Woozle and Mike Debate Thread

It’s a banner day, my darlings. This is the first time on this blog that a thread’s filled up to the point where it has to be closed and a new one opened. They’ve requested a new forum, and their wish is my command.

Of course, I’m sure neither of them will object if anyone else wishes to join the debate. They’re currently discussing reality vs. fantasy in sex ed.

Enjoy!

Woozle and Mike Debate Thread
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Surprising News on the Separation of Church and State Front

Our official Thinking Brain Dog, Cujo359, has achieved fame as a Blog Against Theology blogger, and in so doing, found an interesting statistic:

A question that occurred to me during the most recent Blog Against Theocracy was, I’m sad to admit, just how popular is the idea that church and state should be separated. There have been a few polls related to that subject in the last few years. The most recent and thorough one that I’m aware of is the Pew Foundation’s 2008 poll on the relationship between religion and politics in America. I haven’t encountered any other poll organization that does as thorough a job of examining this subject, so new results are always interesting. Here’s what the Wall Street Journal had to say:

For the first time in more than a decade, a narrow majority of Americans say churches should stay out of politics, according to a poll released today by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

PewThe results suggest a potentially significant shift among conservative voters in particular. In 2004, 30% of conservatives said the church should stay out of politics while today 50% of conservatives today express that view.

Conservatives are now more in line with moderates and liberals when it comes to their views on mixing religion and politics. “Similarly, the sharp divisions between Republicans and Democrats that previously existed on this issue have disappeared,” Pew reports.

Pew Survey: More Americans Want Religion Out of Politics

Well, that’s hopeful. Too bad the rest of his post kinda kills the notion that Americans are finally done being rabid religious morons. But even so, this to me is a hopeful sign: if even conservatives are starting to realize that they should keep church and state happily separated, we might be able to preserve our republic after all.

Cujo’s post is excellent overall. Go. Read.

Surprising News on the Separation of Church and State Front

Get Out of the Cantina and Go Have Some Coffee

I think my heart sister NP is in the high-energy phase of her pregnancy. Her coffee house is hopping, and she’s got plenty of projects for you to participate in.

April is National Poetry Month (NPM). Care to join the celebration? NP’s making it easy for you:

If you’d like to share a poem, you can email me with the poem, poet, and source, and a few sentences about why you’re sharing the poem. You can send me a link to your NPM posts on your own blog or site and I’ll promote them, as well. If you’d like to send an original poem, please include a few sentences about yourself to serve as a brief bio.

I’ll be doing that in just a few days here. Maybe I’ll even be really cruel to you lot and post a Dana Hunter original.

If you’re poetically inclined, you can participate in NaPoWriMo. This year, they’re not just encouraging you to write a poem a day, but gather sponsors to keep poetry freely flowing through the intertoobz. NP will be happy to give you some exposure by posting links to your poetry. I’m not much of a poet, so I’m giving this one a miss. Still, it’s a fun idea, and for a good cause!

Want some handcrafted love from a professional writer? NP has a pay-it-forward project going. Act fast – there’ll only be five lucky people! I’ll stay out of the running so you have a chance, although I feel like I’m cheating. NP’s already giving me something homemade: a nephew. So, if you lose out over at her place, comment here and get a little something crafty from Dana. I make no warranties as to quality, however.

And, finally, there’s the 100 Books Project:

Andromeda Ramano-Lax, and friend of Moonrat, decided to collect “a list of 100 books that she wants to have read in her life to fill in some of her reading gaps of classics and great contemporary fiction.” She gave herself 5 years to get through the list, and gave herself a 75% passing percentage (meaning if she finishes 75 titles in the 5-year span, she’s accomplished her goal).

Got title suggestions? Send ’em to her! And if you decide to create your own list, let both of us know so we can link you.

It’s nice to think of something other than pollyticks for once, innit? Go have yourselves some fun! I’ll meet you back here later for more fun with stupity.

Get Out of the Cantina and Go Have Some Coffee

The Wisdom of Readers

Last December, inspired by George at Decrepit Old Fool, I wrote about cluster bombs and worldviews. Tonight, I received an incredibly insightful comment from Longo05. I’m reprinting it here in full, because it deserves an audience:

Hey, I literally stumbled onto this blog via stumbledupon and thought I would articulate with you on this issue.

Background: I am a current college student and former Marine Sergeant. I helped facilitate communication for combat operations in an infantry regiment. I am generally liberal and a fierce individualist. I don’t believe in nationalism, but do believe in military service. I say this mostly because I feel that the speaker is as integral to what is spoken, and whom it is spoken to.

I couldn’t agree more with you about accountability, and the individual accountability that a person is responsible when he or she fires a weapon. I think that the same goes for any munitions fired, generally. How can you not qualify a statement like that?

When it comes to cluster bombs, they are indeed force multipliers, but were also designed for a certain type of warfare. It is important to clarify that cluster bombs were not designed for urban operations; they were designed to engage large-scale, regular forces on a field of battle. These weapons are used in what we typically call a ‘force-centric’ battle, meaning that the battle is fought in an attempt to reduce the number of enemy combatants. This is also known as conventional warfare, if there are such things as conventions on a battlefield. I am afraid this is an oxymoronic term.

The current operations in Afghanistan are considered non-conventional in nature, or asymmetric, or ‘population-centric.’ These are terms generally used to describe counter-insurgency, or COIN operations. It is the goal, ideally, to subordinate ‘hard power’ (military operations) to ‘soft power’ operations, such as: political means, stability operations, reconstruction, or any other operations that help to secure the local population and make the populations feel secure and safe. (A significant portion of these concepts and terms are explained in the U.S. Army Counter-Insurgency Manual, or can be found in a historical and contextual book called “Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife” by John Nagal )

The best way to achieve these operational goals is to place enough security on the ground to achieve an overt and trustworthy relationship among the local populace. This is why most people agree that the ‘surge’ in troops, which Gen. Petraeus instituted, in Iraq was instrumental in quelling, at least the last portion, of the insurgency.

