EPTOn November 07 2016 10:19 LegalLord wrote:
+ Show Spoiler [Ad personam introduction] +
+ Show Spoiler [Ad personam introduction] +
Most of you are probably aware of my policy regarding kwizach and his posts - that I will ignore them by default based on my perceptions of his honesty as a poster. Well today I will be briefly departing from that philosophy to address one of his posts. In recent times there are one, two, three major mega-posts he made which he consistently references and frequently asks for a response to. The first is on the issue of civilian casualties (and civilian targeting) in the context of Middle Eastern war, the other two are on the issue of NATO, its expansion, and its function. I will be addressing the first of these posts here.
For the other two, I originally planned on giving a response similar to this one, but I have since changed my stance. This is not due to any question of whether or not such a response would be feasible - it is simply a testament to the fact that the process of responding to kwizach posts is not very pleasant and I simply don't want to bother with that again after this one. Furthermore, while I have no doubt that kwizach will eventually respond to this post (unless he magically acquired some new ability to let an issue go), I will not be giving him yet another response. Besides the tedium involved in these posts, certain posting habits of low-content thread participants make it clear that the length of these discussions just tend to lead people to uncritically accepting the positions they were already predisposed to take, and to instantaneously assume that there is a counterargument to the positions they don't like. Since there is no intellectual merit to debating kwizach in and of itself and little merit in educating others in replying to a kwizach post, the value of addressing these posts is close to zero.
Kwizach has often made a big deal out of the idea that we should "just debate the issues, not posting habits." Unfortunately, this is simply not possible for this discussion; a focus on debating "just the issues" has the implicit requirement that all participants argue in good faith and do not distort the argument with dishonest techniques. I have made it clear that I do not believe that kwizach meets this requirement, and the posts cross-linked in the preceding link (made primarily by xDaunt and myself) reference exactly why this is the position I hold. This is why I ignore him - not because of the length of his posts or the quality of his arguments. I will further make the claim that I believe that, despite an obvious involvement in the issues discussed that would provide one with a substantial base of knowledge from which to debate the issues, that kwizach himself has been intellectually dishonest in his conduct; I will demonstrate my rationale for this claim over the course of this response.
Now, this specific post is actually the only one of the three that kwizach addressed directly to xDaunt rather than to me, so it is in a way an odd-one-out to reply to. However, besides being chronologically first, it is also an issue that xDaunt and I seem to mostly be of one position on, or at least it appears close enough that I feel it reasonable to argue on behalf of the point he was making. That will, however, leave the major NATO posts entirely unanswered, and I will note that it could appear to some observers that I am dodging the issue of engaging him on the NATO issue by refusing to answer either of his NATO points because I cannot give him a proper response there. That is not the case; at the proper time I will address the points of contention that kwizach brought up in a way that should be satisfactory. I will not be doing it in the form of a direct response to kwizach, however; that process is simply an exercise in wasting my time giving credibility to a dishonest poster not worth my time. But the content of his objection to my comments will be addressed at an appropriate time with an appropriate response. I would simply prefer to do so without the overhead that comes with having to address the unique unpleasantries that accompany replying to a post made by kwizach - the kwizach overhead, if you will.
For the other two, I originally planned on giving a response similar to this one, but I have since changed my stance. This is not due to any question of whether or not such a response would be feasible - it is simply a testament to the fact that the process of responding to kwizach posts is not very pleasant and I simply don't want to bother with that again after this one. Furthermore, while I have no doubt that kwizach will eventually respond to this post (unless he magically acquired some new ability to let an issue go), I will not be giving him yet another response. Besides the tedium involved in these posts, certain posting habits of low-content thread participants make it clear that the length of these discussions just tend to lead people to uncritically accepting the positions they were already predisposed to take, and to instantaneously assume that there is a counterargument to the positions they don't like. Since there is no intellectual merit to debating kwizach in and of itself and little merit in educating others in replying to a kwizach post, the value of addressing these posts is close to zero.
Kwizach has often made a big deal out of the idea that we should "just debate the issues, not posting habits." Unfortunately, this is simply not possible for this discussion; a focus on debating "just the issues" has the implicit requirement that all participants argue in good faith and do not distort the argument with dishonest techniques. I have made it clear that I do not believe that kwizach meets this requirement, and the posts cross-linked in the preceding link (made primarily by xDaunt and myself) reference exactly why this is the position I hold. This is why I ignore him - not because of the length of his posts or the quality of his arguments. I will further make the claim that I believe that, despite an obvious involvement in the issues discussed that would provide one with a substantial base of knowledge from which to debate the issues, that kwizach himself has been intellectually dishonest in his conduct; I will demonstrate my rationale for this claim over the course of this response.
Now, this specific post is actually the only one of the three that kwizach addressed directly to xDaunt rather than to me, so it is in a way an odd-one-out to reply to. However, besides being chronologically first, it is also an issue that xDaunt and I seem to mostly be of one position on, or at least it appears close enough that I feel it reasonable to argue on behalf of the point he was making. That will, however, leave the major NATO posts entirely unanswered, and I will note that it could appear to some observers that I am dodging the issue of engaging him on the NATO issue by refusing to answer either of his NATO points because I cannot give him a proper response there. That is not the case; at the proper time I will address the points of contention that kwizach brought up in a way that should be satisfactory. I will not be doing it in the form of a direct response to kwizach, however; that process is simply an exercise in wasting my time giving credibility to a dishonest poster not worth my time. But the content of his objection to my comments will be addressed at an appropriate time with an appropriate response. I would simply prefer to do so without the overhead that comes with having to address the unique unpleasantries that accompany replying to a post made by kwizach - the kwizach overhead, if you will.
This introduction serves one purpose: attacking my integrity as a poster. It is a tactic you have repeatedly been asked to drop by other posters and admins alike, and yet you continue to go through with it, hoping that it will either 1. serve as a sufficient smoke screen to allow you to avoid responding to the contents of my post, or, in this case, 2. cast sufficient enough doubt on my posts to give more credibility to your responses in the eyes of people unfamiliar with the topics being discussed, even though scrutiny and sufficient knowledge should allow one to see their failings.
It is not surprising that you're not addressing the two posts in which I demonstrated that you made factually false statements on NATO, as doing so would force you to directly address those falsehoods (which are not a matter of interpretation but of easily verifiable historical record) instead of focusing, as you do here, on interpretations of a type of literature (on the targeting of civilians in situations of armed conflict) -- an exercise that leaves you with more room to distort both my original points and the said literature. This is why you devote your last paragraph to coming out with excuses for not responding to the NATO posts, hoping that this reply of yours will convince others that the same kind of superficially satisfactory answer could be provided to the posts on NATO. It could not, and you would have been replying to my NATO posts if you could have written the appearance of a convincing rebuttal to them, instead of going for one my replies to xDaunt that was posted way before you ever decided to intervene on the topic.
Beyond being ludicrously obvious attempts at dodging the debunking of your false assertions on NATO (and the kind of personal grudge they seem to point to), your personal attacks against me are tiring in that they only serve to increase the toxicity often found in this thread. As opposed to you I have consistently refrained from voicing my opinion on you as a poster and on how you act and post in these forums -- limiting myself to asking you to drop your tendency to go for personal attacks. I prefer arguing on substance and on the merits of the arguments presented before me, as that is what elevates the debates in this thread, and in addition I don't need to attempt to disqualify you in the eyes of other posters to appear convincing, because the contents of your posts on the topics that are of highest interest to me (matters of foreign policy) don't require me to go for smokescreens to debunk them. I will therefore once again limit myself to saying that your portrayal of my posting and supposed lack of honesty is false and deliberately so, and I invite you again to stop polluting this thread and your posts with those petty and dishonest accusations.
On November 07 2016 10:19 LegalLord wrote:
But before we start with that, I will address the minor point within the second NATO mega-post by kwizach, that was particularly interesting and noteworthy.
An opinion poll. How cute. It wasn't really relevant to the point in the original post, but there was one rather striking aspect of this poll I wanted to mention.
What might be worth looking at is the questions about the TPP and Hillary Clinton's support of it. The overwhelming majority of these "FP experts" that you cite both support the TPP and at the same time believe that Hillary supports it too but is hiding that fact for political reasons. So they are all overwhelmingly in support of a candidate who is very much willing to subvert the voterbase and pass an agenda. One may question whether or not this is a tacit endorsement of an undemocratic approach to policy-making by the cited "FP experts" in the poll. A justification, perhaps, of my earlier statement that the support of the FP community of Hillary Clinton is less in question than the soundness of the judgment of said FP community.
But before we start with that, I will address the minor point within the second NATO mega-post by kwizach, that was particularly interesting and noteworthy.
An opinion poll. How cute. It wasn't really relevant to the point in the original post, but there was one rather striking aspect of this poll I wanted to mention.
What might be worth looking at is the questions about the TPP and Hillary Clinton's support of it. The overwhelming majority of these "FP experts" that you cite both support the TPP and at the same time believe that Hillary supports it too but is hiding that fact for political reasons. So they are all overwhelmingly in support of a candidate who is very much willing to subvert the voterbase and pass an agenda. One may question whether or not this is a tacit endorsement of an undemocratic approach to policy-making by the cited "FP experts" in the poll. A justification, perhaps, of my earlier statement that the support of the FP community of Hillary Clinton is less in question than the soundness of the judgment of said FP community.
The poll is not "cute" -- it is part of the most prominent project to survey international relations scholars in the United States on various issues. And it was perfectly relevant to the point I was making, about Hillary Clinton being the candidate scholars of very varied backgrounds and persuasions see as closest to their views on FP, to preemptively answer any possible attempt to go for the argument that she's a neoconservative because some neoconservatives support her. Indeed, the context of this particular excerpt was your false claim that Hillary Clinton is a neoconservative -- something only true if the term "neoconservative" loses pretty much all of its actual meaning.
