So the thread is derailled but bear with it, too bad, that was a too good question.
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Originally Posted by zteccc
@muspell
I'm not seeing the removal of rights happening. I'm not seeing anyone deny anyone's rights on a grand scale. I've discussed the incident that T.F.B.M raised and my rationale behind my belief that the Marine didn't commit a crime in this case. I agree that some members of the coalition have indeed violated the human rights of Iraqis. For example, the guards at Abu Ghraib, who are being prosecuted (some have already been) and sentenced. There have been other incidents and in each of these, the soldiers responsible have been investigated and prosecuted where appropriate. The United States takes this very seriously. At the same time, we have, in our nation, a belief that accusation doesn't imply guilt. In other words, a person is presumed innocent of crimes until that person is proven guilty. Each case must be looked at and reviewed. Doubtless, you have seen or heard of cases where you disagree with the outcome. So have I, but the cases were looked at by people in posession of more facts and a greater knowledge of law than you or I and I therefore accept the outcome. The point is that the cases were reviewed and prosecuted and if a person was found not-guilty by people in posession of all of the facts, then I am willing to accept that verdict.
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That 's a lot of blabla just showing that democratic people can see and live through facts without taking them into account.
It is funny to see that the democratic us took action with the proper evidences as required by democracy.
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Originally Posted by zteccc
The "democratic" values that you and T.F.B.M refer to are not "democratic" at all. The values that are held in the United States have little to do with democracy (indeed we aren't a truly democratic nation), but instead can be better described as American values. They don't have much to do with our governmental system, but instead are rooted in our culture, our faiths (where applicable), etc. Calling them universal wouldn't be appropriate because in our current world, there are many nations that don't agree with them. For example, many cultures don't agree in a right to life, or a right to liberty. Some nations don't agree with the idea of personal responsibility or individualism. These aren't therefore universal, any more than they are democratic. As such, we would be amiss in expecting those from other cultures to hold these same values, wouldn't we? Nonetheless, the values we hold are the measure we live by, so the question is, to a great extent, are we living by them?
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More blabla. No comment.
In every society, there are criminals. There are those who disregard the values of their society and their lives show this. The United States is a nation of over 300,000,000 people. In Iraq, there are about 150,000 soldiers. Some of those people are going to go against the ideals that the remainder of the nation stands for. The percentage of those who do this is going to be very small, probably less than 5% but it will be a real number. Focusing on that small percentage ignores the greater than 95% who commit no crimes and violate no rights. Consider this, as I wrote before, one of our values is the idea of personal responsibility. We hold each person to be responsible for his own actions. As such, if a criminal does commit crimes, we hold that person responsible, but we don't hold his family, his squadmates, his organization, his nation, etc. responsible. I would guess from some of the writing here that others don't agree with this. That the United States is responsible for the actions of its criminals. I submit that the United States is responsible to investigate criminal activity of its own citizens and prosecute them. The United States is doing this and will continue to do so. As such, we are our own watchdogs. There is a full arm in each of the military services dedicated to just such investigations and prosecutions. Have we seen a mass, government sponsored, violation of rights of Iraqis or foreign insurgents in Iraq? Have we instead seen a generally fair handling of this war with a few exceptions of criminal activity? I suggest that we've seen the latter in the general case.We take things case by case and look at the facts. That is how we can prosecute some soldiers and still defend others. We look at each detail of a given case as part of our legal process.
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How about, let's say respect of the private property right when it came to the indians? An action of a few? Or an action of an entire nation.
Again, a lot of blabla , poor democratic propaganda that is now overused.
The United States doesn't try to justify "just about everything".
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Originally Posted by zteccc
@T.F.B.M
Voting directly and having representatives are not equivalent in many respects. One of the things that makes democracy a poor governmental system is the inheirent oppression of minority viewpoints. With a direct vote, that will always be the case. As I've described, however, a representative system with the representatives free to vote as they will, means that minority viewpoints can and are heard. In short, sometimes a minority makes the rules and not just the majority as would occur in a democracy. Another thing a representative system gives us that a democracy wouldn't is the ability to make decisions quickly without halting society for 150,000,000+ voters to vote on day-to-day issues. Democracy would require daily votes of all concerned citizens and society would grind to a halt during those times. The representative system that we have allows society to proceed because there are professional legislators whose job it is to make these daily decisions. The governmental system in the United States would be better termed an elected oligarchy instead of a democracy. You mention the United States Constitution, I'm sure you're aware that the "democracy" is never mentioned in this document.
