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Originally Posted by dr. fager
maybe I didn't comprehend correctly....I guess she was saying would it be ok if we won at that cost....but boy it's close, that first sentence got me. there is the insinuation that CNN is keeping the soldiers morality in check as regards to rape at the end.
Sorry GR...I guess that SAT's are better kicked a in the math, however didn't do so well in the English
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Hey, Dr. Fager-- thanks for this post; I was all set to hit "reply" and say, "Dudes! That's not what I'm saying!" and then I read your post I quote here.
I was trying to say, what does do anything to win mean? Does it mean the poster advocating it is okay with rape? Torture? Abuse? Where's the line? If it's win dirty, there isn't one. It's easy to say we should win dirty or get out, but harder when we really think about what exactly winning dirty might mean. Judging from how angry fellow DTers got at even the implication that American soldiers might be raping Iraqis (other than that one case of those three or four American soldiers charged with raping that 14-year-old Iraqi girl, I don't know of any, by the way), I take that to mean that for all of the chest-beating of "win at any cost" the actual nuts and bolts of it horrify people, and that's a good thing; it should. Because some things are not okay to do in war, no matter what the cause.
Of course rape is not a tactic of, for want of a better word, civilized war. Because rape is not okay. But it has happened in virtually every assault of one people on another. Because it's effective at terrorizing and demoralizing the side under assault. It works-- look at women who, decades later, are still traumatized by it. Now, be that woman's husband. If you could stop that happening to her, even by surrender, would you? Which is more important to you, your government or your wife?
No, most American soldiers would never stoop to such tactics, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't still have rules about combat and capture and treatment of prisoners that we follow no matter what the other side is doing, or whether the news cameras are on or not. Whatever Bush's idiotic, Oedipal reasons for starting this nightmare may have been (not that I'm biased or anything), it's turning into a clash of an Islamic, faith-based culture against a Western, secular (kinda)- based one. And if we are to ever have any hope of persuading the average man or woman living in a repressive regime that West is Best, then we MUST, MUST take the high road, even in war. We must not torture, we must not abuse, we must make it clear that we value human life, all human life. Because if we don't, they will see no difference between us and them, and we truly are big, bad invaders.
Dr. Fager-- I bet you did fine on your verbal SATs- when I posted, I thought, I bet a lot of people misinterpret this statement, but I thought, well, let's see how they react. And, thankfully, they got upset and angry at the suggestion of American soldiers raping Iraqis. I don't think anyone posted with, "Hey, if it helps demoralize the opposition, go ahead, attack those women" or anything like that. Indicating that, words aside, most of us still believe in taking the high road in war or otherwise.