I hope posters are going to read your paragraph and notice the blatant spin that you're putting on the survey, and on the TPP question in particular. The fact that a majority of the scholars surveyed think Clinton does not really oppose ratifying the TPP does not support your accusations in the slightest. Indeed, they were not asked if it was right or wrong to publicly oppose the TPP for political reasons, and even if every single one of them thought it was wrong to do so, this would not be reflected in any of their answers to the questions since that's not what they're asked about. They did not endorse lying to the electorate whatsoever -- they responded to questions about which candidate most closely aligned with their views in general and on a range of topics. The survey is therefore not a justification at all of your earlier statement attempting to discredit the "soundness of the judgment of said FP community". Your spin, however, is again an attempt to disqualify the voice of others by default through fallacious accusations.
On November 07 2016 10:19 LegalLord wrote:
And with that, let's begin by linking both the original xDaunt posts kwizach was replying to (context preserved since it is relevant for reference), and his full response.
And with that, let's begin by linking both the original xDaunt posts kwizach was replying to (context preserved since it is relevant for reference), and his full response.
At this stage, I would like the posters following this discussion to notice the following: at no point is LegalLord actually going to argue against the merits of the position I was defending in my original post (that the large-scale (indiscriminate) targeting of civilians in the context being discussed, namely military conflict in the Middle East, is not effective). He will instead attempt to push two narratives in order to avoid having to recognize that what my position is perfectly correct -- firstly, that I am being uncharitable in my interpretation of xDaunt's posts, and secondly that my sources are of poor quality or not relevant. In doing so, he largely ignores both contextual elements undermining his argument about my treatment of xDaunt's posts as well as my own statements in my post (as well as other posts) explaining the relevance of the sources. I will address both points, and debunk his accusations.
On November 07 2016 10:19 LegalLord wrote:
I'm going to address the entire thing in one long response without explicitly splitting it up by paragraphs. It should be pretty clear which part corresponds to what.
So to start, let's provide some context. This entire discussion started with a discussion about Trump's off-hand remarks about that "you have to take out their families" as a means to defeat terrorists. If your concern is taking this statement at face value, then sure, I think it's very objectionable. You will find that Trump says many things which are morally questionable and without nuance, yet that cut deep into an issue that is largely neglected by the mainstream. This is one of those, in that it gets at the issue of how to deal with civilian damage - both collateral and deliberate - in responding to terrorist threats. The more nuanced version of the Trump opinion, that could actually be reasonably pushed, is that you have to be willing to target the civilian base of support that is allowing the terrorists to conduct their operations. Indeed, one of the earliest posts by xDaunt that explicitly address this issue seems to be saying as much.
This line of policy thought (as posted by xDaunt and as described in the paragraph above) certainly deserves some degree of qualification. In terms of potential liability for war crimes, the most relevant piece of international law is the Protocol I amendment to the Geneva Conventions (wiki overview and giant Library of Congress document) and specifically Articles 51 and 54. Article 51 deals with deliberate targeting of civilians and how the parties in a military conflict must make an effort to reduce those casualties (the attackers by providing means for civilians to escape the conflict, the defenders by making an effort to distance themselves from civilians). It also stipulates that indiscriminate warfare (e.g. chemical weapons, which will harm civilians and militants alike) is not allowed. Article 54 prevents deliberate targeting of infrastructure that is critical to the survival of civilians, which deals primarily with food and water supplies.
Now of course the big point of contention is what happens when there isn't a means to separate the civilians from the militants, often because explicitly hiding among the population is a strategy that they choose to employ. It goes without saying that that is a failure to abide by the Protocol I stipulations on the part of the militants, but the question is how the attacking force should respond. And Article 51 provides some decent guidance for that. Civilian casualties are obviously going to pile up if you attack an area populated by both civilians and militants, and you can and should do what needs to be done to limit those casualties (by providing safe routes out of the conflict zone, not attacking in a manner disproportionate to military objectives, and not attacking civilians directly). Nevertheless, attacking such civilian-military targets is certainly permitted under the article, as the use of civilian shields for military objectives is not considered to be a reason not to allow military operations to take place.
What is being advocated here, and what is also closely tied to my point, is that given this less-than-ideal scenario (civilians used as a shield for military operations), in the case of terrorism (and many other military-civilian scenarios) it is best to take the more aggressive approach which is morally questionable, but nevertheless effective for fighting terrorism. Indeed, a reluctance to be willing to accept civilian casualties in the performance of military operations is a very strong factor in what allows terrorists to continue to use (sympathetic, but noncombatant) civilians as a shield for their operations. So the willingness to allow civilian casualties within the framework of reasonable attempts to save civilians is what works.
I'm going to address the entire thing in one long response without explicitly splitting it up by paragraphs. It should be pretty clear which part corresponds to what.
So to start, let's provide some context. This entire discussion started with a discussion about Trump's off-hand remarks about that "you have to take out their families" as a means to defeat terrorists. If your concern is taking this statement at face value, then sure, I think it's very objectionable. You will find that Trump says many things which are morally questionable and without nuance, yet that cut deep into an issue that is largely neglected by the mainstream. This is one of those, in that it gets at the issue of how to deal with civilian damage - both collateral and deliberate - in responding to terrorist threats. The more nuanced version of the Trump opinion, that could actually be reasonably pushed, is that you have to be willing to target the civilian base of support that is allowing the terrorists to conduct their operations. Indeed, one of the earliest posts by xDaunt that explicitly address this issue seems to be saying as much.
This line of policy thought (as posted by xDaunt and as described in the paragraph above) certainly deserves some degree of qualification. In terms of potential liability for war crimes, the most relevant piece of international law is the Protocol I amendment to the Geneva Conventions (wiki overview and giant Library of Congress document) and specifically Articles 51 and 54. Article 51 deals with deliberate targeting of civilians and how the parties in a military conflict must make an effort to reduce those casualties (the attackers by providing means for civilians to escape the conflict, the defenders by making an effort to distance themselves from civilians). It also stipulates that indiscriminate warfare (e.g. chemical weapons, which will harm civilians and militants alike) is not allowed. Article 54 prevents deliberate targeting of infrastructure that is critical to the survival of civilians, which deals primarily with food and water supplies.
Now of course the big point of contention is what happens when there isn't a means to separate the civilians from the militants, often because explicitly hiding among the population is a strategy that they choose to employ. It goes without saying that that is a failure to abide by the Protocol I stipulations on the part of the militants, but the question is how the attacking force should respond. And Article 51 provides some decent guidance for that. Civilian casualties are obviously going to pile up if you attack an area populated by both civilians and militants, and you can and should do what needs to be done to limit those casualties (by providing safe routes out of the conflict zone, not attacking in a manner disproportionate to military objectives, and not attacking civilians directly). Nevertheless, attacking such civilian-military targets is certainly permitted under the article, as the use of civilian shields for military objectives is not considered to be a reason not to allow military operations to take place.
What is being advocated here, and what is also closely tied to my point, is that given this less-than-ideal scenario (civilians used as a shield for military operations), in the case of terrorism (and many other military-civilian scenarios) it is best to take the more aggressive approach which is morally questionable, but nevertheless effective for fighting terrorism. Indeed, a reluctance to be willing to accept civilian casualties in the performance of military operations is a very strong factor in what allows terrorists to continue to use (sympathetic, but noncombatant) civilians as a shield for their operations. So the willingness to allow civilian casualties within the framework of reasonable attempts to save civilians is what works.
This section opening your actual rebuttal features the definition of a red herring. Civilian casualties occurring when facing enemies who use human shields is not what was being discussed at all. Donald Trump was not depicting the families (of terrorists) that he advocated killing as human shields (his point was about deterring would-be terrorists by making it a policy of killing the families of terrorists), the discussion in the thread was not about killing human shields, and xDaunt was not talking about killing human shields or collateral civilian casualties when using force against military targets. The involuntary or proportional killing of human shields is simply not what was being argued, and in my post I was addressing xDaunt's claims about the deliberate targeting of civilians, which is an entirely separate issue.
To nevertheless address your broader point, the 1977 Protocol I allows for the killing of civilians under specific conditions. These notably include that the civilians must not be the object of the attack (art. 51) -- note that this prohibits the deliberate targeting of the families of terrorists (as long as they're not actively involved in the terrorist effort) that was the actual point being discussed in the thread --, that attacks are not indiscriminate (art. 51), that the civilian casualties are not "excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated" (art. 51), and that "all feasible precautions" must be taken to minimize "incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects", including potential alternative ways to strike the military targets (art. 57). This means that targeting "an area populated by both civilians and militants" is not necessarily allowed or disallowed -- it depends on the facts of the target and of the attack, and of the precautionary measures taken by the attacking party.
In any case, since you continue by moving to what was actually being discussed, I'll address your points about the interpretation of xDaunt's posts below.
On November 07 2016 10:19 LegalLord wrote:
Now, you could say that xDaunt certainly went further than this in his posts. The fourth one above (about destroying opposing societies) is the most notable one. So this post certainly does come off as one with an even more aggressive assertion than the ones made earlier about willingness to accept civilian casualties - such as killing the families of terrorists - in war. It's certainly one that deserves, at the very least, some thorough qualification, which is lost when you stick to short posts. Yet it very definitely does refer directly to mass subjugation, rather than ethnic cleansing (read the comment chain and it should be pretty clear). And it's also the most aggressive post in that entire discussion chain. More on the validity of that later when we get into the main argument.