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Loads of words to Repeat things already said. Hammering a point of view...
Again, what do we have? We have the fact that democracy is described as a population voting on each issue.
No words about tribal regimes that acting the same way, that is people concerned involved in the decisions about the future of their tribe. Never those kind of regimes are described as a democracy because they are not.
No words about what prevents a society of free democratic people to opt for one form of governance and not another.
Still again what matters is the process not the form.
Better revealing of the lacks of the reasonings. Little is told about how the minorities get their word heard.
Somehow it is a very old debate which is actually undependent of democracy.
Representative governance versus direct governance.
A king represents his people. A tyrant represents his people.
Military aristocracy governed themselves.
Some tribal regimes governed themselves through direct consultation.
Etc... None of them are of course democratic.
Following the same pattern of thoughts, it can be felt that the best regime for the minorities is not the elective representative system but the representative system of the autocratic leader.
Representants in an elective system are elected. They owe their legitimacy in power from their electors. Since they are elected by the majority, they owe nothing to the minority.
If a minority makes its way to the elected leader, why should she bother about them? Even more, if he bothers and that goes against the majority's best interests, this is a betrayal since the majority elected the leader to look after their best interests and not the minority's best interests.
An autocrat is undependent of the population he rules over. If a minority makes its way to her, the leader has no problem making any course of action that is felt necessary to deal with the problem, with no betrayal.
So something else is needed to bring a common representative system to a higher level.
About the issue of the minorities in a direct democracy: here appears the difference explaining why a tribal regime living also on direct ruling is not democracy.
The major issue in that kind of democracy is to make the case known to the whole, to have a system allowing a case (be it a minority case or not) to get to the ears of everyone. This problem is similar in its nature to the one a minority faces when it tries to make its way to a representant in a representative system.
In the end, representants stand for what they are: a representant.
They dont stand for what their selfish opinions but are here to represent a mean of opinions.
So bringing an issue before an entire people or the representant of their mean opinion is the same: if the majority is against the issue being solved in a way, both system will give the same result.
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Originally Posted by zteccc
The root of values in the United States should be part of your concern. If values, for example, come from a given religion, then we would expect to see those values exhibited in all nations where that religion exists regardless of that nation's governmental systems. Similarly, if values come from an ethinc background or a cultural background, nations that share that background would exhibit those values regardless of their governmental systems. As such, the source of values is of great concern when you wish to make assertions about those values and their relationship to a governmental system.
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About the "source" of the democratic us values, at least some of them, another thread has been opened "which god did the founding fathers refer to?". Please feel free to use that thread instead of this one.
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Originally Posted by zteccc
I'm not certain how you tie the existence of values to the "excuse to intervene" in a sovereign nation's business and call that fact. At best is is an opinion of what happened and a derogatory one at that, suggesting that the value system of the United States is somehow used as an excuse for war. As such, it is criticism. Perhaps you'd like to provide a reference to the United States government, prior to the war, making the contention that "democratic values" were a reason for entering Iraq so that we can see the fact of such a statement. I've gone over the bases for this war in other posts and don't feel the need at this time to revisit them, but I "democratic values" weren't part of them.
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Universal values lead to the conclusion that certain regimes can be at fault towards their own population. If they are at fault, then it can be right for an exterior governement to intervene in those faulty regimes to right the wrong.
Should be quite easy to find some official points of view showing that this was the general feeling in democratic lands before the second war against iraq, notably about the kurdish population, the shiits, the women and so on...
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Originally Posted by zteccc
If they had been, especially if they had been a compelling part, then the United States would be "intervening" in the "business" of every nation that wasn't "democratic".
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On the contrary, that 's the very meaning of the word "excuse". Those democratic values are not the reason, the cause why the democratic us have entered the war against iraq. That 's an excuse. If that was a reason, yes, they would have to enter a lot of other countries. As it is an excuse, they dont have. And since they wont enter a lot of other countries, this shows that's an excuse.
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Originally Posted by zteccc
Truly enough, the United States wishes to see all peoples of the world exist in a government where self determination is a reality.
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Indian case? Slavery case? Women case? Just a few of the biggest domestic issues.
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Originally Posted by zteccc
Where people can select their own form of government and have the freedom to change it through a legal process if they so desire. These are desired by the United States government,
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take your breath, open wide your mouth, here comes the big bit to chew
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Originally Posted by zteccc
but we aren't forcing this requirement on other nations,
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huh huh, war against iraq is still not over, it is a bit too early to take such a stance...
