Attempts by the left (or, if you prefer, left-leaning “moderates”) to keep the White Phosphorus chemical weapons story alive continues apace —though the new tactic seems to be to soften the stance a bit in order to paint the use of WP more as an open moral question than as a question either of legality or battlefield effectiveness.
From Michael Sticking’s “What is white phosphorus?”
I come back to this: What message does the use of WP send to those whose hearts and minds the U.S. is trying to win over? After all, they’re not interested in whether or not WP is a chemical weapon by definition or whether or not the U.S. is a signatory to this or that convention or protocol or whatever. They’re not interested in the chemistry of WP or its deployment on the battlefield as a smoke-screening agent. Rather, they’re interested in how the U.S. conducts itself in a war of its own making as it attempts to spread freedom and democracy around the world, in speech if not always in deed.
Perhaps the Pentagon—perhaps America’s civilian leadership—needs to do a better job explaining why it does what it does. If it was absolutely necessary to use WP on the battlefield in Fallujah, then make that case. If it wasn’t, then there’d better be a good reason why it was used.
The first message being sent is this: the US military will use the legal weapons in its arsenal to defeat battlefield enemies, and that our military is trained in the use of these weapons and so is aware of when and how to use them.
The second message is that there is no end to the willingness of war critics to try to invent a sense of US wrongdoing in order to force our military leadership onto the defensive. The fact of the matter is, the use of these weapons was a legal, tactical battlefield decision (one that proved effective against entrenched terrorists)—and for those without the requisite background information to demand an investigation into each and every battlefield decision they want to claim, without foundation, might hurt us in our “hearts and minds” campaign (even as it is they who raise the questions to begin with, and so are doing the actual damage), is simply a way to damage the war effort by creating a series of false dilemmas.
Again, there is nothing to this WP story, as countless military personnel have attested (and continue to make clear).
These self-righteous attempts by Sticking and his ilk to create from battlefield engagements little mini-morality tales that are designed to show that the US—though technically and legally operating under the rules of warfare—is somehow still failing us, if only as a representative of our cultural “morality,” are nothing more than little mini anti-war PR blitzes designed to mimic civic and moral concern.
And they are transparent ones, at that.
(h/t INDC)
By Sticking’s definition (“What message does the use of WP send to those whose hearts and minds the U.S. is trying to win over?”), everything our military does is problematic. Like it or not – and clearly the “moderate” left doesn’t like it – our military is there to fight for us and not to be out diplomats. The fact that our military can also be diplomatic and compassionate is a testament to its stunning ability and a reflection of its ultimate goals.
It was a war crimes witch hunt, is what it was.
What we all need to accept is that war waged by the United States is worse than genocide, mass imprisonment, mass torture, mass rape, ethnic cleansing, and enforced starvation carried out by any other nation on the planet.
An American soldier firing a single bullet is a bigger atrocity than all thirty years of Saddam’s reign.
If they do not invent wrongdoing then they have to face reality. In the reality based community this is very scary, because spreading freedom means admitting we have freedom here at home (shivers)
Funny, all this caturwalling about WP, yet hardly a word about Halabja and the WMD’s used by Saddam on his own people. Nor a word about the mass graves unearthed in Iraq. No real discussion on the left about Abu Graib, under Saddam and what went on in that very same complex they so love to hold up as a symbol of American evil. Hmm, calling terrorists, paramilitary murder squads and criminals, ‘insugents’ or ‘guerrillas.’
The language employed by the left against the War on Terror must have Orwell weeping in his grave.
Stupid Ayyraqi Bedouin savages: why don’t you listen to our Protein nutritionist-in-chief?
White Phosphorus is actually good for brain and nerve formation in children.
Unlike cynical French and Soviet arms merchants who fed you “YELLOW cake†from the BLACK continent (yuck, disgusting!), your “compassionately conservative†liberators have decided to contribute to the edification of a new generation of healthy cum freedom-loving Ayyrabz : and we even gave your kids premium quality WHITE products!
Long live el Presidente Bush!
Long live Shariaa-based Islamic Law and the institutionalized persecution of second-class citizen such as women, Sunnis and Christians in “Grand†Ayatollah Sistani’s “free Iraq†for which we’ve spent a mere $800 billion in taxpayers money and the life of 2,200+ American kids!
Long live our Liberty-loving social-democratic friend His Wahhâbiness King Abdullah of Riyadh, Mecca and Houstonistan and his coterie of clerically enlightened Saudi friends of freedom!
Dr Victorino de la Vega
Chair of the Thomas More Center for Middle East Studies
http://www.mideastmemo.blogspot.com/
um… OK
Long live caturwalling!!!!
I am not clairvoyant, so I can’t speak with Mr. Sticking’s certainty, but from what I know of Iraq’s history I would be surprized if this is actually what they are thinking.
The moral standing of the US will never be restored until it ceases to use weapons of weapony weapponness on the battlefield.
Dr Ocarina de la la la la la la Bamba…
Jeff is that you??
…besides, I think I remember chopping rails of Willy Pete in undergrad…
(emphasis added)
..it did burn like a mother though
I’m beginning to be a bit more sanguine about this.
