[quote=briansd1]Allan, I find it hard to believe that someone who supports wars of resources acquisition, preemptive strikes, and using the military, if necessary, to get out of paying our debts doesn’t have some moral flexibility.
What about all the collateral damage? That’s just tough luck, huh?
BTW, I support the above too, when they make sense.
It’s always easy to be faithful to the narrow mission. But it’s much harder to look at the larger moral picture.[/quote]
Brian: I don’t support using the military to get out of paying our debts. I simply said that I was certain that TPTB had already game planned that scenario and wouldn’t hesitate to use that option, if push came to shove.
What about collateral damage? Wars, by their very nature, are really, really fucking messy. Especially when you start throwing around some of the systems in the US arsenal; systems designed to do a huge amount of damage. I don’t advocate for “clean” war, there ain’t no such thing. I also don’t advocate for war, unless no other viable option exists. I’m a former soldier and combat veteran and I hate war. But, I also recognize its necessity and, unfortunately, its utility as well.
And it appears that you’re accusing me of an inability to know the difference between the tactical and the strategic. I would imagine this is to inveigle me into believing that “moral flexibility” is a boon for the latter, but the bane of the former. Yes?
Don’t kid yourself, Brian, I’m a Jesuit educated Catholic. We invented treachery, the acquisition of power to serve our own ends, and really good collegiate and high school football programs. I know the difference, but I don’t delude myself into thinking that somehow I occupy some superior intellectual perch that condones the “banality of evil” through a warped understanding of Hegel or Nietzsche.
Nothing is more corrosive than the “rightness” that comes from feeling you have been granted a special “mission” and due to your keen insight, towering intellect and ability to be “morally flexible” (i.e. doing what needs to be done and for the Greater Good). That’s what Torquemada thought, too.
As Scaredy observed, “No one expects the Spanish Inquisition”. Careful you don’t become what you behold.
