I know, this sounds like a troll thread. I don't want it to be. I am not saying I agree with all neoconservative ideas or that everything the President is doing is fine. My point is that there is similar reasoning behind the military action in Ender's Game and in neoconservative foreign policy.
I was just thinking of the similarities of the "foreign policies" in Ender's Game (and by "foreign" I mean intergalactic) and in neoconservative thought. If I understand neoconservative ideas correctly, they think that actively promoting democracy and human rights in the world is more than nice and moral, it is strategically important for the well-being of the free world.
The alternatives, like detente, perhaps had a place in certain moments in history, but have not proven themselves spectacularly helpful over the last few decades. Making the "realist" ideas look even worse are the comments over the years they have made that turned out to be terribly wrong ("Don't disrupt detente! The USSR will never fall so we'll just have to deal with them as a permanent superpower."). Did we learn nothing from Rocky IV!?
Bean figures out that to sit and wait for the Formics to attack is absurd because their is no way to build a blockcade around an entire planet, so the only logical course of action would be to go and get them before they get us. Yes, it turns out they weren't the meanies we got the impression they were after they killed tons of people two different times, but their benign intentions coudn't be known until Ender wrote the Hive Queen. Maybe they should have had an Alec Baldwin pulling a Red October and trying to communicate with them before we killed them.
Anyway, terrorists aren't the misunderstood insects we see in the formics. The really do want to kill us. There is an infinite number of ways they can seriously harm us, and no way to effectively stop all those attacks. I can't see what other choice there is besides going after them. I think the idea of spreading democracy and hunting down terrorists is the "realist" position in stopping terrorists.
I guess that I am making some assumptions about the root causes of terrorism. While I do think that poverty in other countries and imperfections in all things American make the problems fester, I think societies organized around fear rather than freedom are the root cause. I don't think any consessions we might reasonably make will stop the current terrorists. We need to advance the cause of human rights and weaken tyrants that create fear-based societies.
Posts: 159 | Registered: Jan 2005
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quote:Anyway, terrorists aren't the misunderstood insects we see in the formics. The really do want to kill us.
So YOU think, but mankind in Ender's Game thought precisely the same thing about the Buggers.
I agree that the government in EG takes a "realist" position. However, I think EG illustrates exactly what is so bad about that position. After all, mankind later comes to overwhelmingly regret what they did, and to curse Ender for it. I think Ender's Game illustrates just why we cannot afford to assume hunting down and destroying the enemy is the only feasible option.
EDIT: I want to add that this is totally ignoring a much more direct comparison...
Given the strategy of suicide attacks on the bugger homeworld and willingness to attack both military and innocent bugger targets alike, the military strategy in Ender's Game is much more like Al Qaeda's strategy against us. And like Al Qaeda, they falsely assume their enemy cannot be reasoned with. Al Qaeda recognizes it is in a weaker position, like mankind in EG, thus goes after the enemy using all methods possible without concern for ethics. In this way the terrorists make that same "realist" mistake.
This is the funny thing about post-9/11 neoconservativism: It uses the same reasoning the terrorists do to justify acting immorally in the name of a supposedly moral outcome.
Posts: 2432 | Registered: Feb 2001
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quote:mankind in Ender's Game thought precisely the same thing about the Buggers.
Yes, and in the book they were wrong. I would disagree with the idea that terrorist are doing this innocently without understanding the harm they are doing.
quote: Given the strategy of suicide attacks on the bugger homeworld and willingness to attack both military and innocent bugger targets alike, the military strategy in Ender's Game is much more like Al Qaeda's strategy against us.
True. I would say that Al Qaeda's behavior and the U.S. military response is both based on an all-or-nothing response. I would guess that people who support a war on terror see it the same way, that the enemy is ruthless and willing to wipe out wide swaths of us to achieve their objectives. Because they are willing to do this, and if they get powerful enough weapons or are crafty enough, they can be absolutely devestating. Because of this they must be stopped. HOW to stop them is an extensive topic itself, but I think the current approach is a realistic (if extremely difficult) one.
quote: And like Al Qaeda, they falsely assume their enemy cannot be reasoned with
Do you believe that Al Qaeda can be reasoned with, or am I misreading what your point is here?
quote: Al Qaeda recognizes it is in a weaker position, like mankind in EG, thus goes after the enemy using all methods possible without concern for ethics. In this way the terrorists make that same "realist" mistake.
I agree.
quote: This is the funny thing about post-9/11 neoconservativism: It uses the same reasoning the terrorists do to justify acting immorally in the name of a supposedly moral outcome.