One of the functions of an Army is to be scary. In a Tom Clancy book, the (fictional) President tells his aide, “I want them quaking in their boots before the first PFC steps off an airplane.” The scarier your army is, the more likely it is you’ll never have to actually use it.
So our beloved “moderate” is playing into our hands. If he and Dottorino de la Puta keep playing it up, all we’ll have to do is sneer and people will roll over and play dead, and sneers are cheap.
On the other hand, if they succeed in making the Army give up being scary, we’ll get attacked a lot. That means we can blow up people with a clear conscience.
It’s a win-win for us RWDB warmongers. Encourage it.
Regards,
Ric
My commenters are ever denying Kos and TP ever stated WP was a chemical weapon or that the troops were war criminals.
I give up.
Dear Dr. Vega,
I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but apparently someone has gotten hold of your email address, and is using it to post comments on various web sites. This person is apparently no more than 12 years old, badly ill-informed, and is doing great damage to your reputation.
I suggest you find this person and punish him immediately. You might want to consider grounding him, or sending him to bed without supper.
Sincerely,
The various commenters
at Protein Wisdom
John,
No offence but that is not suprising in the least.
Yeah, who do the Shia and Kurds think they are, persecuting the poor Sunnis just for blowing up thousands of people with car bombs? What’s the middle east coming to, I ask you?
And somebody tell those durned American kids over there to stop playing with that white phosphorus. Somebody’s going to get hurt.
Oh, isn’t this a great idea. In the heat of battle, the military is supposed to be planning the subsequent PR campaign before they select ordinance.
Note that the “case” to be made is whether WP was “absolutely necessary,” not whether it was just a convenient tool to help whack some bad guys.
Is it really even necessary that we even use bullets? We have the resources to train and field an army of silent, non-lethal ninja warriors. THE US IS IMMORAL.
WP, DU, WMD… Prove or refute any alphabet horror and there are 26 more letters that will rise to take their place PDQ
Yet we and the Iraqi people are still winning. Must be terribly frustrating.
This is why we didn’t “level” Fallujah when everyone on the right wanted to.
This is why we didn’t “level” Fallujah when everyone on the right wanted to.
John,
You’re a nice guy and I agree with you often. Your comments section needs fumigating. I know, chemical weapons, pesticides, and all that, but man, you’ve got some certifiables over there.
Cheers,
David
Excuse me, but is Dr. Whozit de la Vega a real person? Is there really a Thomas More Center for Middle East Studies? Do we know? Do we care? Can we get him a more comfy chair for that poker up his butt?
Nan:
No, no, yes, we shouldn’t, I’d suggest replacing the poker with a splintery stick.
SPEECHSTIFLER!!!!!
Happy couple of days after Thanksgiving, proteinoids! Hope yours was a good one.
Turing = sat, as in After that repast, even though it was a prepackaged Holiday Feast In A Box from Sams, we just sat around for the next couple of days.
Dr. Vega has become something of a fixture around here–like the half-naked guy with Howard Hughes hair on my street corner wearing a “Repent Sinners/Jesus is Coming” sandwich board. I think he’s waiting for the sainted ghost of Edward Said to descend and take him up in a cloud.
spamword: “I am as one mocked of his neighbour, who calleth upon God, and he answereth him: the just upright man is laughed to scorn.”
The target audience of the WP message is the terrorist. The message is quite simple: We’re coming to kill your ass.
Any message beyond this is part of a false narrative constructed by the left. In a sense this is a lot like the attempt to paint William Bennett as a racist. Ignore plainly stated intent, assign a strawman intent, and attack the strawman.
Professor de la Vega is Chair of the Thomas More Center for Middle East Studies, at Amaurot Heights, Oklahoma.
Google Maps knows of no such place, nay, verily, no Amaurot anywhere in the Unites States. Amaurot is merely a fictional island found in the writings of Thomas More.
An acclaimed expert on (failed) neocon policy analysis, he has published over two articles and five postings in leading parts of the blogoshpere and beyond. Kinda suggests that he doesn’t take himself much more seriously than we do.
he has published over two articles and five postings in leading parts of the blogoshpere and beyond.
So that’s where he’s cutting and pasting all his comments from.
The important thing to acknowledge here is that Dr. Barbarino de la Vinnie has totally been stealing my material. I HAVE PRIOR ART ON CAPITALIZING THE NAMES OF COLORS, ASSHOLE. Now we can handle this like gentlemen, or we can get into some gangsta shit.
Exactly Tom. If many of them had their way, war itself would be a war crime, at least so far as it involved the United States. While they’ll often excuse the most awful creatures and leaders on the planet, they show absolutely no understanding of their own country’s perspective.
Strange, it’s almost as though these leftist don’t want us to win.
Cutler,
I think they understand their country’s perspective very well, actually. They just hate it and want to change it drastically. Oh, and they are definately not pacifists. I think some of them would even support this war if their guy had been in office on 9/11. But a few of the others want a war on the rest of us.
