[lit-ideas] Re: Defending Offense.
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 9 Feb 2006 08:37:41 -0800
I don't believe you have this right. The U.S. has spent enormous money
making sure collateral damage is kept to a minimum. It has honed its
weapons to be more accurate, and indeed the deaths, both American casualties
and collateral damage, have been lower than in any other comparable war.
The U.S. is vitally concerned about this. You are not correct to say we
consider life cheap. Our position is quite opposite to that. In fact our
being overly concern about life hampers us in our war against the Islamists.
The Islamists say we are too concerned and therefore don't have the stomach
for bloody battle that the Islamists do. This causes them to believe
they'll win in the long run. And I tend to think they have something there.
Our preoccupation with avoiding causalities and collateral damage doesn't
keep our mind and heart in the business of defeating one of the most brutal
and insensitive enemies we've ever encountered.
Lawrence
-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of P.H.Lundbech
Sent: Thursday, February 09, 2006 7:06 AM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Defending Offense.
On Wed, 8 Feb 2006 23:40:41 -0800, "Lawrence Helm"
<lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>Note that he says we "beheaded" (clearly not true) 30,000 Muslims.
The problem is that you don't seem to share Mr. Geary's odd sense
of humor. You shouldn't take all he (or I) says so literally. It
has something to do with the concept of irony.
>He is
>using a figure that blames America for the accidental deaths of civilians
>caused by American action (about 8,000)
I think the trouble is just that. 8000 accidental deaths?
Accidental? You can say it, just like that? Oops! Sorry! And
that's it? Nobody's fault, it just happened.
Human lives seem very cheap.
Without going into numbers I just wonder how high the count of
accidental deaths should be, before 'accidental' also sounded
ridiculous to you.
> plus the deaths caused by insurgents
>and civil breakdown (22,000). This is an Islamist position as well.
That's very convenient. When someone interprets the numbers
differently, it must be because they're in cahoots with Osama and
Saddam.
The worst thing is not that a nation starts a war (necessary or
not), but that they shrug off that burden of responsibility or
guilt that should be theirs for those thousands of innocent
civilian deaths in a war started on false pretenses.
P. H. Lundbech
Odense, DK
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