These operations call for exactly the opposite of what the person you cited described. In fact, the best way to attempt to achieve victory in Afghanistan is too indeed place more troops in potential danger and then to place them in more danger by subordinating military operations to stability operations. In fact, tying our, if I may, hands is exactly what needs to be done.

As a matter of fact, many NYTimes article actually attributed a significant number of Afghani civilian deaths to targets of opportunity, i.e. unplanned missions on suspected combatants, and most notably to a lack of proper ground troops to monitor and ensure enemy status. This is something that military commanders are realizing more and more every day.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/23/world/asia/23military.html?pagewanted=print

There are countless articles that show that Defense Secretary Gates wants to reduce the military operations and budget in order to generate more Dept. of State responsibility and personnel, to better facilitate the ‘soft power’ function.

I think that whoever may have said that information that you cited was misinformed and had no right to speak on the matter. I also think that the term collateral damage is a term popularized by under sensitive and over stimulated Hollywood commandos ravaged by an antiquated machismo, bravado culture. I have never heard the term collateral damage in any military operation. I have heard civilian casualties and accidental, but I will note that they are usually attached to unfortunate, and senseless.

I think you might be surprised in how much caution is taken, how much regard for human life is honored, as it rightfully should. A friend, and subordinate, of mine was in Iraq during Operation Phantom Fury during OIF III, when they surrounded Fallujah and after a forced evacuation, considered anything left in the city a combatant. During house-to-house sweeps, they discovered a family that had not evacuated, and under those military parameters were within their jurisdiction to fire upon them.

Rightfully so, they identified the family and took the initiative to facilitate the families evacuation. They even ensured that they were attended by a medical staff and properly fed and hydrated (as they were under blockade-type siege for days). This situation cost them time and resources that were taken away from the conflict, but they did the right thing. They didn’t j
ust level houses to save their own Asses.

I don’t think that service members go out and dehumanize their enemies. It has been my experience that we don’t dehumanize the enemy because we don’t want to take lightly our responsibility. It’s easy to picture service members as systematic robots, if you watch enough bullshit television. I hope that people don’t, just as I have always explained to my Marines that the people we face are brothers, fathers, and sons as well. I explain that we need to treat the enemy as humanly as possible when they surrender, just as I was explained to and honored. I think it commonly known that service members, on both sides, are just trying to do right by our respective countries. We’re just trying to get home too, and will willingly get enemy combatants home as best we can, especially if they don’t want to fight.

I would also disagree that war is sometimes necessary. I think that it is intelligently agreeable that war is the worse possible event and the biggest tragedy of politics. War is not a sport, it is not a pastime, it is not romantic, and it is not necessary. No one person’s life is more valuable than another’s. No one country’s troops are more valuable than another’s. We’re all equal, and equally fucked and wrong when war is declared (or not in this instance).

I think that if we are going to blame people, we should start with our democratic constituency, politicians, and the media, every American that started the war, or sat by idly as it began. Militaries are coercive tools of diplomacy; so much as guns are tools of shooters. We believe that a shooter is responsible for the rounds they fire, and I believe that politicians are responsible for militaries they deploy. There is nothing natural about killing, and nothing normal about dehumanizing killing, not even for glittering generalities, like Democracy and Freedom.

I have heard that ‘it is better to fight them over there, than over here’ and that ‘with us or against us’ rhetoric too and I think that all those generalities are as idiotic as the people they work on. Generalities on subject matter as multifaceted and complex as these issues are cannon fodder for the simple-minded and should be dismissed with equally generalized sayings, with starkly opposing views such as: “Fighting for peace, is as productive as screwing for virginity.”

It’s going to take some time, and more than one reading, before I’ve absorbed all the lessons Longo05 managed to pack in here. And I hope he starts a blog of his own. I’ve got a lot to learn from him. I think we’d all benefit.

Muchas gracias, mi amigo. And the same to all of my wonderfully wise readers. You guys make this all worthwhile.

(An extra tip o’ the shot glass to whoever it was put me up on Stumbleupon. Thankee kindly! Welcomes to all those who dropped by for the cluster bombs and stuck around for the rest.)

The Wisdom of Readers

To My Australian Readers

Please take any and all steps necessary to avoid burning to death or drowning. It doesn’t look pretty Down Under at all.

That would be a NASA satellite photo of fires in Victoria that have killed upwards of 71 people. Not good.

And while bits of Australia fry to a crisp, other bits flood. As if this weren’t bad enough, I discover my Aussie friends now face chronic crocodiles, among worse dangers:

Local media said huge crocodiles in the centre of some towns around the Gulf of Carpentaria have hampered rescue efforts and large numbers have reportedly been seen swimming towards the 60 km-wide (37-mile) mouth of the flooded Norman River.

Manager of the Albion Hotel in Normanton, Donna Smith, said a four-metre (13ft) crocodile had been seen stalking residents and dogs in the flooded main street.

She also warned the town was expected to run out of beer in two days.

“We can put up with a lot of drama, no fruit and veggies, but nobody wants a pub with no beer,” Ms Smith told Brisbane’s Courier-Mail newspaper.

Seriously, you guys. Stay safe. And should you need a couch, well, I’ve got one. Beer could certainly be arranged.

To My Australian Readers