OK, call me a sucker, but with sweet talk like this tweet below, I’ve decided to reconcile with Tulsi Gabbard after a mere three weeks’ estrangement from her. I haven’t changed my mind on her impeachment vote, but I’ve recently discovered the wonders of that strange and paradoxical virtue, “forgiveness.” As I’ve learned from a pioneering work of Biblical exegesis in a recent issue of Women’s Day,* forgiveness isn’t just kindness to others, but kindness to ourselves. And if kindness to oneself isn’t the essence of virtue, I don’t know (and don’t want to know) what is. Continue reading
Tag Archives: warfare
War with Iran (4): The Target Package
Donald Trump has famously and idiotically tried to assuage fears of a war with Iran with the assertion that he had Qasem Suleimani killed not to start a war but to prevent one. Putting aside the ad hoc quality of his reliance on the distinction between the intended and the foreseen, this happens to be a classic case of its total irrelevance: it doesn’t much matter in this context whether Trump intended to start a war, or merely foresaw that he might start one, or just recklessly took his action without thinking too hard about what he was doing. Yes, there’s a distinction to be drawn between a war brought about by intention and a war brought about through extreme recklessness. But it’s a distinction without a difference in a case where the action leading to war initiates force and violates any plausible conception of prudential rationality to boot. It doesn’t help that the rationalization for it comes from a pathological liar. Continue reading
War with Iran (3): Antiwar Activism with Student-Soldiers
An excellent (and for me, live) question on Facebook care of Mark LeVine, Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History at UC Irvine:
So, fellow academics — The new quarter/semester starts, you get an active duty or reserve service member in your class who might be deployed because of this nightmare Trump is so gleefully creating for us. Do you reach out to her/him and advise/urge/suggest that s/he refuse to deploy for anything related to a war with Iran, explaining that such a war would be a crime against humanity? Or do you wait for them to come to you if they so choose?
War with Iran (2): Moral Blackmail and Salvation by Faith
The moral blackmail regarding Iran has begun, and often enough, it sounds like this:
If you had certain intelligence of an imminent threat on American lives, would you or would you not use military force to stop the person responsible for it?
If you say that you wouldn’t, you sound like a callous traitor, willing to sacrifice American lives to the Iranian regime. If you say you would (or even “I would under these circumstances”), you’re effectively ratifying the Trump Administration’s decision to kill Qasem Suleimani, and by implication ratifying-in-advance whatever decision it ends up making about war. And that’s the whole game. Continue reading
War with Iran? (1)
Well, major escalation at any rate. The New York Times tries to walk it back in a pro forma attempt to identify the aggressor. They get an “A” for effort, but “How did the confrontation escalate?” is not an answer to “Who initiated the aggression?”or “Who, if anyone, is the aggressor?” I discussed that issue here a few months ago. It’s come up here as well. (And here: Vicente Medina’s response to me.) I’m inclined to think that we’re the aggressor.
“Trump Approved the Turkish Invasion of Syria”
Truth, they say, is the first casualty of war. Here’s one:
On Oct. 6, the day President Trump spoke to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and gave tacit approval for a Turkish military invasion, the American military had around 1,000 troops in Syria.
Isn’t there a clear difference between acquiescence in an action and approval of it? I’ve acquiesced in the Trump presidency; it doesn’t follow, and isn’t true, that I “approve” of it, whether explicitly or tacitly. What is the evidence for the claim that Trump approved of, or “gave approval for,” the Turkish invasion of Syria? Continue reading
The Cloud Is Moving Nearer Still
Consider two countries, X and Y.
X and Y sign an agreement. X unilaterally pulls out of the agreement at will, then attacks Y through the imposition of sanctions. Y insists on complying with the original agreement.
X then imposes secondary sanctions on any countries that do business with Y. Y insists on complying with the original agreement.
Time passes. X attacks Y again with more sanctions. The sanctions begin to take their toll. Y still complies with the original agreement.
Eventually, Y, the weaker party, decides to attack a third party, Z, which X had (unilaterally) pledged to defend. Y’s rationale: in attacking this third party, Y pulls X into a conflict where it, Y, enjoys a certain advantage that it doesn’t enjoy in a direct, frontal attack on X, which Y cannot win. The attack creates physical damage but no human casualties. Continue reading
Sing It Again, Y’all: Bret Stephens’s War With Iran
From a Bret Stephens column on the “Gulf of Oman” crisis:
Trump might be a liar, but the U.S. military isn’t. There are lingering questions about the types of munitions that hit the ships, and time should be given for a thorough investigation. But it would require a large dose of self-deception (or conspiracy theorizing) to pretend that Iran isn’t the likely culprit, or that its actions don’t represent a major escalation in the region.
How many fallacies do you see there? I was at first tempted to count two.
The first is a begged question: the U.S. military’s version of the event is true because the U.S. military doesn’t lie.
The second is either a poisoned well or two of them: if you don’t believe the U.S. military’s version of the story, you are (1) self-deceived or (2) engaged in conspiracy theorizing. Continue reading
Droning On
I’m teaching the issue of drone warfare and targeted killing in one of my ethics classes, the fifth or sixth semester in a row I’ve taught this material, via Kenneth Himes’s 2016 book, Drones and the Ethics of Targeted Killing. It’s been a frustrating, even despair-inducing experience: Of the 90 or so students enrolled, only half attend. Of the 45 of who attend, 40 are utterly indifferent to the material, unmoved even by the most shocking finding, revelation, or video I can throw at them.
My students–whether rich or poor, urban or suburban, black or white–simply do not care whether drones increase or decrease the incidence of terrorist attacks, much less whether their use is in any sense morally justified. Whether drones kill innocents or kill “bad guys,” whether the targets are justified in resisting U.S. policy or obliged to lie down and take it: none of this is nearly as important as whatever they’re doing on their phones. Continue reading
9/11 + 17: Lessons
I post this every year around 9/11, so here it is again. Though it isn’t up yet, Chris Sciabarra’s annual 9/11 series is always worth reading and should be up soon. And feel free to take a look at my recent apologetic essay here in defense of terrorism, eventually slated for publication in Reason Papers as part of a symposium on Vicente Medina’s Terrorism Unjustified.
We’re just a few days away from the seventeenth anniversary of 9/11. Here are a few of the lessons I’ve learned from the last decade and a half of perpetual warfare. I offer them somewhat dogmatically, as a mere laundry list (mostly) minus examples, but I have a feeling that the lessons will ring true enough for many people, and that most readers can supply appropriate examples of their own. Continue reading
