This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I feel there's an ommitted piece of the puzzle in this discussion. Even Hanania's broader discussion of it has that ommission even though he gets very close to it. There's an idea common in leftist (for lack of a better word) political spaces that military action provokes a counter-response that results in the target being strengthened, not weakened:
What's missing? This idea isn't exclusively applied to Israeli military action against Hamas. It's applied in a very ad-hoc way to all "oppressed" targets of military action from the perspective of leftists. Punching fascists doesn't make them stronger, bombing Nazi Germany didn't make it stronger, bombing Japan didn't make it stronger. Killing Russian conscripts doesn't make Russia stronger. But bombing Hamas strengthens them. Bombing Iraqi Insurgents strenghen them. Even the Khmer Rouge, where the US is oft blamed for their rise to power because the US... Bombed them in a desperate attempt to stop Cambodia from falling to a bunch of omnicidal maniacs? In all likelihood this is just the 70s Cold War Left trying to defect from their vocal support for Southeast Asian Communism in the aftermath of it's atrocities, but it's part of the same pattern where some bombs are mysteriously disobeying Lanchester's laws.
Now maybe there's some advanced theoretical reason why certain targets get stronger when you smash their shit up, but I don't see this articulated, nor do those same leftists sincerely act upon those beliefs. Why would they simultaneously chant "Palestine Will Be Free" and "Ceasefire Now" if they believe that bombing Hamas will only strengthen them? "Bomb Me, Almighty Bomber!" would surely be a better slogan.
This statement completely ignores the actual debate at the time, which was the choice between bombing military targets or attacking civilians. Both types of bombings happened during WW II. The available evidence does strongly suggest that attacking civilians creates desires of revenge and thus support for politicians who advocate for the war, rather than making people surrender.
In actual reality, the civilian population of Germany never forced their government to surrender to make the bombings stop, and neither did the people of England, despite the V1 and V2 attacks. And even the Japanese surrender after the nukes didn't result from a lack of support from the people, but the leaders deciding themselves that dying to a nuke was not a sufficiently heroic death for their populace unlike running into a machine gun fire with a bamboo spear in your hands.
So do you want to argue that Hamas can be persuaded to surrender by bombing civilians? My judgment of their ideology, which is different from that of the WW II Japanese, is that this will not happen.
Note that one famous case where the populace did force an end to the war, which is Russia during WW I, didn't involve attacks of the Russian population.
I do, so I guess that you are just in a bubble where you don't read these things?
Well, if you believe that every bomb is hitting Hamas and no civilians are being killed, then it makes perfect sense that you would disbelieve that the bombings can turn neutral civilians into supporters of Hamas, because they want revenge.
I prefer the facts over falsehood, though.
More options
Context Copy link
I think they're actually right within their own frame of how the world works.
Oppressed peoples consist of men, women, children, marginalized peoples, LGBTQWERTYUOIP, students, artists, activists, etc etc. It's never okay to go full-throttle attacking oppressed peoples. Why would you? Do you support maming children and murdering promising young art students? What kind of monster are you?
Oppressors consist of
men, women, chilEVIL. And you don't negotiate with EVIL, you burn it to the ground, you destroy EVIL root and branch, you cleanse EVIL from the river to the sea.Bombing the Axis powers and punching 21st century "nazis" are cases where the attacker had the will to get the job done. Someone also recently pointed out the example of Sri Lanka, where brutal reprisals against fanatical rebels... actually worked extremely well, because the attackers were merciless and willing to shed any amount of enemy (and perhaps their own) blood to win. The Allies were willing to do anything to win in WW2. "Nazi" Punchers get a slap on the wrist while alleged "nazis" get named, shamed, and humiliated.
