People in developing countries have 32 words for the blues.
Aren't musicians by definition downtrodden people the world over?
...at least so the Artist Formerly Known As Prince used to say.
Woo-hoo y'all! Obama is on the job only a couple of days an' he's already bombing the crap out of those sneaky middle-eastern furriners! Yee-haw! My man, B-ROCK!
It looks like Barack also bombed Afghanistan this weekend, killing 16 civillians, including three children.
I think this and the bombing linked in #3 were two separate American attacks, one in Afghanistan and one in Pakistan, but I can't tell for sure whether it wasn't just one big-ass attack that spread across the border.
3, 4: Well, its what he said he'd do.
I can't count it as being disappointed by someone new until he sinks beneath expectations.
3 doesn't appear to have been reported by any American news outlets.
He said he was going to kill children in massive air strikes? I guess he was really worried about losing the Jewish vote.
(I'm as pro-Israel as they come, but hey, the joke was there.)
re: 6
It's on the BBC.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7847423.stm
The BBC story has a rather different cast to it, doesn't it? "War in Afghanistan continues to be waged in the same fashion as three weeks ago" wouldn't be fun enough for GB, I guess.
#6: To be fair, the American media do have their hands full grappling with the Travolta blackmail story.
I don't know what the Travolta blackmail story is. It's not mentioned on any of the news outlets I just looked at.
(The airstrike story, not the Travolta story.)
I would have expected the Post to have both stories.
Bahamanians have great names, apparently. Pleasant Bridgewater? Tarino Lightbourne?
I heard about the airstrike story on NPR; whether that contradicts 6 is open to debate.
The story I'm boggling over is this one:
President Obama's plans to expeditiously determine the fates of about 245 terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and quickly close the military prison there were set back last week when incoming legal and national security officials -- barred until the inauguration from examining classified material on the detainees -- discovered that there were no comprehensive case files on many of them.
The above is from the Washington Post; Hilzoy did the write-up, with a special guest note from Charley Carp:
There aren't files. No one believes this at first, and it takes a long time to accept it, but really, that's it: no files. There are databases that can be searched . . . .
(And no, "databases" does not mean that there is a compehensive electronic file anywhere either.)
On the bright side of thing, this solves our prior worry about whether it's appropriate to create special procedures for trying those detainees against whom there's enough reliable evidence to reasonably bring a case. It looks like there's nothing sane to do but let everyone go.
So no one wants to talk about Greek music, huh? Even though this is fantastic?
The Bush administration was never big on things like record-keeping. Actually, I get the sense that they were actively anti-standardization in a lot of areas (detainees, intelligence, environment, finance etc.) - standardization allows for coming to conclusions on the basis of evidence, which can contradict conclusions on the basis of whatever had already been decided would be the conclusions (bolstered by evidence picked for that purpose only).
So, even if the Bush administration had managed to somehow torture some valuable information out of the Gitmo prisoners (don't call them "detainees") there is a good chance that whatever actionable intelligence we gleaned would have fallen through the cracks due to a lack of coherent record keeping.
I can't count it as being disappointed by someone new
Sorry, but why would you count child-murdering as something that "disappoints" rather than "horrifies"?
And is the standard we're really holding Obama to "not worse than Bush"? Because last time I heard, the conventional wisdom around these parts was that Bush was in the running for worst president in history. So as long as Obama doesn't become the very worst president in history, he's awesome?
inacessible island rail brings the troll as ever.
IIL, you're just too good for this fallen world. Perhaps you will ascend directly to heaven like Elijah.
And Beefo Meaty brings the ad hominem as ever.
It's like we know each other, somehow.
29: Here's what I don't get. When Bush was bombing Pakistan and Afghanistan and pointlessly killing civilians there, this was bad, right? And now that Obama's doing it, it's... beneath comment? Rude to even mention?
In an earlier thread I stated that I don't trust Obama to just do the right thing out of the goodness of his heart, that he has to be pushed to do the right thing like any other politician. That means that liberals, online and elsewhere, have to make a big deal about him killing people in Afghanistan and Pakistan if they want it to stop, because the usual path for American presidents is to kill a bunch of people in poor countries to show that they're touch, and Obama's made it very clear that he intends to do so. There's nothing trollish about wanting anti-war people to be vocally anti-war, even when a Democrat's in office.
Or maybe I'm reading this place wrong, and you're pro-war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and have never had a problem with what the U.S. is doing there, in which case, hey, whatever.
29: But not before the Lord sends two virtual bears to tear up 42 of us.
34: Elijah ascended to heaven, and then Elisha, who succeeded him, called upon the bears to devour the 42 boys who called him "Baldhead" on his way to Beth-el.
33: I can agree with this in general, but the response to GB's comments in the thread is fully explained by the fact that he was giving us shit, rather than expressing substantive concern over President Obama's policies.