The claim that the suggestions here are genocidal is very hyperbolic in nature, since active and brutal repression of opposing ideologies (in context, the more directly supported interpretation of xDaunt's posts) is reasonably far removed from an open advocacy of genocide. If there were mentions of mass killings or the like, then certainly, that would be a reasonable way to interpret his posts. And certainly, these posts do skirt the edge between aggressive and morally questionable counterinsurgency policy and outright war crimes - something that would absolutely require further clarification (given xDaunt's rather concise posting habits, certainly a factor that is a legitimate concern). Indeed, even xDaunt would probably agree that there is plenty one could find objectionable about what he advocates. However, it is clear that what happened here was an instantaneous assumption of the least charitable interpretation of these posts and a response that ran with that least charitable view of what one could imagine that xDaunt might mean with his post.
Indeed, kwizach is one of the posters who seem to believe that they are "context wizards" who can instantaneously correctly assume substantially more about the position that someone else holds than what is posted - and to defeat that expanded position. An impressive amount of assumption-of-context went into this response, and it does rather resemble the previously mentioned concerns of strawmanning and taking things out of context that are common with every response made by kwizach. This assertion of "genocide is the only way" by kwizach of the content of xDaunt's post is not supported directly by anything that xDaunt actually says, and serves primarily as a way to attempt to discredit the post made. Indeed, this "advocating genocide" claim does color the direction of kwizach's response, culminating in a severely far-removed claim about the possibility of using nuclear weapons in the Middle East to destroy everything.
Now, you could say that xDaunt certainly went further than this in his posts. The fourth one above (about destroying opposing societies) is the most notable one. So this post certainly does come off as one with an even more aggressive assertion than the ones made earlier about willingness to accept civilian casualties - such as killing the families of terrorists - in war. It's certainly one that deserves, at the very least, some thorough qualification, which is lost when you stick to short posts. Yet it very definitely does refer directly to mass subjugation, rather than ethnic cleansing (read the comment chain and it should be pretty clear). And it's also the most aggressive post in that entire discussion chain. More on the validity of that later when we get into the main argument.
The claim that the suggestions here are genocidal is very hyperbolic in nature, since active and brutal repression of opposing ideologies (in context, the more directly supported interpretation of xDaunt's posts) is reasonably far removed from an open advocacy of genocide. If there were mentions of mass killings or the like, then certainly, that would be a reasonable way to interpret his posts. And certainly, these posts do skirt the edge between aggressive and morally questionable counterinsurgency policy and outright war crimes - something that would absolutely require further clarification (given xDaunt's rather concise posting habits, certainly a factor that is a legitimate concern). Indeed, even xDaunt would probably agree that there is plenty one could find objectionable about what he advocates. However, it is clear that what happened here was an instantaneous assumption of the least charitable interpretation of these posts and a response that ran with that least charitable view of what one could imagine that xDaunt might mean with his post.
Indeed, kwizach is one of the posters who seem to believe that they are "context wizards" who can instantaneously correctly assume substantially more about the position that someone else holds than what is posted - and to defeat that expanded position. An impressive amount of assumption-of-context went into this response, and it does rather resemble the previously mentioned concerns of strawmanning and taking things out of context that are common with every response made by kwizach. This assertion of "genocide is the only way" by kwizach of the content of xDaunt's post is not supported directly by anything that xDaunt actually says, and serves primarily as a way to attempt to discredit the post made. Indeed, this "advocating genocide" claim does color the direction of kwizach's response, culminating in a severely far-removed claim about the possibility of using nuclear weapons in the Middle East to destroy everything.
In these paragraphs, you go out of your way (1) to use phrasing and selective quoting to minimize as much as possible the contents of xDaunt's posts, while (2) misrepresenting the contents of mine. An example of (1) is you beginning your post by "Now, you could say that xDaunt certainly went further than this in his posts" -- why the "you could say"? xDaunt never even mentioned human shields and definitely went much further than your earlier comments. It's as if I started discussing Ted Cruz's statements about "carpet bombing" ISIS by a discussion of the use of waterboarding, and then proceeded with "You could argue that he went certainly further than that" -- yes, obviously he did, so let's not attempt to rhetorically downplay his actual comments. The same goes for when you write "And certainly, these posts do skirt the edge between aggressive and morally questionable counterinsurgency policy and outright war crimes". No, they don't "skirt the edge" -- xDaunt has openly advocated for committing war crimes (the deliberate targeting of civilians that aren't human shields, without regard for the legal conditions limiting such use of force).
You also claim that "the most aggressive post in that entire discussion chain", xDaunt's call to "utterly destroy" "societies" that are not "receptive to our ideas" is only to be understood as a call to "subjugate societies". I'm sorry, but there is a difference in vocabulary between "subjugation" (which does not even preclude the large-scale use of violence) and "utter destruction" (I'm not saying either that he wants every member of the society to die -- see below). And although xDaunt had mentioned earlier the "subjugation of societies", the comment he was directly replying to when promoting the utter destruction of societies was one by DarkPlasmaBall, who said things didn't have to be "unnecessarily torturous and deadly to be effective", clearly talking about the use of violence against humans, which was the topic of the entire discussion. All of his other posts that I quoted were also about the killing (and even the "slaughter") of civilians, and looking at the discussion chain actually shows xDaunt was developing his point with regards to the "brutal methodology" needed to solve the problem in the Middle East, a reply to farvacola's argument that there were good reasons to avoid "torturing and killing innocents".
In addition, the discussion doesn't happen in a vacuum -- xDaunt has already made statements going in that same direction in the past, which I read and answered at the time and which many posters were already familiar with, and which allow us to get an even more informed understanding of his words. You refer to one of them briefly towards the end of your post, in which xDaunt supported waging "total war" against ISIS -- yet you don't mention that he wrote: "We could butcher ISIS fighters by the thousands, and it wouldn't mean dick unless we cut out the underlying support for ISIS by engaging in total warfare. Killing "every Muslim" certainly isn't necessary, but many Muslims will have to be made to suffer in ways and in scope that our Western sensibilities will no longer tolerate in order to truly win this conflict". He continued by saying "And how do you think that Western, liberal thought assumed its current predominant place in the world? It's built on the bones of a lot of other peoples", and clarifying at least how many Muslims he sees as problematic: "How do you want to define "nearly all?" Even presuming that only 10% are problematic (which is almost certainly conservative), that's still 160 million people."
To sum up, you are deliberately downplaying xDaunt's comments. In these posts and in others in the relevant discussions, he clearly indicated that he was supporting the large-scale and indiscriminate targeting of civilians belonging to societies and groups he finds problematic, namely the "radical" Muslims which support or align with ISIS / serve as its base of recruitment. He believes this is what's necessary in order to "pacify" those regions. Note (as I come back to this below) that I did not say that he supports killing/harming/destroying all Muslims or radical Muslims.
With regards to (2), you are misrepresenting my response as addressing xDaunt's arguments purely as calls for genocide, thus limiting and affecting my analysis. In reality, I went out of my way to specifically address and analyze different practices pertaining to the deliberate targeting of civilians, at different levels of intensity, and nowhere was the analysis affected by unfavorably hyperbolic interpretations of xDaunt's comments, as can be directly verified by going through the points I raise in the post itself, something that you obviously did not bother doing here or it would prove detrimental to the caricature you're inventing. As per my comment in the final paragraph addressing the idea of using nuclear bombs in the Middle East, I was not attributing the idea to xDaunt in the slightest, but merely closing all ends of the argument about the use of indiscriminate force against civilians by mentioning in passing that even something like that would obviously not be advisable.
Now that I've made this clear, let's come back to my use of the term "genocide", which I initially use in the introductory sentence of my post (which came before my actual analysis of the literature on the deliberate targeting of civilians in armed conflict). I used the term to refer to xDaunt's comments about the destruction, killing and suffering he'll apply to the societies and to the "many Muslims" he finds problematic -- as you remember from above, he himself numbered "problematic" Muslims at a "conservative" 10%, or "160 million people", and referred to them as a group by the term "radical Muslims". Now, again, I certainly did not claim with the term "genocide" that xDaunt was advocating for the killing of all Muslims or radical Muslims, and the destruction of all of "radical Muslim" societies (although a less charitable interpretation could be that the latter is exactly what he said with "If the society is not so receptive, then it needs to be utterly destroyed first"). Yet such a level of violence is not actually required to be using the term "genocide" accurately. Indeed, here is the definition of the term under article II of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide:
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such :
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
I do think that it can be argued that xDaunt's comments with regards to the religious group he defined as "radical Muslims" (I suppose it includes Muslims following different "radical" strands of Islam, so it is in itself an aggregate of various "religious groups" or a "part" of the broader Muslim population) that he would see killed and/or made to suffer, and to the "societies" he mentioned he would see destroyed, can very well be said to justify using the term. Furthermore, the scholarly literature on the topic of genocide hardly agrees on a single definition; for example, many scholars consider that the Convention's list of the types of "groups" is too restrictive, and put forward terms like "human collectivities", "targeted populations", "specific groups", etc., allowing for even more direct applications of the definition to what xDaunt was advocating (see for example Scott Straus' "Contested meanings and conflicting imperatives: a conceptual analysis of genocide", Journal of Genocide Research, 2001, vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 349–375 -- and yes, I can send it to you).