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Originally Posted by zteccc
but instead are trying to effect this type of change diplomatically in all but a very few cases. Iraq is one of the exceptions and changing the government of Iraq is not one of the major bases of our presence there.
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Of course, how this would be?
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Originally Posted by zteccc
As to the idea of many forms of democracy, I would disagree.
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Your right. Your right too to write to your senator and tell him about your thoughts, to call your lawyer and start a procedure to get your point of view heard and adopt, your right to write a thesis in political sciences to reshape all the democratic history from the late seventeenth century up to now... Until that moment, I'll reasonably accept the idea maintained by most of the democratic people,from the lowest to the most powerful, that the democratic us are a democracy.
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Originally Posted by zteccc
While many have used the term democracy to define the United States and other nations, a true democracy is simply a direct vote by the citizens on all issues. That clearly isn't what exists in the United States and other nations, and so we struggle under a lack of proper terminology.
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What a pity when it is so common for the democratic us people to boast about the wealth of words of their language and its capacity to absorb foreign words when one is missing to cover a notion. Too bad that it happens for something as important as to describe the fact that democratic us are a democracy. Or is it maybe because there is no lack of word?
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Originally Posted by zteccc
My objection to using the word democracy to describe the United States is that the term is imprecise and brings with it some negatives that exist in a democracy but not in the United States' governmental system.
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Ummm not an unusual way for a democratic person actually: rejecting everything bad outside democracy. Can lead to reject democracy if one democratic person thinks that the regime is not a democracy.
Democracy is eternal. It doesnt depend on words.
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Originally Posted by zteccc
You ask what other universal values are. Since you are definitely part of the universal set, you should be able to answer this question as well. What do you think they are? What values, in your opinion are part of the base set of values that all (or even nearly all) humans or have?
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Undemocratic people, that's one of their characteristics, dont think of universal values as democratic people do. So for most of them there are no universal values.
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Originally Posted by zteccc
As to your statement about the Marine, you are (intentionally?) missing a few points. I didn't suggest that the Marine was justified in shooting the insurgent because his squadmate had been killed previously. I mentioned that previous killing to suggest the Marine's state of mind.
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But skipped real fast on the fact that a kid raised in a refugiee campement faces this kind of events quite often. Yet that kid is denied an equal consequence to his reaction to be branded as an enemy of civilisation.
(By the way, how can it be just civilisation and no several civilisations? A civilisation convey values. If there is only one...)
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Originally Posted by zteccc
A killing is justifiable if the killing is done in self defense or the defense of others. From watching the video, it is clear that the Marine was indeed fearful of the insurgent's potential to do harm. That fear was partially inflated by his squadmate's being killed previously and largely because the insurgent was in the middle of a decption (pretending he was dead).
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Blabla, blabla, blablablabla, we democratic people when we do something other do, that 's always different. Would have been shorter.
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Originally Posted by zteccc
Some of the facts in this case are: - The insurgents were non-uniformed combatants (which grants them no Geneva Conventions protection, it also means that they cannot claim civilian status, so the Marine didn't target a civilian here).
- The insurgents had not been under guard, they were not yet prisoners, and although they were wounded, it was not known whether they were armed (an unguarded enemy is presumed armed in combat).
- The extent of the insurgent's wounds weren't known to the Marines (so they couldn't know if they had the capacity to attack or not).
- One of the insurgents was attempting to deceive the Marines into thinking he was dead.
- In prior engagements with insurgents in Iraq, these Marines had experienced that the insurgents were willing to disregard the commonly accepted rules of warfare (including the Geneva Conventions) by doing such things as pretending to surrender and then shooting the troops who were trying to disarm them, booby-trapping their dead, hiding behind civilians and in civilian areas including mosques, etc.
- The Marine in question did not walk into the mosque shooting at every insurgent there (which would be the act of a man who was intent on simply killing or committing murder).
- The Marine didn't attack the remaining insurgents even after he killed the deceptive one (if he wanted to simply kill insurgents wouldn't he have killed them all?).
- The Marine's own words, at the time, show that he feared the insurgent.
Blabla, sinking deeper and deeper, no real answer to the point I made before: how could those fighters enter recognition of their rights when that recognition of those rights depends on their enemy?
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Originally Posted by zteccc
As such, it is reasonable to believe that the Marine acted in what the Marine perceived as self defense or defense of his squad.