Bombing random revolutionary SEA farmers makes them stronger because the U.S. was unwilling to follow up with whatever Geneva-convention-violating weaponry and/or hideous casualty numbers would've been required to grind the VC to dust. There were women and children at My Lai! (Unlike Dresden or Tokyo). Attacking Palestinians makes them stronger because the U.S. keeps Israel on a short enough leash that they can't fully eradicate the next generation of angry Gazan men raised without fathers. You can't go HAM on Gaza, there are women and children in there! (Unlike those towns at the Israeli border).
When I put it this way, the contrast is stark, but I don't think the people I'm describing see much inconsistency. Oppressors deserve what's coming to them after all.
I mostly agree with your point, but this isn't a great description of Vietnam. The Viet Cong weren't just rebels; a lot of them were actual North Vietnamese soldiers sent through tunnels from North Vietnam, and the rest were getting weapons and supplies that way. The usual prescription for putting an end to "hostile nation sending soldiers at you" is to knock over the hostile nation. And frankly, that would probably have worked, "willing" or not, assuming it could be done.
The problem there was that Mao Zedong, never exactly a pacifist, had made it very clear that US boots in North Vietnam would mean the PLA coming in guns blazing. So the USA never cut off the Ho Chi Minh trail at its source.
It wasn't strictly an optics/"willingness" problem; there was a large chunk of "do we want a great-power war" involved as well.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
My understanding is that the US bombed Cambodia not to stop the Khmer Rouge, but because the North Vietnamese were using it as a base. And once the Khmer Rouge came to power the US was pretty hands-off toward it, seeing it as a counterweight to the victorious North Vietnamese.
Operation Menu, which targetted North Vietnamese incursions into Cambodia, was incredibly limited in scope and number of bombs dropped. Operation Freedom Deal, the far larger campaign, focused its bombing on the Khmer Rouge.
Perhaps the problem is that the US didn't bomb them hard enough, then? The US stopped when there was no longer any alternative government left to defend because the Khmer Rouge had seized the capital and started slaughtering its occupants. Another oddity - why is the Khmer Rouge strengthened by being bombed but their opponents are not strengthened when the Khmer Rouge massacres them? And why were they not strengthened when Vietnam conquered them either?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Dropping millions of tonnes of bombs on a country does not endear the local population to you or your collaborators. If you bomb and leave without properly installing an occupation govt (because your plan is to get out of South East Asia while saving face) then you're asking for trouble. There was no proper occupation government in Iraq either. The US showed up, took all kinds of hostile actions 1991-2003 (the air campaign, encouraging revolts, sanctions and then the 2003 invasion), they wrecked the governing institutions (Ba'ath party), installed nothing to replace them and then wondered why Iraq was disintegrating and everyone hated them.
Suppose aliens show up and say 'you've offended us for not being vegetarians' and start razing cities from orbit. The waste chemicals from the alien war machines poison the water, huge swathes of land are irradiated. Nigh-invincible tripods wander around, mostly batting off local resistance. Some governments collaborate since they prefer vegetarianism anyway, they draft troops to fight on their side and ban meat. Chaos and anarchy reigns.
Then the aliens leave due to esoteric domestic concerns. What do you think people are going to think about vegetarianism? Is it going to be more or less popular? It's going to be much less popular, since the aliens are widely hated for killing enormous numbers of people, violating sovereignty and vegetarianism is tainted by that. People are going to be salivating over cooking and eating aliens alive.
Current relations between the US and Vietnam, not to mention the US and Japan and the US and Germany would seem to indicate otherwise. Funny that.
OK, China switched to being the primary threat to Vietnam shortly after the US left. But this 'enemy of my enemy' effect would be much greater in the counterfactual where the US had never fought them. Vietnam's relations with Russia are much better than with the US, they use mainly Russian equipment.
What has Vietnam done to actually help the US, if their relations are so good and history matters so little?