Either way, I'm perfectly fine with an honest discussion on the use of the term and I recognize the validity of some arguments against using it. But again, this discussion should not be used to obfuscate his statements and the practices he's defended, which I rigorously quoted and addressed, and pretend that I strawmanned them instead of addressing them for what they were: calls for the deliberate use of military violence on a large scale against civilians. I should indeed have anticipated that using the term in the first sentence of my post would allow one to caricature and misrepresent my actual analysis of the practices directly supported by xDaunt, in order to falsely pretend I was only addressing strawmen of xDaunt's arguments instead of his very statements (unsurprisingly, xDaunt has already jumped on this strawman). I used "genocidal" only one other time in reference to xDaunt's argument, and that was at the end of the second paragraph -- yet I was pointing out the relevancy of Patrick Johnston's findings on the diminishing returns of the killing of civilians, and precisely likening xDaunt's claim to the position addressed by the author when he refers to the killing of "massive numbers of civilians", thus doing the exact opposite of using "genocide" to magnify xDaunt's claim through the comparison, as Johnston is not discussing genocide.
On November 07 2016 10:19 LegalLord wrote:
Now, after setting the context for this discussion and addressing the issue with the opening "advocating genocide" remark, we can start to get into what is wrong with the meat of the post that kwizach made. We will, as kwizach did, mostly set aside the issue of morality, in the sense that we will not ask "what is the right thing to do in the absence of pressure to conform to certain rules?" We will discuss the effectiveness of a less civilian-friendly approach to military involvement on its own merits. However, even though we do not discuss morality, we will discuss the issue of human rights violations and the consequences, because there are direct political consequences in the modern international framework for being accused of staging human rights violations in a conflict in the world.
As they always do, kwizach's list of sources certainly look particularly impressive at first glance. Indeed, that "first glance" appearance is what he relies on to give the appearance of being well-sourced in the positions he holds. However, a critical analysis of each of these sources will give a particularly different interpretation of the merits of the position kwizach holds. In short order, that is what we will be doing - although, be warned, even short summaries of all the posts he made will be particularly lengthy to read through.
Now, after setting the context for this discussion and addressing the issue with the opening "advocating genocide" remark, we can start to get into what is wrong with the meat of the post that kwizach made. We will, as kwizach did, mostly set aside the issue of morality, in the sense that we will not ask "what is the right thing to do in the absence of pressure to conform to certain rules?" We will discuss the effectiveness of a less civilian-friendly approach to military involvement on its own merits. However, even though we do not discuss morality, we will discuss the issue of human rights violations and the consequences, because there are direct political consequences in the modern international framework for being accused of staging human rights violations in a conflict in the world.
As they always do, kwizach's list of sources certainly look particularly impressive at first glance. Indeed, that "first glance" appearance is what he relies on to give the appearance of being well-sourced in the positions he holds. However, a critical analysis of each of these sources will give a particularly different interpretation of the merits of the position kwizach holds. In short order, that is what we will be doing - although, be warned, even short summaries of all the posts he made will be particularly lengthy to read through.
A reminder: at this point, LegalLord has still not put forward a single actual argument to dispute the validity of the analysis I put forward in my post. He will never do so, opting instead to attack it purely by attempting to discredit the sources I used (and, below, my "style").
On November 07 2016 10:19 LegalLord wrote:
Before we get into that, however, I would like to get into an issue with the style of the argument here. If one were to characterize the style of kwizach's posts, I am sure that "academic" would be a very common descriptor. However, in the case of this post and in most others, either "dishonest academic" or "lazy academic," depending on how charitable you wish to be, would be the more accurate descriptor of the style. Why? Because while kwizach does have the academic style of providing many sources for his positions, he entirely fails to do what academics are meant to do when using all those sources: to make a piece of writing that stands on its own and defends its own assertions with the help of those sources. What kwizach did here was basically just to throw out a lot of sources and said that those sources prove the position that he makes. The problems with these are multiple.
The first is one of accessibility; many of these sources are either books which are not publicly available for free, or research papers/theses which are only available for free to academic institutions. Indeed, to acquire all of the source material, I had to ask among my academic friends to give me the source materials in question, and I also had to acquire a few books that he sourced. Indeed, it is perhaps fortunate that in the case of this post in specific, all of the source materials could either be obtained for an almost inconsequential price (a few dollars at most) or were available among friends who have an academic institution's access. I have looked through every single source referenced in any of the three kwizach posts cited - some of them cost upwards of $200, and many of them have so little material referencing them that there is little in the way of independent means to verify the validity and contextual relevance of those sources. That would mean that we all have a choice either to spend significant money on kwizach's sources (not happening), or to take him at his word. The latter is what most people do, but it is also an unjustifiable position based on his track record of academic dishonesty.
The second issue is one of volume. This is a simple one: few if any people (including, perhaps, kwizach himself, given how far removed his posts are from the conclusions of the pieces he cites) actually go through the trouble of reading through all the sources that kwizach posted to analyze to what extent they are accurate and valid. I would estimate that the average length of his sources is in the 150-200 range - some are 30-page research papers, the rest are 200+ page books or dissertations. Though the term itself may not be entirely applicable since this isn't a spoken, real-time discussion, what he is doing is akin to a Gish gallop. His posts are an attempt to drown out any valid discussion by providing such depth that no one at all would be willing to respond to it. The result is that people basically believe what they want to believe. If someone is inclined to support the argument that kwizach is making, then they choose simply to presume that his mega-responses are entirely valid. If not, then not, although said people would not be wrong to note that the general issues with his academic posting is solid grounds for dismissal of his responses as "not credible" as arguments.
The third issue is one of actually making the argument. In this post, by citing a lot of sources kwizach simply intends to imply "academic consensus" on the validity of his position. The problems with this are twofold. The first is that his list cannot possibly be exhaustive (since it is generally impossible to summarize "the opinion of all credible academics" in any reasonable list), so it would be extremely valid to question whether or not kwizach is merely cherry-picking the ones that seem to line up most closely with his opinion. The second reason is that kwizach seems to believe that citing all the sources he does absolves him of the responsibility of actually making the argument. This is a through-and-through appeal to authority, pure and simple. Kwizach intends to imply that "these academics say you're wrong, so you're wrong" is valid. No dice; if you wish to say that xDaunt is wrong, then you have to explain why exactly it is that he is wrong, not just list a bunch of people who you claim will say that he is wrong. It is perfectly valid to cite those people in making that claim (indeed - that is what academic writing is founded upon) but the argument still has to be made and still has to be your own.
Before we get into that, however, I would like to get into an issue with the style of the argument here. If one were to characterize the style of kwizach's posts, I am sure that "academic" would be a very common descriptor. However, in the case of this post and in most others, either "dishonest academic" or "lazy academic," depending on how charitable you wish to be, would be the more accurate descriptor of the style. Why? Because while kwizach does have the academic style of providing many sources for his positions, he entirely fails to do what academics are meant to do when using all those sources: to make a piece of writing that stands on its own and defends its own assertions with the help of those sources. What kwizach did here was basically just to throw out a lot of sources and said that those sources prove the position that he makes. The problems with these are multiple.
The first is one of accessibility; many of these sources are either books which are not publicly available for free, or research papers/theses which are only available for free to academic institutions. Indeed, to acquire all of the source material, I had to ask among my academic friends to give me the source materials in question, and I also had to acquire a few books that he sourced. Indeed, it is perhaps fortunate that in the case of this post in specific, all of the source materials could either be obtained for an almost inconsequential price (a few dollars at most) or were available among friends who have an academic institution's access. I have looked through every single source referenced in any of the three kwizach posts cited - some of them cost upwards of $200, and many of them have so little material referencing them that there is little in the way of independent means to verify the validity and contextual relevance of those sources. That would mean that we all have a choice either to spend significant money on kwizach's sources (not happening), or to take him at his word. The latter is what most people do, but it is also an unjustifiable position based on his track record of academic dishonesty.
The second issue is one of volume. This is a simple one: few if any people (including, perhaps, kwizach himself, given how far removed his posts are from the conclusions of the pieces he cites) actually go through the trouble of reading through all the sources that kwizach posted to analyze to what extent they are accurate and valid. I would estimate that the average length of his sources is in the 150-200 range - some are 30-page research papers, the rest are 200+ page books or dissertations. Though the term itself may not be entirely applicable since this isn't a spoken, real-time discussion, what he is doing is akin to a Gish gallop. His posts are an attempt to drown out any valid discussion by providing such depth that no one at all would be willing to respond to it. The result is that people basically believe what they want to believe. If someone is inclined to support the argument that kwizach is making, then they choose simply to presume that his mega-responses are entirely valid. If not, then not, although said people would not be wrong to note that the general issues with his academic posting is solid grounds for dismissal of his responses as "not credible" as arguments.
The third issue is one of actually making the argument. In this post, by citing a lot of sources kwizach simply intends to imply "academic consensus" on the validity of his position. The problems with this are twofold. The first is that his list cannot possibly be exhaustive (since it is generally impossible to summarize "the opinion of all credible academics" in any reasonable list), so it would be extremely valid to question whether or not kwizach is merely cherry-picking the ones that seem to line up most closely with his opinion. The second reason is that kwizach seems to believe that citing all the sources he does absolves him of the responsibility of actually making the argument. This is a through-and-through appeal to authority, pure and simple. Kwizach intends to imply that "these academics say you're wrong, so you're wrong" is valid. No dice; if you wish to say that xDaunt is wrong, then you have to explain why exactly it is that he is wrong, not just list a bunch of people who you claim will say that he is wrong. It is perfectly valid to cite those people in making that claim (indeed - that is what academic writing is founded upon) but the argument still has to be made and still has to be your own.
I'll address both your arguments and the fallacies and falsehoods contained in these paragraphs.