When Bush was bombing Pakistan and Afghanistan and pointlessly killing civilians there, this was bad, right?
Yes. On the other hand, killing members of the Taliban and Al Queda is something I do approve of. This is a tough case. Its almost as if the issue isn't completely black and white....
Fighting terrorists is hard. Fighting terrorists by long-distance bombing is even harder.
The bombing of Afghanistan does bother me.
36: and meanwhile i.i.r. does the neat thing with the hiding until there's moral high ground to be claimed, and then leaping grimly for the peaks by -- essentially -- calling rob pro-child-murder. Everybody's having fun!
36: I'm not familiar with his history here, so I took him in good faith.
37: On the other hand, killing members of the Taliban and Al Queda is something I do approve of.
But look. The US nominally targets "militants" in Iraq, too. And yet, every time it does so, it kills a bunch of civilians. This is why America's wars haven't earned it a reputation for "fighting terror" and "spreading freedom" in that part of the world; they've earned it a reputation for bombing villages and blowing up wedding parties.
If you want to reduce the amount of terror in the world, the way to do that is to stop doing things that create terrorists - and a good way to start is to stop blowing people up!
39: Bothers me too. I'm really unsure what the least-worst thing to do there is -- just pulling out is one of the leading options, but I really dislike leaving the Taliban in power, and I have the impression the Karzai government won't survive at all in our absence. And anything short of pulling out, I end up feeling very ignorant about what tactics I think should be used. This is one of those moments where I need to do more reading.
It bothers me too. Fortunately, I trust Obama to wrap it up in a more constructive manner than Bush would have. And I trust Obama in his assessment that this is not a case where American policy can or should just turn on a dime.
So I will cut him some slack. Mind you, if we are still bombing Pakistan 4 years from now, I will be seriously pissed off.
40: Sifu, I hope the only reason you haven't assassinated Obama yet is that you fear Biden would be even more evil.
Fighting terrorists is hard. Fighting terrorists by long-distance bombing is even harder.
And that's why we should stop trying to do it that way.
I'm not familiar with his history here, so I took him in good faith.
Christ, if that's your idea of good faith, I'd hate to see what a bad faith argument from you looks like.
(And WTF ever happened to the basic notion of netiquette that you lurk for a while and get a sense of the place before jumping in?)
i.i.r. does the neat thing with the hiding until there's moral high ground to be claimed
Huh? As opposed to opining about every diverse topic, or ... what?
44: I can't believe you would even begin to use the word "hope", Ned. You realize people are dying?
47: as opposed to wallowing in the muck with us chumps, I guess.
I supported Obama and still do, but this place shouldn't be an Obama cheerleader site. I agree with IIR.
And anything short of pulling out, I end up feeling very ignorant about what tactics I think should be used.
I'd be perfectly happy to see the Air Force never fly another sortie in Afghanistan. (Except in the unlikely situation that we find ourselves in a pitched battle with Taliban/al Qaeda forces again.) It's really not doing any good.
44: I trust you were this cavalier about death when Bush was in office.
52: That 44 should be a 48.
34: Elijah ascended to heaven, and then Elisha, who succeeded him, called upon the bears to devour the 42 boys who called him "Baldhead" on his way to Beth-el.
AWB seems...suspiciously familiar with the details of this story.
Seriously, what makes this conversation ridiculous is the 'turning on a dime' issue. Can we give Obama a couple of weeks to change the tactics being used in Afganistan?
Further to 56: That said, I can agree with 51.
As opposed to opining about every diverse topic, or ... what?
Yes, exactly. If you engage on a wide variety of topics (some of them hopefully less delicate and polarizing than Afghanistan), it shows that you're actually interested in engaging rather than haranguing. (Which in turn makes it more likely that people will take what you have to say on the delicate topics seriously, rather than dismissing you out of hand.) Is this controversial?
56: no. If he hasn't fixed the entire American strategic posture by now, he's hardly any better than Bush. If we elected Obama to do one thing, it's to immediately reverse course on all the missteps of the past sixty-plus years of foreign policy. If we wanted baby steps, we would have nominated a baby.
55: Sorry, I did a very long seminar paper in grad school about that particular incident.
Can we give Obama a couple of weeks to change the tactics being used in Afganistan?
He did a lot of other shit quickly. I don't see why "let's hold off on bombings until we can assess their actual effectiveness" would take much time.
When Bush was bombing Afghanistan and Pakistan, no one was paying attention to it at all. Which is why it's suddenly so shocking that the Obama administratin is . . . (continuing) bombing Afghanistan and Pakistan. IOW, it's not exactly *news*; it's more an opportunity for the GBs and IIRs of the world to pretend to be shocked by the heartlesness of liberals.
we would have nominated a baby.
Here, you simply expose your ignorance of the Constitutional ramifications. We could not have constitutionally nominated and elected a baby as president, although we could have nominated an age-eligible candidate willing to commit to appointing only babies to all Cabinet level positions.
