From: MaxPlumm@aol.com
Date: Tue Jan 21 2003 - 09:58:29 MST
Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
> I'm not going to get into the Samantha/Mike/Emlyn war/no-war
> rhetoric.
>
> I'll simply try to put a little personal spin on this from an "extropic"
> perspective. One of my neighbors recently posted a "No Iraq War"
> sign on their front lawn (these are very popular in Seattle which
> is generally a green/pacifist haven).
>
> I've been thinking about how one (I?) might respond to this.
>
> I like rhetorical discussions, so I'm thinking about posting
> a sign saying:
>
> 1) How many Iranians died due to the will of Saddam Husein?
To which Samantha replied:
"How many of those did the US government encourage and aid him in
killing?"
Well, without the efforts of Saddam and his government the number would be
zero, so I don't see how that's relevant.
> 2) How many Kuwaitis were killed or raped due to the will
> of Saddam Husein?
"Dunno. Probably far less than you might believe."
Much like someone could say in regard to your outlandish casualty estimates
in regard to a future conflict with Iraq.
"How many
Iraqis were killed *after* we told Saddam that the conflict
between he and Kuwait was between them?"
Would this somehow diminish Saddam's role in their deaths?
> 3) How many Iraqis (i.e. his own citizens) were killed due to
> the will of Saddam Husein?
"Dunno. The famous gasing of the Kurds was covered up by us as
accidental deaths in the crossfire by US for a while. We even
used our armed forces to clean up the mess."
And how does our actions in "cleaning up the mess" diminish Saddam's
responsibility for these deaths?
> 4) Would you be comfortable with a person like Sadaam Husein
> walking the streets of your neighborhood?
"Nope. I also wouldn't be comfortable at all with Bush (Sr. or
Jr.), Cheney, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld or a host of others."
Humorous, but I hope you're not suggesting that the parties within our
government and Saddam Hussein are morally equivalent.
> 5) If you are unwilling to have Saddam Husein living next to
> you then why are you comfortable having him live next to
> human beings like you in Baghdad?
>
"Why you are you comfortable with killing and proposing the
killing of hundreds of thousands of humans just like you?"
Why are you comfortable in calling the Vietnam War senseless, when by
abandoning Indochina we allowed the deaths of millions of humans just like
you?
Ø You may recall back a year or more ago, when I suggested what
> I thought was a perfectly reasonable (utilitarian) solution in
> the wake of 911 which was to nuke Afghanistan so as to completely
> eliminate it as a potential source of unextropic vectors.
"Yes. I thought you must of come seriously unhinged after 911.
Such a proposal is as unextropic as it gets."
As opposed to the career of Saddam Hussein?
> I was
> soundly whacked in the side of the head for even considering such
> an option. Here is the key point -- I was at least considering
> the utilitarian perspective (e.g. the needs of the many outweigh
> the needs of the few).
>
"You believe the many are served by obliterating the few by the
country full from the face of the planet? by sanctioning the
use of nukes when we get pissed off? by prophylacticly killing
millions before they can be a threat? If you really believe
these things then I certainly wouldn't want you living in my
neighborhood either."
I do not agree with Mr. Bradbury's "unorthodox" solution. However I cannot
accept your suggestion that our response in regard to Afghanistan was due to
the fact that we "got pissed off." Indeed, it is fairly obvious to most
observers who witnessed the events of 9/11 that there were elements in
Afghanistan who were clearly a threat to us and would have continued to be
had we taken no action. I doubt you would characterize our response to the
December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor as a "temper tantrum", so please
don't insult everyone's intelligence by doing so in regard to Afghanistan.
> When you are thinking about Saddam & Iraq you seriously have to
> ask yourself whether one even gets up to that level (i.e. a
> utilitarian tradeoff). We are talking about a country with
> a population of only 24 million people and the 2nd largest
> proven oil reserves (~112+ billion barrels) in the world.
> Unless I'm doing my math wrong, that suggests that each
> Iraqi citizen is worth ~$140,000 dollars (less production
> costs). Why are not *all* Iraqis living in "palaces"?
>
> I will throw down the gauntlet here. I will assert that
> Saddam Husein is a demonstrably unextropic vector (to
> the degree that he destroys the citizens of other countries
> and holds back the development and advancement of the citizens
> of Iraq.)
>
"You have demonstrated that you yourself are capable of acting as
a decidely unextropic and quite murderous vector."
How has Mr. Bradbury demonstrated this? By blowing off steam in regard to a
tyrannical monster? I hardly think that Mr. Bradbury's opinions put him in
the same "decidedly unextropic and murderous vector" classification as Saddam
Hussein.
"War generally is unextropic in the extreme. Perpetual war even
more so."
And I would argue that dismissing the Vietnam War, and more importantly
ignoring the millions of lives snuffed out by totalitarian butchers
afterwards, is equally unextropic.
> This problem isn't going to go away. I think if the non-U.S.
> people on the list will review the history -- the U.S. did
> by and large try to stay out of both WWI and WWII. That
> approach did not work. Furthermore, I think if one examines
> the death tolls in those wars (e.g. the trench warfare or
> the holocaust) one will observe that "doing nothing" is
> essentially writing a prescription for millions of deaths.
>
"Doing the wrong thing causes even more deaths and likely puts
off our favorite dreams for at least a generation AND unleashes
a much higher likelihood of some of the nastier dystopias."
You couldn't be more right here, as the example of Vietnam clearly
illustrates. By doing the wrong thing, in this case abandoning our dependents
in Indochina, we allowed the Communist butchers to unleash one of the worst
dystopias the world has ever known.
"Personally I consider any future that requires simply nuking
entire countries out of existence to make "the world safe for"
as a real dystopia."
And it certainly would be, but that would hardly be our course of action in
Iraq, so it's irrelevant.
Ø So, to all "extropians", I ask this question --
> "how do we prevent millions of deaths?"
>
"By confronting and ending the murderous idiocy within ourselves
and by confronting and ending the roots of war as thoroughly and
quickly as we can."
I am curious as to what your solution is, given that the roots of war
surprisingly almost always involve the attempted spread of oppressive
totalitarianism in some form. This can take the form of expanded influence or
expanded territory. The diplomatic initiatives initiated by Clinton did not
succeed in stemming Kim Jong Il's desire for nuclear weapons. In fact, they
seem to have emboldened him. In the cases of Nazi Germany and the Soviet
Union, for example, twiddling our thumbs did not stop their aggressive
impulses. So, unfortunately we often must confront the murderous idiocy
within others. You seem to enjoy criticizing and vilifying the United States,
but I wonder how much responsibility you place on the shoulders of these
other nations to prevent these dystopias you so fear.
Max
"At every turn, we have been beset by those who find everything wrong with
America and little that is right."
-Richard Nixon
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