(1) Accessibility: first, let me point out that this is not an objection to the validity of the sources or the relevancy of their use in my analysis. You're complaining that they're not available easily enough for other posters to verify my claims, and you proceed to mention the steps that you took to be able to verify some of them. Do you know what you could have done instead of following those steps? Ask me to send you my sources. And here's the thing -- you knew this option was available to you, as I regularly mention in my posts (to you and others) that people should feel free to contact me if they want me to send them my sources in electronic format. I literally could have sent them all to you, including the books (as I am myself a research fellow in an academic institution, I often have access to electronic versions of scientific books, whether in .epub or .pdf format), with two exceptions: Robert Carr's The Lessons of Terror and Patrick Johnston's PhD thesis, both of which I do not have electronic copies of. I systematically try to use sources that are as easily accessible as possible and/or that I can provide through PMs if other posters are interested in them, but I'm not going to prevent myself from using highly relevant and informative sources just because other posters don't have immediate access to them.
(2) Volume: here again, this is not an objection to the validity of the sources or the relevancy of their use in my analysis, only a complaint with regards to the work that may be needed to go through them. I indeed often use lengthy sources next to shorter ones, but I always provide the information required to verify the claims I make using these sources (the reference and the exact page(s)). I'll note here that it is fallacious to pretend that it is always necessary to read entire books to verify they support the point being argued, but more fundamentally my reply to you is the following: so what? My aim in responding thoroughly to other posters on issues of interest to me is to provide accurate, in-depth and informative analyses of the issues being discussed. Readers are free to do whatever they want with my posts, starting by choosing to read them or ignore them. The sources are there not to drown out the readers but to allow them to look into the issues further if they'd like, and more importantly to support the claims I'm making and provide a way to verify that I'm not inventing assertions out of thin air, as you've done repeatedly on NATO. The alternative is forcing the reader to trust me on my word, which is clearly an inferior option. If a poster decides to refuse to take into account what I am saying as soon as I cite a book, or even to automatically believe that I am lying and distorting the book's contents, good for them. Why should I deprive other posters who don't share that position of the opportunity to check what I'm saying and look more into the issue if they want to? Again, therefore, if relevant and informative sources on the topic I'm dealing with are books, I'm not going to prevent myself from referencing them (and as I said, I do my best to make it easy to check the original source, by favoring (all other things being equal) articles and publications available in electronic form).
I'll address your weaselly insinuation that I don't read my sources below by answering your list of objections to the individual sources I used in this particular post.
(3) Making the argument: you mention two points of criticism here -- (a) the sources I use cannot be exhaustive enough to include all of the relevant literature, and (b) I don't make my own argument. To start with (a), I have to begin by pointing out that when I cite "a lot of sources" in my posts, I don't necessarily want to imply "academic consensus" -- in fact, I usually address existing academic debates over the issues being covered if there are any, and in the very post you just replied to I went out of my way to cite and address the contributions of authors which do not agree with many other scholars on the effects of the deliberate targeting of civilians in counterinsurgency operations, in other to show that even their findings did not support xDaunt's position. To get an idea of the state of the art of the literature on a given topic, and of the possible existence of an academic consensus or a majority opinion on a certain argument, it's often easy to read the introductory comments in academic works. Funnily enough, the abstract of Patrick Johnston's PhD thesis that you quoted in your post actually starts by doing exactly that, before announcing as I covered in my original post that he thinks this view is incorrect:
Political scientists and military theorists have recently converged around the view that protecting the population is the most important task of effective counterinsurgency. To be effective, counterinsurgents must earn the trust and provide for the welfare of threatened civilian populations. The use of force tends to be inimical to these goals; inflicting civilian casualties, intentionally or as collateral damage, is counterproductive.
In the future, I'll gladly directly quote academic sources in their descriptions of the state of the art more frequently if you'd like me to do so, but I'm afraid this may run counter to some of your previously mentioned objections...!With regards to (b) me not "making my own argument" -- your claim is simply not true, and you're obfuscating how the post was constructed and why it was citation-heavy (which is why I'm not surprised that at no point in this response do you actually address the merits of my arguments). I introduced the analysis part of my post by notably writing the following:
I'll focus on addressing the merits of your argument [...] (including with respect to the historical record of the mass targeting of civilians that you're advocating, and the extent to which it is policy-relevant when it comes to the kind of conflict we're discussing) with regards to the effectiveness you ascribe to those practices.
How does one engage in verifying the validity of such an argument (that xDaunt did not bother to support with any evidence or study)? There are two options: I can either conduct myself an extensive scientific research on the topic, whose scope would need to reach that of a PhD thesis as we've seen above, or I can look at the scientific literature on the issue and verify if the argument has merits. I chose the second option, and built my post accordingly.
The first paragraph provides a general rebuttal to the claim, by looking at the general historical record of the deliberate targeting of civilians in conflict (indeed, xDaunt made an appeal to history in one of the posts that I quoted, going back to "antiquity onwards" and therefore not only covering contemporary counterinsurgency campaigns). I start the paragraph by answering my own question with "it is to a considerable extent accepted among scholars that states which engage in the targeting of civilians tend to not be helped by the practice -- and that it is in fact often counter-productive", and I proceed to substantiate that claim by citing varied sources, as well as highlighting why according to them states are not helped by the practice and why it can even be counter-productive. The second paragraph addresses the views in the literature that are more nuanced, focusing more specifically this time on contemporary counterinsurgency campaigns, and I present the findings of those authors to again support my argument that the literature does not support xDaunt's claim, commenting on and introducing those findings along the way. The final two paragraphs provide concluding remarks, repeating my argument and summarizing the findings, thus providing an overview of why xDaunt's position was wrong.
Obviously, if I was writing an academic paper on the topic, I would not be presenting the information and the sources in the same (condensed) way, and direct quotes would occupy a much smaller proportion of the text -- in addition, some of them would disappear altogether or appear in endnotes. Yet here this would make it even more difficult for posters to check what I'm saying, as the direct quotes I choose allow for rapid verification that I did not change the author's words or use paraphrases that do not reflect the original words. It doesn't mean either that I'm not making my own argument -- my point was that the scientific literature does not support xDaunt's claim and even contradicts it, which is what I showed. There is nothing "lazy" or "dishonest" about that. It's not an actual argument from authority either, as I'm not merely declaring that scholars disagree with him -- I precisely provide sources and explain them, which allows for contradiction and debate on the merits of their findings. He's not wrong because some scholars said so (argument from authority), he's wrong because that's what the scientific analyses of the evidence show (not an argument from authority).
On November 07 2016 10:19 LegalLord wrote:
And now, at long last, we get to the sources themselves. I will simply summarize the sources themselves in the order that they were presented, then provide context on how they relate to the argument at hand, and then give an overall summary at the very end. I will provide some sourcing so that people will know how they could possibly acquire the source being questioned. For books, Amazon sources will be given - you can buy the book if you like, but also you can read the preview version (including, most notably, the table of contents) and the reviews. In addition, I will reference a few reviews on the books he posted, because some of them are very relevant.
And now, at long last, we get to the sources themselves. I will simply summarize the sources themselves in the order that they were presented, then provide context on how they relate to the argument at hand, and then give an overall summary at the very end. I will provide some sourcing so that people will know how they could possibly acquire the source being questioned. For books, Amazon sources will be given - you can buy the book if you like, but also you can read the preview version (including, most notably, the table of contents) and the reviews. In addition, I will reference a few reviews on the books he posted, because some of them are very relevant.
...or you can just contact me, and I'll send them to you.
On November 07 2016 10:19 LegalLord wrote:
Reference 1: Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War (book)
Source: Amazon
As the title indicates, this book covers the issue of air power (specifically, bombardment) and using coercive means to win wars. It makes the argument that military, not civilian, targets are the proper targets that need to be hit in the pursuit of a military victory. The idea is that military defeat is a far more effective means of pushing a government to concede than by bombing its civilians and expecting that those civilians will pressure the government into conceding in order to save their own (civilian) lives. Instead, direct targeting of civilians is more likely to convince those civilians to more strongly side against their attackers, making that targeting an ineffective means by which to coerce an opposing government to concede. The exception made is the one for nuclear weapons, in which that threat really is something that can convince civilians to push for their government to stand down in order to save themselves from the fallout of that threat.
Anything particularly wrong with the argument that this book is making? Not really; for the most part it is a fair assessment, and I don't think too many people would be surprised by the idea that civilians being bombed would not be so inclined to pressure their own government into conceding to the attackers. The problem is that this argument is taken fully out of context to support kwizach's point. It should be clear that the context of this book is that of conflicts between nation-states, but kwizach co-opts it for the completely orthogonal topic of terrorism. You can read the table of contents to see clearly for yourself what kinds of conflicts they talk about. To save you the trouble, I'll list the ones they talk about: Japan (WWII), Germany (WWII), Korea (Korean War), Vietnam (Vietnam War), and Iraq (Gulf War). Very little about this source is even relevant to the issue of terrorism and how to fight against it. Perhaps if it focused more on strategic bombardment in the case of fighting between a nation-state and a decentralized guerrilla group - such as in the colonial revolutionary movements following WWII, Chechen conflict, Hungarian revolt in the USSR, and so on - then it might be much more poignant. Certainly, the book is a bit dated - being published in 1996 - but it does seem valid for the purpose it was written for. The problem is that it was used by kwizach to make a completely different argument.
Reference 1: Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War (book)
Source: Amazon
As the title indicates, this book covers the issue of air power (specifically, bombardment) and using coercive means to win wars. It makes the argument that military, not civilian, targets are the proper targets that need to be hit in the pursuit of a military victory. The idea is that military defeat is a far more effective means of pushing a government to concede than by bombing its civilians and expecting that those civilians will pressure the government into conceding in order to save their own (civilian) lives. Instead, direct targeting of civilians is more likely to convince those civilians to more strongly side against their attackers, making that targeting an ineffective means by which to coerce an opposing government to concede. The exception made is the one for nuclear weapons, in which that threat really is something that can convince civilians to push for their government to stand down in order to save themselves from the fallout of that threat.