People shouldn't actually be mocking IIR here. His or her point is merely that we should complain to the government when it does things we don't want it to do.
The strategy of pretending to be shocked that other people aren't shocked is kind of annoying, but can be effective.
61: There's 'much time' and there's 'more than four days'. For changes at the tactical level of military operations, I'm willing to give him a month or so.
60: uh huh, so they were some other bears, and your interest is purely academic. Suuure.
61: the institutional differences are pretty significant; lots of people -- including military people -- want guantanamo closed, and it's an issue he campaigned on. And, after all, bombing tribal areas of Pakistan is also something he campaigned on, not to mention something pretty much all the people advising him on the subject favor. It sucks, but like rob said, it's hardly surprising.
I'd love it if he abolished the Air Force, personally, but I imagine that's unlikely.
I'd love it if he abolished the Air Force, personally, but I imagine that's unlikely.
You know the Air Force is tasked with defending us in cyberspace, and they have a protocol for responding to attacks in blog comments, right? You may be in for a tactical strike here.
67: maybe iir is a deep cover Air Force troll, trying to draw out bombing opponents to be surveilled.
60: That was supposed to be a bear joke.
I'm not sure why IIR is attacking me, because I completely agree with him. The air war in Pakistan and Afghanistan has been and is an abomination. The moral difference between firing inaccurate rockets from the sky at civilian areas and detonating car bombs in civilian areas is negligible. To separate them, you have to say that there is a moral difference between a civilian death you knew was very likely to be a consequence of your action but didn't directly intend, and a civilian death that you foresaw an intended.
There's a reason they call the car bomb the poor man's air force. I've made this argument before, probably somewhere on this forum.
In any case, saying that you aren't surprised by an event isn't even close to saying that you are ok with the event happening.
maybe iir is a deep cover Air Force troll, trying to draw out bombing opponents to be surveilled.
Now I'm going to see this every time iir comments, and my life will be much happier for it.
||
My doctor doubles the dose on my meds. Tells me to finish out my current bottle on two pills a day. I do so, go to refill my perscription. Insurance won't pay until two days later. Pills are $300 dollars w/o insurance.
That night, I have horrible nightmares of the like I can't even remember. Healthcare sucks.
(Yeah, probably should have tried to refill sooner.)
|>
GB and IIR are doing two different things. GB is trolling, and IIR is wondering what Obama's Afghanistan policy really will end up being.
Canadians have sex with bears, whereas AWB sends them to destroy her enemies. (Actually, AWB, of all people, should have sex with bears. Why hasn't she moved to Canada?)
To separate them, you have to say that there is a moral difference between a civilian death you knew was very likely to be a consequence of your action but didn't directly intend, and a civilian death that you foresaw an intended.
To be kind of an asshole about it: did you just argue against the distinction between manslaughter and homicide?
separate them, you have to say that there is a moral difference between a civilian death you knew was very likely to be a consequence of your action but didn't directly intend, and a civilian death that you foresaw an intended.
This is the doctrine of double effect, right? I hate that shit. The formulation that shows up in criminal cases, along the lines of: A person is considered to have intended the ordinary and foreseeable results of their actions, makes much more moral sense to me.
When Bush was bombing Afghanistan and Pakistan, no one was paying attention to it at all.
75: No, not really. First, manslaughter is a type of homicide -- you're talking about the difference between manslaughter and murder. And second, there are all sorts of circumstances where a defendant who intentionally took an action that he knew was likely to have the effect of killing another person would be guilty of murder whether or not he desired the victim's death.
78 just proves, again, that the easiest way to find out true information on the Internet is to post an incorrect or misunderstood version of it. Thanks, LB.
79: What else, besides porn, is the internet for?
71: I didn't mean to attack you; I'm sorry that it came across like that. I've just long been bothered by the "disappointed by someone new" thing.
All my legal analysis is guaranteed worth the money you paid -- really, this is stuff that's messy to generalize about. The exact places the lines get drawn are all different state by state.
The doctrine of double effect doesn't assume that you have intended the ordinary and forseeable results of your actions?
I've just long been bothered by the "disappointed by someone new" thing.
Why? Do you think that anything better was on offer?
Bombing Afghanistan and Pakistan was low on the queue of things people hated about the worst President ever. People who cursed Bush should have put in a "including but not limited to" clause at the beginning of their lists of reasons.
25: Actually, I get the sense that they were actively anti-standardization in a lot of areas
Naw. Standard-issue banana republic precedure with 'disappeared'. If there are no records of the disappeared person, the person must not exist.
26: somehow torture some valuable information out of the Gitmo prisoners (don't call them "detainees") there is a good chance that whatever actionable intelligence we gleaned would have fallen through the cracks due to a lack of coherent record keeping.