This is the one part I have a different take on. The most common example I hear about this is how we are killing Iraqi civillians. Of course that is going to be true. (Not that you said this) I think it is a mistake to say that purposely killing civilians (like in Israel, Spain, London, New York) is morally equivilant to targeting enemy fighters and accidentally killing civillians. When people express concern for the Iraqi civillians, I always think, "do they think it was better under Saddam? Do they think more people are getting killed now than their were under Saddam? If the moral choice to try and stop the killing of innocents is central to what should guide our foreign policy, we should be doing something much more in Korea and a number of places.
Posts: 159 | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
I know that this is a serious thread, but I can't take it seriously, and choose not to comment on the substance of the thread.
I did, however, want to point out (again, for anyone who read a similar post by me) that I can't hear the word neocon without immediately thinking about the Transformers...Robots in disguise...
Posts: 1480 | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
I must say its an excellent comparisson but remember the no 1. motto of the US? "Don't negotiate with terrorwists" (sorry couldn't help an Elmer Fud impersonation) i don't think any serious attempt to negiotiate with terrorists has been done so we don't know if they can be reasoned with. And isn't one of the things they want is for the US to bugger out of the Middle East? Course' they also want us (woops damn you americans, I meant they want YOU) to stop supporting Israel now that is something there can be no compromise since the existence of the Israeli nation is important if only we (this time I mean the west) could support it without any moral qualms, currently i think its difficult to view the Israeli's unblushingly as the victims due to their treatment of the Palestinians including the negligence with the Lebonese christians who they let massacre thousands of Palestinians.
Now as for Detente, excuse me but how are you gonna force the issue? The USSR had the ability to destroy the planet just as many times over as the Americans do there is nothing anyone could do to change that aside from their own internal collapse. And its even more difficult with China even had Tienimen square succeeded do you think things would be different? China to them is still the Middle Kingdom and had their government been replaced by far more progressive and radical students the issue with Taiwan would be forced alot earlier then it will be now, they'ld be even MORE economicaly stronger and a far greater threat to YOUR economic and military security which is already I may add going down the drain.
Also you yourselves can't even take a moral stand in most cases without everyone laughing at you because in you war of affluance against the USSR and China you supported military fascist dictatorships in South America and Africa and the Middle East *cough* Saddam.
Posts: 1567 | Registered: Oct 2004
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quote:Of course that is going to be true. (Not that you said this) I think it is a mistake to say that purposely killing civilians (like in Israel, Spain, London, New York) is morally equivilant to targeting enemy fighters and accidentally killing civillians.
The actions of the U.S. and the actions of Al Qaeda are not morally equivalent, but I do think they are both immoral. It does not comfort me to suggest that our actions are immoral, but not quite as immoral as Al Qaeda's.
Posts: 2432 | Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
"Can you prove that Tom or is is just what you believe?"
Well, whose estimates of Iraqi fatality will you accept? Our military doesn't exactly give reliable numbers, but you might argue that Amnesty International is biased.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
There's a term-of-war right now: Conditional vs. unconditional terrorists. The IRA was involved in conditional terrorism: They had specific goals, and when Tony Blair essentially gave in to them, the terrorism stopped. In other words, you could surrender and it would work.
But unconditional terrorists are the ones that get benefit (in their eyes) from killing your people, and NOTHING YOU DO will change that. That's what we seem to be dealing with with Al Qaeda. Their "demands" keep changing as we comply with them; it's always impossible to meet their claimed demands. Why? Because they aren't killing westerners to get WESTERNERS to do something, they're killing westerners to gain prestige and power and influence among Sunni Muslims. So if we do nothing, or if we fight back and kill terrorists, or if we invade countries, THEY WIN. There's nothing we can do that will stop them from getting a benefit from killing our people.
So we have no choice but to try to deprive them of their sheltered position among rogue nations - usually by pressuring and sometimes by conquering the sheltering nations - OR to simply declare terrorism to be a nuisance like traffic accidents.
I don't think the latter choice is politically sustainable - nor should it be.
But either you fight to obliterate the terrorist groups so that they are no longer capable of carrying out remote-location "events," which means a strongly and relentlessly waged war; or you might as well not resist at all, because any effort short of victory will be worthless and only play into their hands.
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My objection to "NeoConservative" as a term of political debate is that it's too inclusive, and it's used as an epithet of thinly disguised anti-semitism. The NeoConservative movement was primarily a Jewish movement, nurtured within Jewish publications. When people speak disdainfully of it, there is often an intended implication that of COURSE the NeoCons are pro-Israel, and of COURSE they function as a conspiratorial group, etc. So ... even though many do NOT mean these things, it's good to watch the context in which NeoConservatives are referred to to make sure you're hearing reasoned argument and not wacko antisemitic conspiracy theories. (NOTHING said in this thread sounds anything like the latter - I'm only pointing out the way it is often used in so-called intellectual journals.)
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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