Anything particularly wrong with the argument that this book is making? Not really; for the most part it is a fair assessment, and I don't think too many people would be surprised by the idea that civilians being bombed would not be so inclined to pressure their own government into conceding to the attackers. The problem is that this argument is taken fully out of context to support kwizach's point. It should be clear that the context of this book is that of conflicts between nation-states, but kwizach co-opts it for the completely orthogonal topic of terrorism. You can read the table of contents to see clearly for yourself what kinds of conflicts they talk about. To save you the trouble, I'll list the ones they talk about: Japan (WWII), Germany (WWII), Korea (Korean War), Vietnam (Vietnam War), and Iraq (Gulf War). Very little about this source is even relevant to the issue of terrorism and how to fight against it. Perhaps if it focused more on strategic bombardment in the case of fighting between a nation-state and a decentralized guerrilla group - such as in the colonial revolutionary movements following WWII, Chechen conflict, Hungarian revolt in the USSR, and so on - then it might be much more poignant. Certainly, the book is a bit dated - being published in 1996 - but it does seem valid for the purpose it was written for. The problem is that it was used by kwizach to make a completely different argument.
You are misrepresenting my use of that source. I did not cite Pape's Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War to simply make a point about dealing with terrorism, or to misrepresent its argument. The first reason I referenced Pape's work is because in my first paragraph, I address the effectiveness of the targeting of civilians in warfare throughout history, precisely because xDaunt himself made repeated appeals to "history" to defend the effectiveness of the practices he put forward. I wouldn't have cited the book, however, if this was the only relevance it had to the discussion -- indeed, the second reason is hidden behind your dismissal of his work as dealing with "conflicts between nation-states". In fact, Pape directly addresses the topic of fighting against guerillas in the chapter on the Vietnam war. It also covers a much larger number of cases through quantitative (and, to a lesser extent, qualitative analysis), in chapters 2 ("Explaining military coercion") and 3 ("Coercive air power"), that you conveniently left out of your selection of chapters from the table of contents. Among the cases included are the Soviet campaign in Afghanistan in 1979-1988 and against rebels in Pakistan in 1979-1986, the uses of force by Israel against the PLO in the 1970s and 1983-1985, the military efforts by France against Algerian rebels in 1954-1962, etc. Pape's book is therefore useful (in conjunction with others) to assess the merits of the historical argument, including as it pertains to warfare against guerillas. His analysis is also particularly relevant to the debate on these issue in relation to the fight against Isis, given the organization's territorial holdings. How this was not clearly apparent to you if you actually read/went through the book is beyond me.
On November 07 2016 10:19 LegalLord wrote:
Reference 2: In The Lessons of Terror: A History of Warfare Against Civilians (book)
Co-Reference: Barbarians at the Gates (review of book above)
Source: Amazon and NY Times
This source, finally, does actually focus on terrorism, at least broadly so. The basic argument is simply that terrorism doesn't work; it's counterproductive in achieving the goals it intends to achieve. The interesting thing about this book, though, is how it actually goes about defining terrorism. Its definition is somewhat expansive, including both the "obvious" terrorists and also state actors who target civilians. It's also remarkably preachy, something you could see if you went only as far as to look at the title.
Unlike with the previous book, this one is well worthy of criticism. One flash judgment of it is in nothing that its Amazon price is 0.01 (literally not worth the paper it's printed on), and its rating is middling. Even the positive reviews of the book are remarkably middling in their praise, crediting it with providing an interesting overview of history more so than its ability to justify its argument. Also, the previously mentioned "preachy" quality is quite universally panned, and the author is accused often enough of letting his absolutist view on this topic cloud his judgment on the effectiveness of terrorism. Indeed, even kwizach acknowledges that this book has received quite a bit of criticism, which makes it questionable why he would believe it would be a good source (except for the obvious reason that no one is meant to read it).
However, the NY Times review makes a much more effective case against the central theses of this book than any of the Amazon reviewers do - in that it does convincingly discredit many of the author's assertions. Specifically, the review shows many examples of where terrorism by guerillas against governments (e.g. French Algerian revolt) does work, and it also shows how ludicrous this expansive definition of terrorism is in calling more standard military involvements terrorism (e.g. certain Civil War campaigns, US War in Afghanistan). In short, the credibility of this book is rather wanting, and so its applicability as a source is not very high.
Reference 2: In The Lessons of Terror: A History of Warfare Against Civilians (book)
Co-Reference: Barbarians at the Gates (review of book above)
Source: Amazon and NY Times
This source, finally, does actually focus on terrorism, at least broadly so. The basic argument is simply that terrorism doesn't work; it's counterproductive in achieving the goals it intends to achieve. The interesting thing about this book, though, is how it actually goes about defining terrorism. Its definition is somewhat expansive, including both the "obvious" terrorists and also state actors who target civilians. It's also remarkably preachy, something you could see if you went only as far as to look at the title.
Unlike with the previous book, this one is well worthy of criticism. One flash judgment of it is in nothing that its Amazon price is 0.01 (literally not worth the paper it's printed on), and its rating is middling. Even the positive reviews of the book are remarkably middling in their praise, crediting it with providing an interesting overview of history more so than its ability to justify its argument. Also, the previously mentioned "preachy" quality is quite universally panned, and the author is accused often enough of letting his absolutist view on this topic cloud his judgment on the effectiveness of terrorism. Indeed, even kwizach acknowledges that this book has received quite a bit of criticism, which makes it questionable why he would believe it would be a good source (except for the obvious reason that no one is meant to read it).
However, the NY Times review makes a much more effective case against the central theses of this book than any of the Amazon reviewers do - in that it does convincingly discredit many of the author's assertions. Specifically, the review shows many examples of where terrorism by guerillas against governments (e.g. French Algerian revolt) does work, and it also shows how ludicrous this expansive definition of terrorism is in calling more standard military involvements terrorism (e.g. certain Civil War campaigns, US War in Afghanistan). In short, the credibility of this book is rather wanting, and so its applicability as a source is not very high.
These paragraphs are remarkable in their attempt to utterly and misleadingly discredit the book and the reason I referenced it without addressing its relevant actual contents whatsoever. The price argument is impressive in itself, considering you're using the price policies of independent online booksellers (not Amazon itself) selling used copies to pretend the book's contents are worthless. I'm not sure why you felt Amazon reviews were a good indicator of the value of the book as it pertains to what's being discussed, but let's focus on the NY Times review which I referenced myself. In what can only be recognized as a profoundly misleading summary of the authors' comments, you contend that the book's credibility is "wanting" because how the book treats the effectiveness of terrorism by guerrillas against governments and because its inclusion of government interventions under the label of terrorism is ludicrous. Did you somehow manage to miss that Ignatieff's criticism of the book that you just summarized applies to the parts and arguments that are not those I was referring to? I did not mention Carr's book for his examination of the effectiveness of guerrilla actions against state actors, or with regards to his argument on the use of the "terrorist" label for states. I mentioned his book because he also take a look at the history of the effectiveness of the use of military violence by states against civilian actors in their struggles against guerillas (which was exactly what was being discussed here), which is precisely the part of his analysis that Ignatieff actually praises and agrees with in his review:
Because Carr blurs the distinction between terror and brutality, he also confuses two distinct ''lessons.'' The first is that terror never pays. The second is that counterterrorist brutality never pays. The second, it seems to me, is truer than the first. The experience of the French in Algeria illustrates both cases. [...] The message of Algeria hardly confirms that terror never works. It supports the different point that indiscriminately brutal acts of counterterror rarely succeed. [...] The strong must understand -- and here Carr is surely right -- that for them restraint is the precondition for victory."
Your comments here truly are remarkable, because it is a perfectly example of exactly the kind of misleading misrepresentation of sources that you are falsely accusing me of. The irony is mind-blowing.
On November 07 2016 10:19 LegalLord wrote:
Reference 3: The [F]utility of Barbarism: Assessing the Impact of the Systematic Harm of Non-Combatants in War (research paper)
Source: Harvard
Reference 4: "Draining the Sea": Mass Killing and Guerrilla Warfare
Source: Ibrarian
I'm going to address the two of these simultaneously because they are pretty closely tied in terms of both what they address and what their issues are. Both are more or less preliminary studies, in that they are quite cognizant about the incompleteness of their approach and that they spend quite a lot of time outlining where their research needs improvement. Both make significant use of statistical models to push their point, and show a correlation between their term of choice (barbarism, mass killing) and failure in a military sense, though it would be perfectly valid to question definitions of both their terms and the working definition of success and failure that they use for their models. And both spend quite a bit of effort in defining their term of choice, although colloquially we could simply stick to "genocide" or "deliberate murder of noncombatant civilians" as the gist of what they're really talking about.
It's interesting to note that, given how much attention is given to definitions in these papers, that kwizach just takes an out-of-context quote, one each from both papers, and without qualification uses their definitions as if it's immediately obvious what they mean and what they're talking about. What's more, this is symptomatic of his previously noted fixation with saying that xDaunt supports genocide, and he is addressing that straw man of an argument by citing sources that, for our intents and purposes, might as well just be saying "genocide doesn't work." Ok.