Who said they wanted information? I mean, they said they wanted information about terrorists in general; they said anything about anybody in particular. If they mentioned anyone in particular who was locked up in Gitmo, they just said they were 'dangerous'.
When Bush was bombing Pakistan and Afghanistan and pointlessly killing civilians there, this was bad, right?
*I* never said that. If they were hitting proper targets in Pakistan, I was fine with that.
And yet, every time it does so, it kills a bunch of civilians.
They report it when they kill a bunch of civilians. When they don't kill a bunch of civilians, they don't report it.
IOW, it's not exactly *news*; it's more an opportunity for the GBs and IIRs of the world to pretend to be shocked by the heartlesness of liberals.
Yep.
max
['It's a mess.']
The doctrine of double effect is hardly uncontroversial.
And reading the Wikipedia entry on manslaughter, I find what may be the most depressing thing I've read this year: "Vehicular manslaughter is a kind of misdemeanor manslaughter". It's a fucking misdemeanor?
83: As I understand it, no, it doesn't. The idea is that if your desired results are morally acceptable (say, taking out a valid military target), you are not deemed to have intended the ordinary and forseeable 'collateral damage' (dead civilians) resulting from your actions, if your desired results are sufficiently weighty and likely to come about when compared to the amount of the collateral damage. This strikes me as bullshit -- if you knew that civilian deaths were an expected result of, e.g., bombing, you intended those deaths, even if you wish you could have avoided them. The bombing might still be allowable, depending on the circumstances, but saying the civilian deaths were unintended because they were undesired feels very wrong to me.
87: indeed, there are as yet no proponents of it in this thread.
that the easiest way to find out true information on the Internet is to post an incorrect or misunderstood version of it.
Both the everlasting Fountain of Youth and the City of Gold are located several miles outside of Ponca City, Oklahoma
91: Actually, they aren't.
Wow, that does work!
It's a fucking misdemeanor?
I don't know why, but I'm eternally amused by the liquor store signs that say "It is a CRIME (misdemeanor) to carry a weapon on these premises."
Like, "It is a CRIME (but a small one!) so you shouldn't carry a gun in here unless you really want to have it with you."
92: Hmmm, these New York lawyers are too clever for me. Must try to think ....
They're actually both several miles inside Ponca City.
88: the actual state of the law seems somewhat more complicated than that, though.
89: The moral acceptability of the target doesn't have anything to do with your intent towards the civilians in the direction you propose: it's not as though a super-duper target changes your *intent.*
Two things have to come apart: whether you intend civilian deaths, and how valuable the target has to be for x civilian deaths to be acceptable. If you are bombing and you intend to kill civilians, your action is immoral. That doesn't mean that if you don't intend to kill them, you're automatically moral; it just means that you didn't fall at the first hurdle. Your bombing could still be immoral because the objective wasn't worth the civilian cost, or for any other number of reasons. DD shouldn't be thought of as a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Guantanamo was primarily guerrilla theater for the rabid dogs of the Bush coalition. Neither intelligence nor prosecutions nor even false confessions was the primary goal.
98: Really? I thought you got dinged for wrongful intent toward your collateral victims under the DDE if your desired target wasn't worthy or if the expected collateral damage was disproportionate -- like, a terrorist who attempted to assassinate a world leader by pitching a grenade at them in a crowded room counts as having intended the deaths of the ten people he killed as well under the DDE, because he didn't meet the standards otherwise. But I could be wrong; it's not stuff I understand well.
But anyway, if that's it, the DDE seems to just use 'intent' where I'd use 'desire' -- "I didn't intend to kill your dog."
"Then why didn't you stop your car before you ran him over -- I know you saw him in plenty of time?"
"Well, I didn't want to stop, either. But I certainly wouldn't have gone out of my way to kill him."
While the speaker didn't actively desire the death of the dog, saying he didn't intend to kill it is a use of language that seems at odds with how I'd naturally use the word.
I can't figure out how 98 and 100 are saying different things.
You get dinged for doing something immoral; but I don't think it functions as a matter of counting your intent, but just as a matter of determining whether the military target is worth the civilian cost.
How that would get worked into the DDE is that the target isn't a morally acceptable aim (because it would kill too many civilians, because the grenade isn't a discriminate weapon) and thus it doesn't matter a good goddamn what your intent was, because good intent can't sanction an immoral action.
101: dog shouldn't'a been on the trolley tracks.
102: If I've got Cala right (and she presumably knows the DDE better than I do), the terrorist heaving the grenade didn't 'intend' the deaths of anyone other than the world leader, despite the fact that he knew they would occur when he threw it, because the only person he actively wanted dead was the world leader. He's still in moral trouble for killing them, because their deaths were disproportionate, but he didn't (under the DDE) 'intend' their deaths.
105 crossed with 103, and I think I got it straight.
101: DDE doesn't come into play unless there's a sufficient *good outcome* that has a bad side effect, as far as I understand it. (To put it crudely, it's why the trolley case has two tracks.) It's not just saying "I don't mean to!" as you run over the guy's dog.