Maybe for the full-on partisan hacks, *cough*joshmicahmarshall*cough*, but the Berkley and Birkenstocks crowd is beyond all that. I’m sure the Democratic leadership would have stayed hawkish.
Sadly, I also have this suspicion that there’d be plenty of spineless Republicans in congress suddenly fond of saying “give peace a chance”. Guess that’s the nature of the two-party system.
Sortelli,
Yeah, but the Berkeleyites would be against anything because it gives them the chance to take there clothes off in public (“in protest”). I think the Democrat hacks and “moderates” would have supported the invasion, and the number of limpdick Rebublicans would have been quite small.
You’re probably right about that, runninreb, and that makes me feel a little better about it. At least my position wouldn’t have changed, and hopefully the wider military experience on the right side of the aisle would prevent the entire GOP from going the way of Nancy Pelosi.
I’ve just been thinking lately how, just given the political spectrum of the American public, the idiots in the DNC didn’t have much of a choice but to pander to the far-left loon crowd. It’s not like they’d have anything to gain by continuing to support the WOT, no one’s going to vote for them that way.
I’d guess the same principle would apply in reverse, if a Democrat was leading the charge there would be some Republicans who would opportunistically decide that their best course would be to oppose him just to play for the votes of people who opposed the war. The hideously naked old people in Berkley got real chummy with the Pat Buchanan/David Duke wing of the right over their mutal opposition to the war, after all.
Sortelli,
I hear ya. It takes a party with honor to do what is right when it means remaining the minority. That’s the Democrat’s problem in a nut shell. It also doesn’t help that they have given over the operations and fundraising duties to the far-left groups. I don’t think the same structural and vision problems exist in GOP, though.
Re: Pat Buchanan/David Duke/Berkeleyites– I think the common denominator there was the Joos
I meant the “Zionists” there, of course.
I wonder if it has dawned on the lefties that there are literally millions of Americans, veterans of WWII, Korea, the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Gulf I and the Saddam Excavation, who know exactly what WP is because they’ve been trained in its use, and either used it in combat or seen it used?
Maybe because they never meet them at Starbucks and the faculty lounge, they don’t think these people know they’re being bullshat when they hear it?
Using this logic, we should restrict ourselves to nerf-bats and hugs.
Forgive me if I posted this link earlier, but here’s proof that the hard left was never going to be in favor of anything the Bush administration did in response to 9/11.
My problem is I don’t see how any real man could worry about the definition of torture and detainees rights when interogating the cretins responsible for things like this.
As far as I am concerned nothing is off-limits when dealing with this level of evil. Nothing.
Damn, wrong thread.
I can’t for the life of me understand what Michael Stickings is doing on a blog called “The Moderate Voice”. There’s no real counterweight to his obvious and shrill (at least to me) liberal posting. Since he’s been there even Joe Gandleman, who I used to read regularly every day, had been leaning more to the left in his posts – not a lot, but enough so that it’s noticeable to me. I don’t think I go there once a week now, simply because I can’t stand to read two sentences into anything Stickings writes and even Gandleman’s posts are getting to be tiresome.
If “The Moderate Voice” is going to have a nutter AMERICAblog clone posting on the site, the least they can do is to get a fire-breathing Republican over there, too.
Well, if no one else will…
I love the smell of white phosphorus in the morning.
It smells like victory.
I read the MV post and would like to weigh in on this with a post. But as I really don’t care if we nuke the sum bitches … I doubt it would advance your argument … much.
Exactly. We weren’t trying to win hearts and minds in this case. Trying to destroy them I do believe.
I must admit the military needs better marketing. I’d like to see us using napalm on the terrorists. Skip this cluster bomb crap – watch them burn. Then we put an ad on Al Jazeera – Do your 72 virgins want you medium rare, or well done…
Americans are off-limits.
My brother’s trying to get Russ Feingold to sponsor a “Truth in Ordnance Labelling Law.”
I heard a rumor that Coalition Forces are using real bullets and not recyclable cardboard. The bastards.
Pat Patterson  Don’t forget, when we had to buy ammunition from Israel, it was a Democratic Congressman who actually said he was worried we would offent the Arabs by shooting them with Jewish bullets…
Tyrone Power did a film in the 50’s King of the Khyber Rifles where the native troops refused to touch the paper cartridges for fear that the waterproofing was grease from rendered pigs. I guess kosher ammunition has been around for quite a while.
Were it not for napalm I would have died in 1950 and all the lefties would have been denied an object of scorn. Of course, I used WP, so I guess there’s no redemption for me.
Probably, in the sense that my bookcases are the John Nowak Library of World War II History, Marvel Comics, Role Playing Games and Porn.
KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL…what a beautiful, christian word. Lets use all kinds of weapons, so we can be just like Sadaam Hussein…..GUNs are beautiful….KILLING is SO CHRISTIAN….Everybody must KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL….TORTURE TORTURE TORTURE TORTURE TORTURE…..All in the name of Jesus Christ…..Sounds beautiful doesnt it?????Am I a good conservative, neo-con, right ?-winger yet?????
Question: do the extra question marks make the questions more, like, questiony? Or did you just lose your meds again?
Tourette’s with a typewriter?