Reference 3: The [F]utility of Barbarism: Assessing the Impact of the Systematic Harm of Non-Combatants in War (research paper)
Source: Harvard
Reference 4: "Draining the Sea": Mass Killing and Guerrilla Warfare
Source: Ibrarian
I'm going to address the two of these simultaneously because they are pretty closely tied in terms of both what they address and what their issues are. Both are more or less preliminary studies, in that they are quite cognizant about the incompleteness of their approach and that they spend quite a lot of time outlining where their research needs improvement. Both make significant use of statistical models to push their point, and show a correlation between their term of choice (barbarism, mass killing) and failure in a military sense, though it would be perfectly valid to question definitions of both their terms and the working definition of success and failure that they use for their models. And both spend quite a bit of effort in defining their term of choice, although colloquially we could simply stick to "genocide" or "deliberate murder of noncombatant civilians" as the gist of what they're really talking about.
It's interesting to note that, given how much attention is given to definitions in these papers, that kwizach just takes an out-of-context quote, one each from both papers, and without qualification uses their definitions as if it's immediately obvious what they mean and what they're talking about. What's more, this is symptomatic of his previously noted fixation with saying that xDaunt supports genocide, and he is addressing that straw man of an argument by citing sources that, for our intents and purposes, might as well just be saying "genocide doesn't work." Ok.
Nowhere in these two paragraphs did you actually refute any of the findings of the authors (you only attempt to cast doubt over them with your initial comments, which seem to ignore how normal it is for scientific articles to cautionary warn of the limits of the research being conducted), or substantiate your accusations that I am quoting them out of context and that they're addressing types of violence that are irrelevant to xDaunt's argument. And the reason you did not do that is that those are, again, false accusations. The authors are indeed careful to define the kind of violence they're talking about; the practices they study and their findings certainly do not only pertain to "genocides" going beyond what xDaunt is advocating. You don't have to take my word for it, though, because the definitions they explicitly put forward precisely allow us to verify that they're talking about exactly the kind of violence that xDaunt was discussing. Indeed Benjamin Valentino et al. study "mass killings", that they define as "the intentional killing of a massive number of noncombatants". The following three scans (reminder: I can send you the full .pdf) provide further context and a more thorough presentation of the definition, which as you will see is perfectly relevant to the discussion that was being had:
+ Show Spoiler [p. 377] +
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Mn2XcKk.jpg)
+ Show Spoiler [p. 378] +
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ANOOLjo.jpg)
+ Show Spoiler [p. 379] +
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/I2Uxnxl.jpg)
Ivan Arreguín-Toft uses a different term, "barbarism", but the definition is just as relevant: "Barbarism is the systematic harm of non-combatants for a specific military or political objective". The rest of the article (that I can send you!) does not focus on genocide at all either -- in fact, the author precisely concludes on the ineffectiveness the deliberate and systematic targeting of non-combatants below a genocidal level, as I made sure to present and explain in my original post. You are therefore utterly misrepresenting the contents of those articles and their relevance to the argument.
On November 07 2016 10:19 LegalLord wrote:
Reference 5: Targeting civilians to win? Examining the military effectiveness of civilian victimization in interstate war (research paper)
Source: None that are readily available. Closely related book: Amazon
Reference 6: Draining the Sea by Filling the Graves: Investigating the Effectiveness of Indiscriminate Violence as a Counterinsurgency Strategy (research paper)
Source: George Washington University
These two sources are grouped together because they are by the same author, but this commentary will focus mostly on the former piece. Despite having some notable issues that I will note, the first piece is probably the best source cited in terms of a combination of relevance and credibility out of all the sources that kwizach has provided.
The first piece is an interesting analysis of the issue of civilian targeting that asks the question of what situations civilian targeting can work under. He has a statistical analysis that shows a positive correlation between civilian targeting and success, but notes confounding factors in the form of reverse causality (victory causes civilian targeting), being completely unrelated to success, and dependent on the form of war (attrition vs. territorial conquest). He also notes a temporal effect, in that civilian targeting was more effective before than it is now, considering various factors which time could be a proxy for (technology, international law and humanitarian intervention, formation of nation-states rather than smaller independent governments, and so on). Overall, the gist of it is that civilian targeting sometimes works, but sometimes doesn't.
The second piece expands on this analysis by justifying some of the examples he gives for situations where indiscriminate civilian targeting can work - in wars of conquest, in wars where opposing factions are isolated, and/or when the opponent is small (e.g. a city-state). He even takes a stance against softer forms of indiscriminate targeting such as sanctions and notes their unimpressive track record in coercing results. Instead, he notes that discriminate civilian targeting can be effective, which is much more relevant to even the remarkably un-nuanced position of Trump that "we should target their families," which is still stronger than xDaunt's real point as it was written (that it's necessary to destroy the terrorist base of support to win and that there is historical precedence for successful approaches involving civilian targeting).
Reference 5: Targeting civilians to win? Examining the military effectiveness of civilian victimization in interstate war (research paper)
Source: None that are readily available. Closely related book: Amazon
Reference 6: Draining the Sea by Filling the Graves: Investigating the Effectiveness of Indiscriminate Violence as a Counterinsurgency Strategy (research paper)
Source: George Washington University
These two sources are grouped together because they are by the same author, but this commentary will focus mostly on the former piece. Despite having some notable issues that I will note, the first piece is probably the best source cited in terms of a combination of relevance and credibility out of all the sources that kwizach has provided.
The first piece is an interesting analysis of the issue of civilian targeting that asks the question of what situations civilian targeting can work under. He has a statistical analysis that shows a positive correlation between civilian targeting and success, but notes confounding factors in the form of reverse causality (victory causes civilian targeting), being completely unrelated to success, and dependent on the form of war (attrition vs. territorial conquest). He also notes a temporal effect, in that civilian targeting was more effective before than it is now, considering various factors which time could be a proxy for (technology, international law and humanitarian intervention, formation of nation-states rather than smaller independent governments, and so on). Overall, the gist of it is that civilian targeting sometimes works, but sometimes doesn't.
The second piece expands on this analysis by justifying some of the examples he gives for situations where indiscriminate civilian targeting can work - in wars of conquest, in wars where opposing factions are isolated, and/or when the opponent is small (e.g. a city-state). He even takes a stance against softer forms of indiscriminate targeting such as sanctions and notes their unimpressive track record in coercing results. Instead, he notes that discriminate civilian targeting can be effective, which is much more relevant to even the remarkably un-nuanced position of Trump that "we should target their families," which is still stronger than xDaunt's real point as it was written (that it's necessary to destroy the terrorist base of support to win and that there is historical precedence for successful approaches involving civilian targeting).
A quick note: I have an electronic copy of the "related book" as well, in case anyone wants it.
With regards to the first source, I like how you mention that the gist of the paper is that "civilian targeting sometimes works, but sometimes doesn't", while only alluding to the part where he concludes "However, the effectiveness of civilian targeting is crucially influenced by when historically it took place: civilian victimization worked far better in the past than it does in the present. In fact, targeting civilians today contributes nothing to winning wars" -- my account of his findings was perfectly accurate in the original post. And as I wrote myself, he looks more closely in the second source at the type of conflicts we're specifically interested in (counterinsurgency campaigns), but you are again skirting around the relevant findings, which I included in the original post and which are the following:
Indiscriminate violence against civilians can be effective in defeating guerrilla insurgencies under certain – relatively restrictive – conditions. When the population from which the guerrillas draw support is relatively small, the land area in which the insurgents operate is similarly constricted, and external sanctuary and supply is not available, governments have been able to strangle rebel movements with indiscriminate violence. In these circumstances, it is possible to sever completely the insurgents’ ability to receive supplies and information from the population, rendering the guerrillas incapable of continuing the war. [...]
The situation the US-led coalition faces in Iraq today does not bode well for any type of counterinsurgency strategy. Leaving aside questions of morality, the Sunni population is probably too numerous for indiscriminate violence to do anything but backfire and produce further anger. Discriminate violence is not possible without high quality information, which in most cases the US does not have.
The situation the US-led coalition faces in Iraq today does not bode well for any type of counterinsurgency strategy. Leaving aside questions of morality, the Sunni population is probably too numerous for indiscriminate violence to do anything but backfire and produce further anger. Discriminate violence is not possible without high quality information, which in most cases the US does not have.
Note that in addition to his specific comments on Iraq, the "relatively restrictive conditions" under which he says indiscriminate violence against civilians can work hardly apply to the Middle East.
Downes does state that discriminate violence can work (and that it can also not work), yet with regards to the killing of the families of guerrilla fighters (and putting aside disagreements on the literature on the topic), he still writes "The literature, however, is nearly unanimous in its contention that violence is more effective when selective, that is, when the targets of violence have actually done something (like informing for the enemy) that warrants retaliation", and adds later, as I quoted above, that this hardly applies to the kind of warfare the US has been waging in Iraq anyway (in this case because the kind of high quality information that would be needed is unavailable). In any case, I was not discussing the merits of Trump's call for the killing of terrorist families (this would require a different review of the literature, and Downes' specific contribution hardly makes the case that Trump is right), and you are deliberately downplaying again what xDaunt's actual comments were. Forget about the term "genocide" all you want, but the kind of large-scale killing of civilians that xDaunt argues in favor of does not qualify in the slightest as "discriminate violence", in particular the kind of discriminate violence that Downes mentions can work. Once again, my initial use of these sources was perfectly accurate, and you are misleadingly cherry-picking quotes and misrepresenting the argument to find a way to object.
On November 07 2016 10:19 LegalLord wrote:
Reference 7: The treatment of civilians in effective counterinsurgency operations (Ph.D. dissertation)
Source: None that are readily available
Well I'm actually just going to post the abstract for this one and highlight the most interesting parts.
