Updates Michelle Malkin jumps into the fray by linking to Jeff's original post and here is my response to that post. Instapunk leaps into the fray as well.

Wizbang's Jay Tea jumps in with a clarification of an earlier post and tries to make the same point that Jeff tried to make. That we are the good guys and that we shouldn't be doing those things that Dick Durbin and Jeff sort of hinted we might be doing. Getting back to the apparent belief of people who should know better that there isn't much that separates us from our enemy. This also ignores the history of WW2 where we fought like tigers and acted like lambs when it was over. He also falls for the trap of allowing people like Markos of Daily Kos to define the middle ground. Finally it is beside the point that sometimes what some might call torture works. I disagree with nearly his entire post and point.

Jeff started out by saying that Dick Durbin was not right but absolutely right. A Senator who was trying to characterize our soldiers as equivalent to the Nazis, the Soviets and Pol Pot was absolutely right, the mind boggles. His justification for claiming that Dick Durbin was right was we should always have some measure of self doubt. I took him to task for such intellectual laziness and his response is contained in this post I am linking to.

Honestly it appears that Jeff is still working his way around these issues as some of his later posts seem to indicate but nevertheless his ideas in this post are not that strange, given stuff I have read on sites like Daily Kos so it bears responding to. I realize that he has very little in common with Daily Kos but its worth noting that its always important to check your premises. He clearly has some contradictions going and we all know that reality doesn't enjoy contradictions. So lets take a look at his response and see what is going on. Mind that he has just emailed me to say that his post is old news...not sure what to make of that except it may confirm the first sentence of this paragraph.

There are a few things going on that don't all add up.
1. Right off he tries to say that I am overstating the threat to our nation. Which is weird because in the first part of his original post he states clearly "This war, as much as any war in our nation’s history and more so than some, is a war of survival." As I stated in my post "Jeff and I could quibble about the extent of the threat, I believe this is by far the worst threat we have ever faced, but that isnt really important to the point. We are generally in agreement that this war is pretty damn serious." Sorry but doesn't sound like we are that far apart. So then what explains these statements highlighted by quotes?

"Pierre believes that we are in a war for our very survival, and that anything we do here is justifiable on those grounds. I disagree. This debate is too serious for hyperbole. Just as our soldiers are not Nazis, neither are we in a war for our literal survival."

If he is attempting to state that I claimed that we are in a war for our survival I plead guilty, if he believes that I think all 300 million of us have to die for our society to crumble thats a strawman of another color. Course it might be a good thing to wonder what he meant in his first post? Since he also claims that we are in a war of survival. Color me confused.

"Though I’m sure there are insane men out there who aspire to see the blood of all Americans running freely in our streets, we should all be able to agree that that’s just not a real threat right now. "

I am fairly certain that 2,800 people dying in 2 buildings probably produced a goodly amount of blood, but I am guessing that he means over and above that amount. This is a shocking thing to say aloud but since no one seems to be remembering exactly what happened that day it may be a good time to keep a baseline. For the first time in our history an enemy came into both our largest city and our capital and destroyed two of the tallest buildings in our country, plus they partially destroyed the Headquarters of the most feared Military in the world and managed to murder 3,000 of us, and they managed to have it all happen on the 9:00 news. Hey color me a coward but underestimating people that can manage so much with so little seems to be a fools game. And these people that died had families, they had friends, they had plans for later on that day, and because our military and intelligence services were led by fools and incompetents, those folks instead of living their lives died in flames in sheer stark terror.

If we laid down every weapon held by every soldier and every armed civilian, if we completely foreswore violence and gave up our prosecution of the war tonight, our enemies would be unable to wage genocide against us. They simply wouldn’t have the ability. Yes, our enemies can attack us. They can kill Americans by the thousands. They can grievously wound our nation. But wipe us out?

Whether or not this country faces an existential threat from those who declare themselves our enemy is interesting but not the point. Again I simply say that if you cannot see ways that our enemy can defeat us then you simply are not trying very hard. If you need a hint one of the main ways is if people like Durbin destroy our will to fight and we simply give up. That is the book on the United States. The main point is this belief by Jeff that we can give up our basic right to honor life to honor some abstract view he has on how wars are fought.

It is a depressing idea that we can sacrifice some of our fellow citizens for an unrealistic goal that can never be met. But whats worse is they are sacrificed to satisfy the guilt of a crime that has not occurred. More on that later.

The pact we make with each other in this country is we are all born equal and that none of us have more of a right to life than the other. What springs from those eloquent beliefs is the idea that if you attack one of us you attack us all. In my opinion soldiers do not give up this right to life when they go into the military nor is our pact with them to honor their lives void. If anything we owe it to our military to give them the moral right to defend their lives by any means without us standing on the sidelines giving scores on what is allowed and not allowed.

War is absolute hell, trying to judge one action in war against the other and saying that this action is moral and this is not is absurd for those not there. For example its ok to drop napalm on an enemy column but its not ok to put womens panties on a prisoners head. Its ok to stick a knife into someones belly while they sleep but its not ok to punch some asshole in the face. Its ok to shoot some poor fool firing an AK with a TOW but its not ok to make that same asshole stand up for hours.

But I would have a problem if we were extracting information by breaking the prisoner’s fingers, or beating him with baseball bats, or electrocuting him. If we ever did those things — and I have no reason to think we have — then I would be very unhappy. Because those are just not things Americans do. We hold these truths to be self-evident: That’s just not something Americans do.

Couple of things shake out of this statement. First up is Durbin believes we are just as bad as those who in fact did far far worse than breaking fingers and beating them up with baseball bats. And Jeff sounds a lot like a person who is standing in a courtroom saying that "wow you know if the defendant was abusing his children by molestation, beatings and starvation I would definitely have a problem with him but he isnt as far as I know". Wow talk about damming with faint praise.

The saddest thing about the world around us today is we allow those who wish us harm to define the middle. We allow the Markos of the world to say in effect this is the best we can do, but if only we can do "this" we will be alright. When you compromise with evil people you end losing the fight.

Jeff's entire thesis depends on his assumption that if we have to do horrible things in this war to save our lives that somehow we will have lost our humanity and become no better than our enemy. The falseness of that can be seen in how we conducted ourselves in WW2. No one was fiercer and no one was more willing to lend a hand.

It can also be witnessed more close to home in the police officer who saves your family by using the same sort of weapon with the same results as the person rampaging through your apt building murdering people. The police officer does not become the criminal by his employing his weapon to kill the criminal, his reason for employing force saves him as well as his basic humanity. What confuses a lot of people is the belief that somehow there is not that much difference between us and those we fight. That is a philosophical problem that sadly is the product of so much of today's education. There is a vast difference between those we fight and us.
The Shape of Days: Naught but our very souls: What we stand to lose

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