It's not just saying "I don't mean to!" as you run over the guy's dog.
You have to tack on "...but I'm really late for work!"
So wait, though, wouldn't assasinating somebody as a means of accomplishing something be verboten anyhow under that doctrine? Or is Stanford lying to me?
107: Well, that's what I thought I was talking about with the moral acceptability of the target in my initial description -- that a 'good outcome' would make the DDE kick in, and so change your 'intent'. Which seems to me to do violence to the ordinary meaning of intent.
105: Right. I see DDE as having a very, very narrow application. There's arguments against it, of course, but it isn't just the case that all DDE requires is saying "I don't intend!" and doing whatever you want. (Which is why it's perfectly possible to believe that the IDF didn't intend civilian casualties and still believe that what they are doing is immoral.)
Is it at all interesting that Kurt Eisner is not listed among famous people of
Bavaria, even though Adolf Hitler is so listed?
Wikipedia now has excellent new (1-2 yrs) articles on The German Revolution and Red Vienna. I am very pleased. They are apparently written by the same person, someone who has English as a second language. The mistakes are few, amusing, and endearing, I think. I hope the Wiki PTB don't "clean up" the articles.
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...
I am not at all disappointed in Obama, so have no need to pretend.
I realize that the conversation has moved on, but the story linked in 4 about civilian casualties in Afghanistan is not about "bombing" at all. It refers to a "raid" by Special Forces soldiers, which I take to be a much more targeted effort.
I do think that that changes the moral calculus somewhat and is therefore more likely to be justifiable.
110: Here's one way to put the difference, or to try to show that it's not the "intent" that's changing. Two cases. The first one I hit your dog as I swerve to avoid Sally & Newt. The second one I hit your dog as I swerve to avoid Sally & Newt and say "Awesome, I get to kill Dogbreath."
Same outcome in both cases, but in the second case I seem to be on the hook for killing Dogbreath because I intended it.
In any case, it's not that there aren't good arguments against DDE, it's just that it's a little more subtle than "I don't intend so I can do whatever wheeeee no backsies." (Not attributing this to you; it's been being misused in that way by some defenders of Israel's actions lately, like it's a talisman where all you have to do is whine "I didn't meannnnn to.")
The dsquared
post & thread over at CT on Walzer, collateral damage, double effect, just war. 234 serious comments.
I don't intend to follow another thread just like that one, only two weeks later. G'Day.
That bit I got -- it's 'intent' as 'desire': you are deemed to have intended the results you desired, and not the ones you didn't desire.
The question I have is what effect the 'good outcome' has on my intent: say in both cases, I didn't desire the death of the dog, but in the first case I hit it rather than hitting S&N (foreseen but undesired consequence, signficant good outcome), and in the second case I hit it because I enjoy swerving rhythmically from side to side, and it happened to be in my pattern of swerves (forseen but undesired consequence, no significant good outcome).
It seems to me that I intended the death of the dog in case 2, regardless of whether I actively desired it, and therefore for consistency's sake I intended the death of the dog in case 1. I still did the right thing in case 1, but I think it makes sense to say that I did the right thing by intentionally killing the dog.
If I understand the DDE right, under the DDE I didn't intend to kill the dog in case 1, and I'm not sure if I did or didn't in case 2.
I enjoy swerving rhythmically from side to side
That is quite fun.
In case one you would not count as intending the death of the dog (foreseen, unintended, if you could have done something else, you would have.) You also can't be moral if you intend to bring about a good effect by doing a bad thing.
In case two, you are not doing a good thing by swerving back and forth, so what your intent was just doesn't matter, because you can't get DDE to work for you without a morally good action that's worth the cost.
It really is. I've done remarkably little driving lifetime, and most of it has been city driving. I got my first taste of hilly country roads this fall, and that's very fun indeed.
Was this around Western PA? We have some goofyass roads around there. Fun!
so what your intent was just doesn't matter, because you can't get DDE to work for you without a morally good action that's worth the cost.
This is what I don't like about the DDE. Talking about your 'intent' seems to be making a psychological claim about your state of mind, that I can't see as being actually affected by whether you've got a 'morally good action that's worth the cost'. If you intend only that which you desire, when you're aiming at a m.g.a.t.w.t.c., then surely you intend only that which you desire regardless of what you're aiming at. And that seems to me to be a use of the word 'intent' that confuses more than it illuminates.
121: You betcha. I'm in the enviable position of being an easily frightened adrenaline junkie: I really like speed and such, but it doesn't take much at all to thrill me. I was having the time of my life driving curvy country roads at about 40mph.
That is quite fun.
Not for the Yves Montand character in The Wages of Fear.
