Great, John, now you’ve killed Rep. Lee’s brain. Oh, by the way: Shut up.
[ I am on my way back from Newport, preparing to drive for heaven knows how long back to Alexandria, VA, and typing in a small room with no desk, my roommie drying her hair and a Jack Russell that keeps jumping on the keyboard. I am necessarily saving expanded commentary about the ethics of the Unites States’ abdication of its vital role in the world for a later date, hopefully tomorrow. Until then, I will just touch on one particularly offensive example of the dishonest and pusillanimous attitude of so many of our elected leaders, who essentially are trying to poison U.S. culture with one of the most unethical pathogens of all…pacifism.]
“I support strictly humanitarian efforts to prevent genocide in Iraq.”
—-Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), the House’s most reliably knee-jerk opponent of any use of U.S. military force, objecting to the President’s air strikes against ISIS
What a nonsensical, deceitful, irresponsible statement, and stupid as well. An elected official who would utter such intellectually and morally bankrupt gibberish in public has disqualified herself for responsible office, as it makes almost everything about her qualifications suspect—her intelligence, her honesty, her judgment, her education, her sanity.
To risk insulting the intelligence of anyone who reads this in the interests of clarity, humanitarian efforts alone never have and never will prevent genocide. Sending food and medical supplies to Auschwitz wouldn’t have saved a single Jew. Lee’s fatuous comment—everyone who reads it should get angry, I believe—is the ethical equivalent of some wise guy applauding when a man hanging from a high ledge screams, “For God’s sake, give me a hand!” Worse, perhaps, because Lee wants to make gullible citizens think she cares about the Christians being slaughtered in Iraq. She doesn’t care, or she wouldn’t speak nonsense, advocating a course of action to save them that can’t possibly accomplish that end. This is magical thinking at its worst: she has a noble ideology that doesn’t work in the real world, but rather than recognize that fact and adjust her beliefs accordingly, she simply invents a more compliant reality—one where kindness, charity and words are enough to halt fanatics and murderers.
Lee would argue that the United States should never allow a soldier to fire a loaded gun in anger until invaders are storming American cities, and I’m not certain she would accept the ugly reality of national defense even at that dire moment (which Sen. Diane Feinstein correctly warns is brought closer to fruition by the fantasies of Lee and President Obama). Those who think she is a respectable leader must also think John Lennon was an acute analyst of history and international diplomacy.
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Graphic: inktank
Ethics Alarms 
They do.
Humanitarian and diplomatic efforts depend too much on both sides being at least somewhat willing to negotiate honestly. All our goodwill or force/people expended hasn’t produced that in Iraq. Other hots spots want our support too. Practically, how long and how often can we afford to hemorrhage blood and money? We don’t get resources from countries that ask for help or say we should. I’m sorry that people are being killed, but we cannot prevent all the needless deaths in the world. Grow up, chickie.
“Humanitarian and diplomatic efforts depend too much on both sides being at least somewhat willing to negotiate honestly.”
Exactly right. Ideologues will not negotiate in good faith, thus it is a waste of our time to negotiate. Our enemies know our weakness. They exploit our desire not to fight. They create the illusion that a negotiated settlement is possible only to use the time spent negotiating to amass more military power or propaganda value. That is why our troops were wasted in battles they are not allowed to win. For too damn long we have tied the hands of our generals that know how to fight and win. We demand that they only follow “rules of engagement” that prevent them from terminating the enemy when the odds are in our favor. We have no stomach for what is by all definitions a ghastly and horrible event. War kills and maims people. But we must engage in war when the outcome of not engaging the enemy threatens the very existence of us or our allies. The reason our wars have been long and protracted – causing us more blood and treasure – is that we don’t want to hurt any innocents. Who does? But that is an unfortunate byproduct of an action that only the most vicious opponent wants.
American citizens have the luxury of being protected by vast oceans which prevents the onslaught of ideological armies bent on imposing its will on us. The United States has a unique responsibility in the world to promote peace. You do that not by negotiating with those that are bent on destroying the lives of innocent people, you do it by exterminating those that wish to do others harm quickly and expeditiously. The only outcomes of proportional responses to aggression is that you create the conditions of a protracted fight by not ridding the world of the aggressor – or making them think long and hard about starting something in the first place. Another outcome is that you wind up fighting the battles on the enemy’s terms – giving them the edge in terms of balance of power and propaganda. And finally, a hell of a lot more civilians are caught in the crossfire.
Real peace can only come when people know that the consequence of initiating aggression is their own extermination.
That was very well put, Chris. I won’t even try to improve on that.
Why don’t air strikes against ISIS count as humanitarian aid? Wouldn’t that help to save lives, alleviate suffering, and maintain human dignity ( the definition of humanitarian aid I found at Global Humanitarian Assistance).
“Why don’t air strikes against ISIS count as humanitarian aid?”
Because Richard Blumenthal says that humanitarian aid is food and water. Like Barbara Lee, he feels that humanitarian aid is the route to prevent genocide. And he is probably an expert on the subject of war…and things of that nature and we can all learn something from him…due to the time he spent in Vietnam. Or didn’t spend in Vietnam. Or did. Or didn’t. Or did. Oh! I can’t remember. I may have misspoke.
/sarcasm alert/
I know this is tongue in cheek, but including bombing in that definition is more than a little Orwellian.
As we say in Texas, “There ain’t nothin’ so peaceful as a dead man”!
Despite the sarcasm of his comment, I don’t see how killing every savage member of ISIS isn’t humanitarian. When those animals have surrendered every last ounce of their humanity, killing them as quickly and completely as possible, through whatever means available, is a humanitarian effort.
Those rotten pig feces can’t be gotten rid of soon enough and have earned whatever gruesome end they find.
I was only being a little sarcastic, I was mostly serious. When you see the humanitarian crisis that is unfolding, especially with the genocidal aspects, doesn’t any attempt to stop it (even military action) count as humanitarian?
Oh and if I hear our Commander-in-Chief remind us one more time that he has absolutely no intention and has utterly ruled out the possibility of ground troops to solve problems, my head will explode.
That feckless pantywaist may have no desire to send troops in harms way, but A) don’t kneejerkedly rule it out & B) DON’T TELL OUR ENEMIES YOU IDIOT! jkdf;ajklafjkldjkafdjkafdjknad
gads.
Yes, this kind of think causes me a dilemma. It’s a cue for another “flat learning curve” leadership post, but the readers who come here often and can discern reality don’t need to be reminded, and the hopeless enablers and excuse-makers just take such posts to be right-wing Obama-bashing. I never expected to have to cope with a President who literally gives me multiple examples of unethical or incompetent leadership every day, putting my blog’s diversity and perceived integrity in jeopardy. Want to test your head explosion threshhold? Read this guy...
Gads. I wouldn’t even know where to begin with someone that far gone. Of course, he loves shooting sports so he can’t be so far gone…