Strength and Criteria
We'd destroy any nation on this earth within a few days if we really tried. And that's permanently. Our weaknesses my ass.
So we exposed that we are not all that great at occupying because we've tied our military's hands behind its back, had no plan, and were inflexible. We exposed that our leaders are fools. Big deal.
In a skeptical worldview any applied quality, like calling something "strong", is applied using a specific concept, a "criteria", which is used to define when the quality applies in a given context. Above I see the implicit assumption that strength is defined in terms of destructive power. The criteria is "can the thing destroy another in a contest of mutual destruction?". The more the answer is yes, the more strength it has.
I think that is a fair final definition of strength, if strength is different from power.
But if strength is having power then we need the power to do something specific when we need power at all. Destructive power is but on type of power, a crude type, the roughest power tool in the shed. I thought the Iraq War would go this way and I did not start with some special knowledge, we were immediately informed about the cultural demographics in Iraq, the eventual civil war was easy to guess. Occupations are difficult, like war they have lots of atrocity to them inevitably, but unlike war they go on and on. War is tolerable only if you are defeating someone like Hitler and you still need to get it over quick or the war itself becomes the crime.
I would like a government strong enough to realize what was required in Iraq.
I would like a government that could understand why overwhelming military force is not a whole answer, is not enough power alone to do all jobs.
Can this not come as a surprise next time? We need other power, like the power of trust.
Comments :
Nicely done!
Interesting that so many associate strength with destruction.
On a scale of 1-10
The US strength ratings:
Power to Destroy =10.
Power of Trust= 1.
Recruiting more "allied forces" to help fight the battle of Afghanistan has proved difficult. We have the "strength" to destroy Afganistan, but how is that "winning".
I'm only half stupid
Good distinction to draw
I'm a big fan of Dune and for a long time I agreed with the idea that the power to destroy something guarantees utter control but now I think that goes too far. It's usually true that strength (force) is power but sometimes a blunt instrument will just wreck the thing you wanted to reshape.
A side note, can you explain the connection with the image? I don't get the symbolism or whatever =(
Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world -- Tennyson
criteria
it's a classification graph with criteria for classifying pollutant particles... one the sub-point that we have to classify things, such as "types of strength". We can't just talk about terms as if they have one specific meaning, they are in reality networks of connected meanings, and we need to look at what our criteria are... we can't just call something strong/weak and debate that, we have to discuss the critera. The conflict apparent when one person says, "The Iraq experience shows we are weak" and Ender says "no, we are not weak!"... is not the real argument.
They have not really disagreed yet, because they are not actually using the same definition of the terms they are sharing.
Those were two different definitions of "weak". While my post is just on strength, the real issue to me is that we ought to sort out the criteria and taxonomy of what we mean.
We think we are discussing what strength is... if we detect we have different definitions, we then argue which definition is better... but the reality is both definitions are apt in particular circumstances, and are measured by reasonably valid criteria... so what we really need to discuss is which strength is useful in which context, and also what sort of context Iraq provides.
It's great if people would read my idea and say, "oh yeah, there are many kinds of strength" but what I'd really like would be people getting the abstract idea here about how we understand ideas and words, and we step back and remember things are never right or wrong on their own, they are never good or bad in themselves, but always, always with respect to some criteria which is only valid or invalid based on a given context, the frame of reference.
Domestic violence
We are married to the rest of the world, whether we like it or not.
The question, then, is do we use force to beat our wife into submission?
Another way to look at it: if we need violence to obtain things necessary to maintain our way of life, isn't this simply robbery?
I thought about this overnight
that is an interesting metaphor to apply.
I'm still thinking about it...
to the latter question: yes.
of course there are different types of strength
and yes I purposefully blew off cheneys' idea of strength because I don't consider certain definitions of strength as useful in the current or coming conflict due to the fact that our enemies couldn't care less about those other definitions of strength and only understand one thing - destructive force.
The radical islamists in the middle east are like Janus and while they pretend to care for the various diplomatic trappings, it is done with the express desire to divide Americans - to pit the idealistic liberals (and war weary wimpy Americans) against the people with the clue to the real face of radical Islam.
The real face of radical Islam would only fold to brutal - very very brutal force.
I do not believe there will be a diplomatic solution in the final run. One side will be destroyed or completely subjugated and humiliated. Take it as you wish, but it won't be us (though we might be hurt because of our clueless idealists).
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
What is
The real face of radical Islam
Do we really know what that face looks like?
Is it the face of a young boy that has lost his sister and mother in a bombing, and when asked to drive an exploding car into a crowd says yes out of a sense of dispair and hopelessness.
Is it the face of a man who has seen his 1,000 year old mosque blown where his ancestors had prayed for centuries before him?
I think sometimes regular people do radical things when under desparate circumstances.
I think your assessment that one side must be destroyed to declare victory very naive and simplistic.
If you mark violence as a metric for winning, then we are not winning.
Why because our leaders are saying they want stability not destruction.
If you want continued violence, then the US will never achieve its goals.
We can't even secure the tiny area around Baghdad because they don't want us there.
I'm only half stupid
it's the legs of a little boy
running for a bottle of water
and not getting it
the idea itself is destructive
it isn't just destructive power vs. diplomacy.
Diplomacy isn't the only alternative.
For example, it was clear to me from the start, and I wrote on this if proof mattered about my past sentiments, that we need to get Iraq on it's own two feet.
But this for me was not about just a military or police force.
This should have been about rebuilding. We should have rebuilt Iraq's Engineering Industry. We should have used all Iraq contractors, and if their companies didn't exist, we should have invested in them, if they lacked training (my understanding is their engineering industry was pretty decimated during the sanctions of the 90s)... train them.
That's also power. It's not the sort of "can we get along" non-power of diplomacy (diplomacy is not power but negotiation)... it is a very active and strong power... the power to build.
We did not use that power in Iraq, OUR companies wanted the work. That kind of power does not rely on diplomacy, it's the sort of thing you take into your negotiations that give you diplomatic "power", because of the real results that no one really wants to deny.
Your side in this war said a goal was to bring Democracy to Iraq, that could not be done with destruction NOR just diplomacy.
By the way, the end result will be, I think, niether side destroyed, both sides humiliated, and if "subjugated" then we've lost because until the end of time, subjugation will lead to violence.
Great way to show
the importance of relativism and context.
Again, I think Ender is also mistaken in calling the context 'restraint'. What we are not good at (nor has any modern occupying army) is guerrilla warfare. A context we have superior force in is conventional warfare. In that context, with a defined enemy, defined goals, and defined ways to declare victory, we dominate.
The current leadership has not (and cannot) establish consistent criteria in this situation/context.
We could change the context and blow everything up as Ender wishes to do, but I don't think that would accomplish any of the goals to secure our nation and bring stability to the region.
We are all mediators, translators. - Derrida
http://signicide.blogspot.com/