The CT DDE thread is interesting, as I recall, but I couldn't thinking that applying the doctrine WRT Gaza or Afghanistan is sort of the philosophical equivalent of aerial bombing, in that it's done at a safe distance by people with no apparent investment in the lives and moral standing of innocent victims on the other side.
That night, I have horrible nightmares of the like I can't even remember. Healthcare sucks.
You have my sympathy. In college I had a roommate who, at one point, had to stop taking the low dose anti-depressants (IIRC) he had been prescribed for sleep disorders.
It was impressive to me how pronounced the withdrawal effects were from even low doses of psycho-pharmaceuticals.
123: Driving curvy country roads at about 40mph is my daily commute. There are some perks to living in the middle of Bumfuck.
122: Arg. Your "intent" is *not* affected by whether your action was morally good.
Nothing about DDE says that making the action good means you intended it. It says if the action isn't morally good to start with, all the good intent in the world won't matter.
But isn't your intent with respect to the foreseen but undesired collateral damage affected? I thought that was the whole point of the DDE, establishing that if you meet the standards, then you were allowed to say that you didn't intend the collateral damage.
IIR is wondering what Obama's Afghanistan policy really will end up being.
Well, everything he's said has pointed towards a desire to reduce ground troops in Iraq and redeploy them in Afghanistan for a "surge" style attempt to hold and police territory.
Nothing about DDE says that making the action good means you intended it. It says if the action isn't morally good to start with, all the good intent in the world won't matter.
Yeah, but the treaties don't say that. All they say is that it is illegal to deliberately target civilians. They don't say anything about morality. How could they? Especially since, if they did, it would be widely ignored.
max
['The problem with international law and bombing is that everything hinges on a standard of reasonableness.']
I just like killing. Like Merv Griffin.
I once went on a ride through the mountains with a guy whose hobby, it turned out, was buying cars and pushing them to their limit until he wrecked them. He had planned a weekend which involved driving 700 miles, having a cup of coffee, and driving 700 miles back.
Remember that when evaluating the DDE it's important to have an assessment of how innocent those preschoolers really were. Some preschoolers aren't really aren't what they seem to be.
128: You're allowed to say you're not morally responsible (or, maybe, less morally responsible) for the collateral damage *because* you didn't intend it (on the assumption that your actions met the other conditions.)
130: The real problem is trying to apply a principle that was formulated for something like self-defense being permissible to an actor which is a state.
133: If that's how it works, then the DDE rests on the assumption that you intended only the desired, rather than the reasonably foreseeable, results of your actions. And that just seems like a confusing and counterintuitive use of 'intent'.
I'm in the enviable position of being an easily frightened adrenaline junkie: I really like speed and such, but it doesn't take much at all to thrill me. I was having the time of my life driving curvy country roads at about 40mph.
This isn't limited to easily frightened adrenaline junkies. Most of my favorite roads for motorcycling are like that. And autocross is pretty popular.
And that just seems like a confusing and counterintuitive use of 'intent'.
That's an awfully kind way of saying "It's a crock of shit"
136: Well, I'm not an expert in this kind of stuff. It's possible there's some good reason in the history of the relevant disciplines for using 'intent' in a technically defined sense. I just think it's confusing when laypeople are trying to talk about the same issues.
you intended only the desired, rather than the reasonably foreseeable, results of your actions. And that just seems like a confusing and counterintuitive use of 'intent'.
Really? It doesn't seem that counterintuitive to me, in some cases. M. Bratman has some examples that seek to marshal intuitions along generaly DDE-friendly lines.
134: You'd be confused if I said "I didn't intend to kill Dogbreath! I was just swerving to miss the kids!!" on the grounds that because I foresaw it, I must have intended it? Would you describe what happened as "She intentionally ran over my dog." ?
It's possible there's some good reason in the history of the relevant disciplines for using 'intent' in a technically defined sense. I just think it's confusing when laypeople are trying to talk about the same issues.
They updated the treaties in 1949. 'Deliberate intent' was referring to things like the Germans giving the Dutch an ultimatum in 1940 saying that if the Dutch did not surrender by noon, the Germans would hit Rotterdam. (The Dutch did surrender, but there was a timezone mixup and the Germans hit it anyways.) But it was also directed to Bomber Command's 'de-housing' strategic bombing campaign of 1944 where the British attempted to break German morale (and end the war) by bombing German cities with the intent of destroying civilian housing.
I don't think those kinds of provisions were intended to prohibit hitting the Mitsubishi aircraft engine plant in Nagasaki with a nuclear weapon.
Later on, apparently, not-military people have wanted to go in the direction of prohibiting that sort of thing, and politicians have sort of gone along in the sense of 'agreeing with anything to shut them up' but in practice I don't think the actual understanding of what those provisions mean has changed at all. If it has, no one is following it.
133: 130: The real problem is trying to apply a principle that was formulated for something like self-defense being permissible to an actor which is a state.
I'm quite following that.
max
['Sorry.']
