Surge would make a difference, huh?

[RetiredGySgt]

It's not Saddam's country anymore either. (this is a kinda cool forum with lots of alternative viewpoints and I'm a noob so I'll refrain from adding bitch to the end of that sentence)

Kirk is a rhaa rhaa boy for liberals in general, Obama in particular. He has not only drunk the koolaid he has an intraveinious feed attached to his brain.

 

[editec]

The "Surge" how silly people have become when their only praise for is for massive military buildups.

paradigm iraq immoral

Once Upon a Time...: Trapped in the Wrong Paradigm: Three Handy Rules

"I repeat: the entire war and occupation are immoral. If you criticize the Bush administration on the grounds that it "bungled" the war, this leaves one, and only one, inevitable implication: if they had prosecuted the war and occupation "competently," then you would have no complaints whatsoever. That is: you think the invasion and occupation of Iraq were justified and moral. If that's what you actually think, you belong in the Bush camp. You're arguing over managerial style, and about issues that are entirely trivial."

I did not think the war was in my nation's best interest.

Once we'd gone to war, and won, I thought it was in my nation's best interests (and that of the people of Iraq, too, coincidently) for the USA to stabilize that place, such that the Iraqi could reconstiute a viable government, so that them we could, as quickly as possible, withdraw our troops.

I do not take that managment position because I thought it was the moral position (although it proabably was the most moral position one could take) but because, again, I thought it was in my nation's best interests.

So yes, as it pertains to the issue of the occupation, you are absolutely right. My position is merely one of managment style, again, not a moral issue.

Morality typically had nothing to do with foreign policies.

Consider the possibible philosophical position that national interests are pretty much always beyond moral considerations.

Are you shocked by that theory?

It is a shocking theory, isn't it?

Nevertheless, I think that is true.

Nations are not moral entities, they are at best (one hopes) entirely pragmatic entities seeking to maximize benefits to its people and to minimize intruding on their freedoms.

If morality were the entire issue, then the mere existence of a national border is immmoral.

What right, morally speaking, do any of us have to tell anyone else that they may, or may not cross a border? Certainly borders are not inhernetly moral, but in fact inherently immoral.

What right, morally speaking, do any of us have to limit the actions of any other of us?

We sieze land and lay claim to it and we do not share the bounty of that land with other people whose claim to it is, morally speaking, no worse and no better than ours.

So nations (indeed the concept of private property or national property) are almost by definition an immoral act.

You see my point, here?

But this is the system we inherited from nature.

Given that, the best we can do, is what works in our nation's best interests.

Generally speaking, I find that working in a nation's best interests , in the long run, coincidently leads us to take what I think is the least morally repugnant path.

But not always.

I expect that many of you will think me entirely amoral for thinking that way.

I am not.

As a person I can try to live a moral life, but ONLY given that the world that I must deal with is not a moral one, in many cases.

Likewise, nations can attempt to be as moral as possible, but ONLY given that the nation must deal with a world that is not moral... in many cases.

No, this is not the "Might makes right" argument.

This is the "Leading a moral life is NOT a suicide pact" argument.

There are times when moral men have no choice but to commit immoral acts just to survive.

We live in a jungle. Mother nature is ammoral.

Morality, as you and I think of it, is a luxury, (or perhaps a management style) not an apodictic truth.

UNLESS you are convinced that GOD is on your side, of course.

Then you can delude yourself that whatever you do or not is moral.

Do you believe that?

Then you grant yourself the luxury of calling whatever you do to protect yourself moral.

But when other people do what they must to protect their interests, they can them call what they do moral, too.

Morality is often nothing more than convenient rationalization we grant ourselves for doing immoral things because it suits one's needs to do them in a world that does not have any morality to begin with.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

I agree completely. Nations are not moral, they are not a person and do not act nor function as one. They have a responsibility for their citizens that ensures they make decisions based on what is generally good for the Majority of those citizens. If they don't that Government usually doesn't last long or becomes a despotic regime.

The best interest of the Majority is what is important, not what is MORALLY right. Morality has nothing to do with a Government at all. It generally will lead to the more moral decisions because as an entity that is generally speaking a better decision for the Majority. BUT not always.

 

[editec]

I agree completely. Nations are not moral, they are not a person and do not act nor function as one. They have a responsibility for their citizens that ensures they make decisions based on what is generally good for the Majority of those citizens. If they don't that Government usually doesn't last long or becomes a despotic regime.

The best interest of the Majority is what is important, not what is MORALLY right. Morality has nothing to do with a Government at all. It generally will lead to the more moral decisions because as an entity that is generally speaking a better decision for the Majority. BUT not always.

I suspected that you would understand my views well enough once I laid them out in detail, to be frank.

Where you and I so often bump heads isn't so much on philosophical issues, but rather in the management decisions our nation takes.