Japanese naval code by the start of 1941, contrary to the whitewashed official story that has been handed down to us for 67 years. Stinnett also provides a broad, deep, and compelling body of evidence that FDR sought to provoke the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and that he and his administration cronies knew the attack was in progress as the Japanese armada steamed toward its launching ground northwest of Hawaii. Roosevelt's treachery served his unannounced agenda of dragging reluctant Americans into Europe's war "through the back door". (Stinnett's book was published in 1999, but the 2000 edition includes a valuable "Afterward" that includes additional extensive evidence).

I tried on several prior occasions, on this site, to present evidence unearthed by Stinnett in the hope of alerting war enthusiasts to the facts about the Second World War, which they invariably and reflexively invoke as historical justification for virtually any military action by the US government anywhere on the planet. Sadly, the facts I presented have been accorded the silent treatment, or are derided with howls of outrage and venom. But the howls and snarls won't change stubborn facts. Stinnett unearthed thousands of documents relating to the code breaking activities of the US naval intelligence, as well as to other facets of the Roosevelt deception about the "surprise" attack, all of which were acquired through tenacious application of the Freedom of Information Act over a period of several years.

Robert Bidinotto, one of my angry critics, posted a link to a review of Stinnett's book by a fellow who had been a cryptographer in the navy in WWII, and who later served in the National Security Agency. (The NSA has been charged all these years with the duty of censoring hundreds of thousands of documents about the Japanese navy codes and US and Allied attempts to break them. Even today, 67 years after the attack, literally 95% or more of those documents remain under official lock and key.) I took the trouble to actually carefully read and investigate the claims made by this man in his review, and came away with the impression that he very probably had not thoroughly read Stinnett's book. He made claims about Stinnett's arguments that are demonstrably false, as anyone can discover by reading the text and footnotes of Stinnett's heavily documented and referenced book; he ignored documents that Stinnett unearthed and reproduced in the book that flatly disprove certain claims of Duane Whitlock, radioman stationed at CAST in the Phillipines before and during WWII, who serves as the reviewer's star witness; and his review contains not a single footnote! Stinnett himself relied on the cooperation and knowlege of radiomen and cryptographers who served in naval intelligence at Pearl Harbor, and stations CAST, US, and others in the years and months leading up to December 7, 1941.

I started to write a careful and lengthy rejoinder about this "book review" by an "official expert", before concluding that doing so, at least at this website, would be a frivolous waste of my time. But I do intend to write an article about Stinnett's carefully documented case, in which I'll rebut the claims made in the review noted above and in one other critical review. It is amusing that this second review was sent to me at different times by two historians, neither of whom dared to read Stinnett's book, both of whom wanted only to drive a stake through its heart. One is a "radical anarchist libertarian" at Hoover, who contends that establishment historians are almost never wrong about matters of fact (!); the other is a mainstream historian with tenure at some university, who informed me that Stinnett's book had been refuted decades ago, but was slightly embarrassed to learn that the book was published in 1999.

Anyway, I'll try to publish my article about Pearl Harbor in some magazine, or on some website, on December 8, 2008. Maybe Robert Bidinotto will want to run it in the The Individualist Review.

Post 116

Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - 1:32pm

Jim:

The other main point I've been trying to make is that, considering that we don't seem to elect Presidents who much believe in your point b) above; and given that the government has a strong vested interest in engaging in the near-continuous warfare outlined in Orwell's "1984" in order to expand its powers

Again, what is the standard you're operating from? Intrinsically near-continuous warfare is neither bad nor good and is also indistinguishable from saying near-continuous crack down on crime is bad. It depends on the war. Nor have you given us a standard of what near-continuous war quantifiably means and whether the United States meets that standard.

and given the long and sordid history of U.S. involvement in wars in which we could have stayed neutral without anything particularly bad happening to our citizens,

Again no rational standard is given here. Which wars could we have stayed neutral while nothing bad would've happened to US citizens? And if some wars were not in the nation's interests, then what standard do you propose we use for determining when it is or isn't appropriate? In fact all it seems you're saying is you don't like the government, ergo anything it does must mean it is bad.

and in which we were oftentimes, in retrospect, the aggressor -

I would challenge that assertion. I don't believe you that the US was oftentimes the aggressor.

it follows we should be extraordinarily skeptical about getting involved in any conflict that takes place outside U.S. soil, and in particular if we haven't actually been attacked first in an incident involving the deaths of thousands of U.S. citizens.

Well now this is a peculiar standard for when a war is just. Only if thousands of Americans have been killed on US soil? Well how many thousand? 3,000? 5,000? 10,000? Why not anything less than thousands? How about hundreds? Why only on US soil? What about international trade routes and trade partners we have free trade agreements with? Why not war to protect an ally who has agreed to do the same when we are attacked? Are you saying there is no harmony of interests between free nations? And where did you get this magic number of thousands?

We're better off risking occasionally taking a damaging first punch, while maintaining an overwhelming retaliatory capability to discourage such events. We'll take a lot less damage on average with that policy.

Why? I don't believe you. For the most part evil men act on the weakness of their victims. What you propose is appeasement, better to let the bully give us a bloody nose and let him be, maybe he won't go any further, as if to think he won't, or that getting the bloody nose was somehow tolerable and fighting back is unjust.
(Edited by John Armaos on 1/30, 2:25pm)

Post 117

Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - 2:12pm

Kurt, I don't agree that any of your examples meet Rand's hypothetical. In the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, a right to vote for one's oppressor does not make a nation of individual rights.

Jim H., re #114, you can edit posts for several hours (24?) afterwards. Click on "Edit" in the gray band above the post, like I did on this one.

(Edited by Merlin Jetton on 1/30, 2:14pm)

Post 118

Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - 2:22pm

Merlin:

Kurt, I don't agree that any of your examples meet Rand's hypothetical. In the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, a right to vote for one's oppressor does not make a nation of individual rights.

You are of course taking this to the utmost extreme by labeling the current and future Afghan government as oppressors. Compared to whom? What is it better under the Taliban? Or is it better now and is there hope for the future of Afghanistan where as before there was none?

Post 119

Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - 3:26pm