139: If you were just swerving for fun, and killed Dogbreath because you didn't want to stop swerving, I'd say you intended her death even though you didn't desire it. Given that, I'd say the same if you were swerving to miss the kids: if I wasn't being a jerk about it I'd say "She had to aim at the dog to miss the kids," and certainly wouldn't hold you morally responsible for having done anything wrong. But if asked whether you'd intentionally killed the dog I'd say that you did.
This whole business of attemping to figure out what is or should be going on in someone else's head is wildly ambitious, to say the least.
That said, most of us live with some type of heuristics. When I see Lara's 113: It refers to a "raid" by Special Forces soldiers, which I take to be a much more targeted effort, I think, yeah, I *might* have believed that eight years ago.
On a related topic, a juror in the recent Fort Dix trial, a apparently a big test of the FBI's strategy to disrupt terror plots and then try the suspects, spoke to the press about the convictions:
Much of the case was built on two FBI informants who infiltrated the group and recorded hundreds of hours of conversations.
Defense attorneys mercilessly attacked the credibility of the main informant, Mahmoud Omar, who was paid about $240,000 for his cooperation and had been convicted of bank fraud.
Although the defense description of Omar as a "con man" seemed apt, the juror said, the panel didn't have any problem accepting his testimony.
Informants "have to be shady to get into what they have to get into," she said. "Get over it."
On cross-examination, defense attorneys accused Omar of steering the conversations and goading their clients into making incriminating statements.
"He sometimes had to move it along, but he did not entrap them," the juror said. "I think, without hesitation, what convicted these gentlemen was their own words."
141: The way the philosophers talk about intention, the intent with which an action is done will govern and explain the action in question. So, still using the dog-and-kids example, if I swerve to avoid Sally and Newt, but they run back into my path, I'll swerve again if I can. Avoiding Sally and Newt is the goal I use in controlling my action, and so is what I can be said to intend. On the other hand, if I swerve to avoid the kids and am now bearing down on the dog, but he then gets out of the way, I don't turn to bring him back into my sights. Hitting the dog thus does not play a role in regulating my action, and so isn't part of my intent.
I mean, they said they wanted information about terrorists in general; they [never] said anything about anybody in particular. If they mentioned anyone in particular who was locked up in Gitmo, they just said they were 'dangerous'.
This exactly, for the men other than those few destined for prosecution. As to whom the files were a mess, but at least, it seems, there was some intent.
Here's a funny hypothetical story from the world of searchable databases. Suppose someone, prisoner 1234, was shown photographs of prisoners 205-211, and said "They're innocent bystanders." Suppose the jailer is ordered to produce exculpatory evidence, but when he looks for it with respect to prisoner 209, the statement from prisoner 1234 doesn't come up. Suppose further that the statement won't even come up for prisoner 211. Because, well, the record of the statement only talks about 205-211. That would be funny wouldn't it?
Or does this comment belong in the government IT thread?
Killing people is what states do, and the line between civilians and military targets has almost disappeared. This is all just a dog and pony show. There's no particular reason to process the global reality from an ethical point of view, because no one making the relevant decisions is going to be listening.
Yes, Witt, criminal trials are a pretty scary prospect. You probably didn't see the XX Files article in todays Post (I'll link it later) but that's a common scenario.
Make me wonder why ol' George was so scared of the civil courts. Compare conduct and sentences of Lindh and Hamdan. You hear that the issue is torture, but Padilla's in jail right now and for quite a bit longer yet.
The Padilla case makes me so incredibly angry. Moreso than gitmo, for some idiosyncratic, likely not justifiable, reason.
That would be funny wouldn't it?
[unprintable]
I wish, I wish, I wish I didn't believe you.
There aren't files. No one believes this at first, and it takes a long time to accept it, but really, that's it: no files. There are databases that can be searched . . . .
This exactly, for the men other than those few destined for prosecution. As to whom the files were a mess, but at least, it seems, there was some intent.
I find it helpful, in understanding what has been going on, to think in terms of the Chilean security services (or maybe the Ohkrana): when you drag someone off to a brightly lit basement in a country house so you can beat the shit out of them, followed by shooting them in the head and dumping them in a shallow grave, paperwork is a nuisance.
I think I should point out that while the issues of what is justified in terms of collateral damage is neither well-defined nor well-understood, the rules for dealing with POWs and the like are clear and well-understood. Those rules have existed in practice for 200+ years, they were codified more than a century ago, and adjusted at mid-century to close loopholes around irregular forces. The specific lawyers who came up with justifications for getting around those rules were guilty of plain old rank malfeasance (of the murderous variety). The goons who carried out the actions justified by those rulings really were just following orders, but they should have goddamn well have known better.
max
['A fish rots from the head.']
The Padilla verdict makes more than a little uncomfortable about submitting the rest to a jury trial. Obama will hopefully have better prosecutors, judges, venues than Bush would, but still.