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But it is not reasonable to believe that some iraqis took up the arms to fight people they perceived as invadors and to protect a country iraq they believe is theirs. They will always be non uniformed combatants and so (because as long as I can see, they have an outfit, which is no recognized as an uniform)
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Originally Posted by zteccc
As I understand it, the United States Marine Corps is not simply accepting this. The Marine has been pulled from his squad and the incident is under investigation. He will likely face a courts marshal and if found guilty will be punished appropriately.
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If he is unlucky, he will be punished a bit less than if he spat in the face of his officer.
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Originally Posted by zteccc
If he's found innocent, he will return to his duty. The challenge of law in this situation is to determine what the Marine was thinking. Was the Marine genuinely concerned with self defense? Was the Marine instead intentionally targeting this insurgent for death without regard to any of the rules of war?
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Well off the topic but who cares?
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Originally Posted by zteccc
Only the Marine can possibly answer this question, but as I've written before, in the United States, we presume innocence until a person is proven guilty. As such, I presume that the Marine was indeed in a state of mind where self defense is a reasonable motive. If it is later shown that this was not the case, that he wasn't acting in self defense, I'll be happy to reverse my opinion on this case, on this board.
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Hopefully in the proper thread.
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Originally Posted by zteccc
It is true that everyone is born a civilian (not just most people). The refugees in a Palestinian camp as well. If said refugees are being targeted by Israeli soldiers, they have the following recourses which will not mark them as terrorists and will be well within their rights:
1) Protest to the UN.
2) Protest to the Israeli government.
3) Join/form a uniformed Palestinian militia (uniforms are important because they identify soldiers as soldiers which can easily be differentiated from civilians).
If they remain non-uniformed, but only attack Israeli military targets (military targets as defined in the Geneva Conventions), then I wouldn't consider them terrorists (and enemies of civilization), although the Geneva Conventions still mark them as not being protected.
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Yes after all an uniform is a cheap means of not becoming an enemy of civilisation.
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Originally Posted by zteccc
That said, the Israeli soldiers who targeted civilians should be prosecuted. This isn't happening, at least partially, because of the nature of the conflict. The conflict is between an established military (the Israeli army) and a group of non-uniformed combatants (who are given no protection in any legal forum). What is worse (for the Palestinians) is that the non-uniformed combatants have targeted not only the Israeli military which would at least allow them to take a moral high ground, but they target civilians as well (which results in classifying them as terrorists), and they eschew the rules of war as defined in the Geneva Conventions. Because they are non-uniformed, the Israeli military (who must defend themselves from attacks and must defend the civilians as well), find themselves facing an enemy who hides in crowds, behind civilians. They are dressed as civilians (e.g. non-uniformed) and thus the Israelis have a very difficult task determining who is an enemy. Let me be very clear here. The Israeli soldiers who fire on civilians without a reasonable belief that those civilians are actually combatants should be prosecuted. It is, however the tactics of the Palestinians, in violation of the Geneva Conventions, that created the difficulty in the first place.
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Again, could have been made shorter by telling that israel is a democracy and palestine not.
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Originally Posted by zteccc
I fail to see how the idea of a popular vote (democracy) leads to nazism. Hitler's Nazi party was a dictatorship (e.g. the people had no vote), not a democracy or even a representative system. Please explain (clearly and with only the smallest leaps of logic) how you arrived at this conclusion.
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Please read again your statement. It implies that democracy, as a set of ideas, doesnt exist. Again you equate democracy with popular vote (without telling about tribal regimes which have a similar system of decision).
Again, the only real reason of making a valid point would be that you manage to get your point of view prevail officially, that democracy, as a set of ideas, never existed. Since you havent, and since democracy cant be reduced to the single fact of direct ruling, your all statement is devoid of any meaning.
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Originally Posted by zteccc
It isn't that the insurgents are not recognized that deprives them of rights. In fact they have human rights and in general those are respected. It is insted that they have forfeited their rights as combatants by disregarding all of the rules of war that would give them those rights. If they were uniformed. If they respected the rules of surrender. If they weren't targeting civilians, then they would be treated to a different standard. These are not the case.
-- Jeff
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Blaming own "failures" on the others' behaviours is not what can be called responsibility. Signatories of a treaty, believers in values commit themselves. Non believers, non signatories dont. A responsible signatory, a responsible believer doesnt explain their distorted behaviour because of the actions of others. |