Basically saying more or less what has already been established so far. Again, kwizach's objection here is centered on his assertion that xDaunt is supporting genocide, despite the fact that there is literally nothing in his post that says that he openly advocates genocide - and direct support for saying otherwise. I did look quite deep into the posting history, and I did find that at one point xDaunt did suggest that total war could, under some circumstances including historical ones, be effective. Also many statements about how ludicrous this entire "he supports genocide" strawman is.
Reference 7: The treatment of civilians in effective counterinsurgency operations (Ph.D. dissertation)
Source: None that are readily available
Well I'm actually just going to post the abstract for this one and highlight the most interesting parts.
Basically saying more or less what has already been established so far. Again, kwizach's objection here is centered on his assertion that xDaunt is supporting genocide, despite the fact that there is literally nothing in his post that says that he openly advocates genocide - and direct support for saying otherwise. I did look quite deep into the posting history, and I did find that at one point xDaunt did suggest that total war could, under some circumstances including historical ones, be effective. Also many statements about how ludicrous this entire "he supports genocide" strawman is.
In this case, you are again misrepresenting my opposition to xDaunt's claims, and downplaying what his claims actually are, to mislead the reader with regards to the relevancy of Johnston's thesis. As I said in my initial comment, Johnston argues in his thesis that the kind of killing of civilians that he brings up can help state actors achieve their goals "when used in moderation and in a targeted way" (p. 23), and even mentions in the abstract that "killing civilians has diminishing military returns", since "massive numbers of civilians were much less likely to defeat insurgencies than incumbents who inflicted lower levels of civilian casualties" (it's interesting you did not bold this sentence of the abstract). This runs directly counter to xDaunt's support for the large-scale killing of civilians. In fact, even the charitable downplaying of xDaunt's position that you just wrote a couple of paragraphs before this one ("that it's necessary to destroy the terrorist base of support to win", in your own words), is directly contradicted by the thesis -- something that is again even indicated in the abstract that you just quoted: "the quantitative and qualitative evidence challenges [...] the less-common opposing view that annihilating an insurgency’s entire potential support base is effective".
In short, and once again, the reason I'm the one who initially referenced the study is that it supports my position and contradicts xDaunt's argument in favor of the large-scale targeting of civilians.
On November 07 2016 10:19 LegalLord wrote:
Reference 8: Military Hones a New Strategy on Insurgency (news article)
Source: NY Times
It's a tangent. Read it if you like - it's not that long. But it's also pretty much irrelevant to the point discussed.
Reference 8: Military Hones a New Strategy on Insurgency (news article)
Source: NY Times
It's a tangent. Read it if you like - it's not that long. But it's also pretty much irrelevant to the point discussed.
I linked to the article to mention that the U.S. military made the "welfare and protection of civilians a bedrock element of military strategy", not to use it as supporting evidence for my position.
On November 07 2016 10:19 LegalLord wrote:
In short, kwizach's entire point is predicated on a strawman - that there is an implied support for genocide and mass murder within the position that xDaunt advocated. He then cites a slew of academic sources, some of which are questionable, most of which are taken out of context, many of which are relatively in line with what xDaunt actually supported but which tend to discourage the caricatured position (mass genocide). Then to add icing to the cake, he ends his post with the insane hyperbole of talking about nuking the entire Middle East.
In context of an extensive history of intellectually dishonest posting, I have found that there is little merit in having any substantial discussion with kwizach on any issue. This is before getting into the other issues of kwizach overhead, including the tendency to collect every single mention of himself over the past few months and write gigantic posts replying to those mentions. While he has managed to make himself appear to be well-sourced and well-thought-out in his argument, under scrutiny you will see an endless tendency to strawman and take both the positions of others and of his sources out of context. These issues ensure that his participation in any discussion is thoroughly unpleasant and explain why I have taken the position of refusing to respond to his points.
In any case, I consider this to be my last personal entry in the kwizach chronicles - I will not acknowledge the existence of any more of his posts, nor will I respond to anyone who mentions them in any substantive way. He has proven himself unfit to have a good discussion with, so I will move onto discussing with other people who are significantly less troublesome and poisonous. This post will hopefully serve as a thorough enough explanation of the issues with kwizach's posting for anyone who has as of yet been unconvinced about the validity of the objections that those who have ever debated any issues with him have of his posting style.
My next long posts, when I have the time, will focus on some issues that have come up frequently in the past that I really haven't spent a lot of time addressing. As a preliminary list, TPP/globalization and a NATO follow-up are topics that I intend to get to sooner or later.
In short, kwizach's entire point is predicated on a strawman - that there is an implied support for genocide and mass murder within the position that xDaunt advocated. He then cites a slew of academic sources, some of which are questionable, most of which are taken out of context, many of which are relatively in line with what xDaunt actually supported but which tend to discourage the caricatured position (mass genocide). Then to add icing to the cake, he ends his post with the insane hyperbole of talking about nuking the entire Middle East.
In context of an extensive history of intellectually dishonest posting, I have found that there is little merit in having any substantial discussion with kwizach on any issue. This is before getting into the other issues of kwizach overhead, including the tendency to collect every single mention of himself over the past few months and write gigantic posts replying to those mentions. While he has managed to make himself appear to be well-sourced and well-thought-out in his argument, under scrutiny you will see an endless tendency to strawman and take both the positions of others and of his sources out of context. These issues ensure that his participation in any discussion is thoroughly unpleasant and explain why I have taken the position of refusing to respond to his points.
In any case, I consider this to be my last personal entry in the kwizach chronicles - I will not acknowledge the existence of any more of his posts, nor will I respond to anyone who mentions them in any substantive way. He has proven himself unfit to have a good discussion with, so I will move onto discussing with other people who are significantly less troublesome and poisonous. This post will hopefully serve as a thorough enough explanation of the issues with kwizach's posting for anyone who has as of yet been unconvinced about the validity of the objections that those who have ever debated any issues with him have of his posting style.
My next long posts, when I have the time, will focus on some issues that have come up frequently in the past that I really haven't spent a lot of time addressing. As a preliminary list, TPP/globalization and a NATO follow-up are topics that I intend to get to sooner or later.
First, I will continue to not engage in the kind of personal attacks that you keep reveling in. Second, your accusation that my response to xDaunt was invalid because it was based on a strawman has no merit, for two reasons. The first reason is that I did not strawman's xDaunt's position, as I explained above and as the posts that I quoted and that he posted earlier in these forums indicate. He clearly stated, among other things, that "If the society is not so receptive [to our ideas], then it needs to be utterly destroyed first", that civilians should be "slaughtered" as "'every great empire from antiquity onwards" has done when necessary to "pacify occupied lands", wrote that "many Muslims will have to be made to suffer in ways and in scope that our Western sensibilities will no longer tolerate in order to truly win this conflict". He also specifically singled out "radical Muslims", which he estimated "conservatively" at 10% of the Muslim population, when discussing the kind of violence that would need to be unleashed (see above for a more extensive discussion of this point, with the links to his posts). I addressed his position as support for the large-scale use of military violence against civilians, which is perfectly accurate. You are pushing an interpretation of his posts that is simply not supported by his own words and the contexts in which he wrote them.
The second reason is that the review of he literature that I put forward comprehensively looks at the effects of the kind of violence that was being discussed, namely the indiscriminate (and, in some cases, the discriminate as well) use of military violence against civilians, at different levels of intensity and throughout history. My initial conclusion was perfectly accurate: "What can we conclude from this overview? Well, most scholars disagree with the idea that indiscriminate (and even sometimes discriminate) violence against civilians tends to be effective. Among those who have a more nuanced view on the matter, it is nevertheless accepted that most of the historical cases in which violence against civilians was effective are poor indicators of what its effects can be today. They also argue that while violence against civilians can sometimes be effective, this only applies under certain specific contextual conditions, and through specific types of actions -- which, as Downes argues, makes it difficult to argue it would be useful to resort to such violence in Iraq. With regards to your claim that large-scale violence is the answer, the evidence points to this kind of violence being simply not effective to defeat insurgencies, and even being counter-productive."
While your long post may give the wrong impression to the people who did not read it, at no point did you actually dispute the merits of the arguments and of the analysis found in my post -- you merely repeated personal attacks against me, claimed that I was misrepresenting xDaunt's argument, and then proceeded to utterly misrepresent my use of sources and even their contents. I suspect that you would probably agree with my conclusion and the analysis of the literature I put forward above it (as long as I don't mention xDaunt's position). I thus find it unfortunate that you have rejected civil discourse and honest discussion. We could have had an honest discussion about how to interpret xDaunt's words, but instead you decided to use the post to smear me as a poster. It is not difficult to guess why, as you repeatedly mention this will be your final response to me -- you would not have been able to pass off the same kind of text focusing on sources as a "response" had you actually tried to address instead the factual debunking of your claims on NATO and US foreign policy that I engaged in here and here. This post therefore serves to allow you to publicly pretend that those two posts (that were actual replies to you, instead of to xDaunt) could be replied to in the same way, and/or are only results of misleading interpretations on my part. Any poster who reads them will easily see that your accusations (targeting me and the contents of the posts) are not founded. Your statements on NATO and U.S. foreign policy included a collection of falsehoods and misrepresentations, as I extensively detailed.
Anyway, I genuinely don't get where the grudge that you clearly have against me stems from, or why you've decided to never address the actual arguments and analyses contained in my posts, opting instead to systematically attempt to discredit me as a poster through false accusations. It's unfortunate and it only adds unnecessary toxicity to the thread -- and it's reaching a level that is frankly getting weird. I will be happy to discuss substance, arguments and facts with you if you ever decide to change course.
edit: I just saw after updating the page that you received a warning for your post, so I just want to say that I'm happy to continue the discussion in the Website Feedback thread if necessary.