Sorry. I almost think that any jury capable of giving the detainees a fair trial would have people like us p-challenged off. And I know I should be. Anyone predisposed to radical skepticism about the gov't evidence probably can't be fair.
Obama should pardon Padilla immediately. But I won't be newly disappointed when he doesn't.
153: Bob, how could you possibly be disappointed with Obama? If he's not apocalyptic enough for you?
84: You misunderstand. My objection is that "disappointment" is not an appropriate reaction to the policies of the American government. Disappointment is something you feel when you don't get the toy you wanted for Christmas; it really doesn't apply to, say, detention without due process, or warrantless domestic surveillance, or aerial bombardment. George Bush could never disappoint me, but he never failed to disgust me.
What else, besides porn, is the internet for?
Pictures of cats, I hear.
156:IIR is an Optimist & Idealist.
Yes, "disappointment" is appropriate, as in "slightly below expectations". My own expectations happen to be very low:Rwanda low, Pol Pot low, Harry Lime selling bad penicillin to the children who survived ten years of total war low. I am pretty hard to disappoint anymore. The last 8 years have broken me.
I cannot invest anything in Obama. That Obama can't disappoint me does not make him a bad person, or bad President. He may be very good. I am just not going to trust him.
Saw This Movie the other night. Puppet Theatre Euripedes used to illuminate the stories of four men:gay evangelical, bank robber, German 70s terrorist, martial arts student turn turn turning their lives around.
None of them had any hope. None of them had expectations. It was hope that had fucked them up.
Hope, as do many things, obeys the well-known dictum "Once bitten, twice shy."
117 on Dishing it out: it's 'intent' as 'desire': you are deemed to have intended the results you desired, and not the ones you didn't desire.
Previously, on taking it in: it's 'consent' vs 'desire'.
I find that these discerned double effect consequentialist scenarios remind me of Simon Baron-Cohen's quizzes to diagnose autism.
Question for the lawyers: how can someone do something like this and not be disbarred? Do the rules go out the window when drug dealers are the victims?
I can't get the link in 142 to work, but is that the case that went through multiple juries after the government couldn't get convictions at first?
No. It's about a lawyer who was informing on his clients.
Reading comprehension is for nerds.
Thanks. Turns out that the case with the re-trials was in Florida, not this one.
Also, from the link in 167:
Throughout the trial, the jurors - who initially were allowed to go home at night - were blanketed with extraordinary security. They were careful not to learn each other's last names.
Each morning, they met at one of two locations, where federal marshals loaded them into white vans with blacked-out windows for the drive to the courthouse in Camden. The jurors moved through the building in groups, always escorted by marshals.
"Until the last day of deliberations, we said, 'This is like a movie,' We kept waiting for - what's that guy from 24?" she said, groping for the name of Kiefer Sutherland's character in the TV drama. "That's what it seemed like to us."
That couldn't possibly have affected the jurors judgment, could it?
And note that the story is pretty much juror number 3's version of events and that juror number 3's name seems to be withheld only because - she's going to write it up herself? Is that a normal journalistic reason for withholding a name?
Juror No. 3, a South Jersey grandmother, contacted The Inquirer after the holidays.
Her recollections were aided by her courtroom notes and a journal she wrote at night during the nine-week trial. Juror No. 3, whose identity The Inquirer has agreed to withhold, said she hoped to use them to write her own account.
I kept looking around for a racial breakdown of the jury with no success; it just seems unlikely that black people under the age of, oh, sixty would accept the sole testimony of a shady informant in a case this serious.
"Get over it" is one of my least favor it sayings. I might use it myself, but only when I'm intending to be horrible.
Incidentally, the movie IMDB-linked in 159, Protagonist was directed by Jessica Yu. The Euripidean play she uses as commentary on the four violent mens' autobiographies is The Bacchae
Here are some Introductory Notes on the Bacchae. I wish I had reread the play etc before I watched the movie, because the most pertinent (?) parts of the play aren't what she puts onscreen. Now it gets another star.
Marina Sirtis (STNG) was the voice of the Agave puppet, in ancient Greek with subtitles. Gilbert Murray 1911 trans, I think.
Bob should start watching and commentating on anime series. That would be more entertaining.
174:Currently following This Inscrutability but this blog is brutal on anime watchers
153 -- I'm still mad that Clinton pardoned Rich, and not Peltier. Can't always ever get what you want.
I kept looking around for a racial breakdown of the jury with no success.
Yeah, that would be interesting. Per Sifu's link, I'm kind of surprised Cherry Hill has as many as 5% black people. I would have guessed 70% white, 22% Asian (mostly Chinese, some Korean), 8% other.
Teenagely speaking, the girls at Cherry Hill H.S. must develop thick skins. I wonder if the Cherry Hill H.S. is located on an actual hill. (Or, God forbid, the Catholic girls' school).