More options
Context Copy link
The US isn't currently carpet bombing Saigon and commissioning bombers to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
China's already learned what America couldn't figure out in Afghanistan in the last 20 years, and that's that open trade and commerce are a better way to get people to be receptive to wanting to deal with you than sending your air force in and imposing conditions on them.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The US did not decline to properly install an occupation government. They lost. Their ally fell to the Khmer Rouge after a lengthy siege of the capital.
And regardless with your example, do you think the Earth's militaries would be made stronger if aliens bombed us into the stone age? How? Will our jagged rocks and clubs become magic?
Peasants were radicalized by the bombing, it played into the hands of the radicals who were fighting the US. Why would normal people join the Khmer Rouge?
In the case of my scenario, I'd expect a massive and sustained militarization effort to strengthen our defences. Look at North Korea with it's 'military-first' doctrine and hatred of the US. It's a fairly poor country with limited resources but with hydrogen bombs and ICBMs, along with a very large conventional army. My main point is that the alien's political goals would be put backward by this policy. Their goal was not to kill or destroy but to convert us to vegetarianism, which then failed.
Claiming that the Khmer Rouge were radicalized by and against the US does not square with their actual behaviour, which was omnicide primarily directed at Cambodians but generally against everyone.
At least with Hamas you can point to them being interested mostly in killing an external opponent they have a grievance against, rather than everyone especially themselves.
As for South Korea, who were invaded and almost destroyed by the North, why did they not then become radicalized in the same way? North Korea's radicalization clearly predates the Korean War because it's visible in them starting the war in the first place.
OK but why did the Khmer Rouge manage to get into power, if as you say, their policy program was omnicide directed at the Cambodian population (which is untrue given they were pro-peasant, grossly incompetent, weird and self-serving but still pro-peasant)? The sane, normal people were discredited and undermined by the US bombing campaign which killed a lot of people.
Johnny Cambodian the illiterate peasant doesn't know much about the fine details of Marxism, Maoism or Pol Potism. But he's against being bombed. That's the key ingredient, not Chinese or Vietnamese assistance. No amount of money can substitute for people prepared to fight - Afghanistan and our other counter-insurgency failures show that much.
The US razing every urban area in the country certainly worsened things. Proportionately North Korea got bombed much more intensely than Japan or Germany in WW2, massed incendiary attacks are roughly as devastating as nuclear strikes. The North Koreans might've started off weird but they got a lot weirder after the war - see the Korean axe murder incident. I'm no psychologist but I suspect having the whole country bombed to smithereens such that people were living in holes in the ground might induce some paranoia and xenophobia in the broad population. Anyway, South Korea didn't get hit as hard as North Korea.
Killing a quarter of Cambodia's population in about 3 years isn't oops. You can't achieve that unless it's your goal. The Cambodian genocide was deliberate, and definitely not pro-peasant.
Johnny Cambodian the illiterate peasant doesn't smash infants against trees because he dislikes being bombed.
The weirdness of North Korea is more clearly indicated in their political system and continued use of concentration camps, not an incident in which North Korean soldiers killed two American ones, which is frankly a footnote in comparison.
If it didn't, the differences are fairly slim. At one point, almost all of South Korea was occupied by North Korea. Many hundreds of thousands of South Korean civilians were killed, often in deliberate massacres.
Unless you're suggesting some weird response curve where killing 700,000 civilians is okay but the moment you cross the 800,000 mark everyone goes insane, the differences in the North and South Korean political systems cannot be explained by bombing.
They killed ethnic minorities, city-dwellers and intellectuals. Pol Pot was an agrarian socialist, he wanted to 'purify' the state by getting rid of all the non-Cambodian and non-peasants. You can't just simplify him down to being an omnicidal maniac.
His system wasn't good for Cambodian peasants but as far as they were concerned, they were fighting for and advancing the interests of peasants. That's why they got support from the peasants! This is the key thing. How, in your model, does Pol Pot take over Cambodia unless he has some supporters? It's not like he recruited from the psychos and innately Chaotic Evil community. He encouraged the poor, young and resentful to take part in classicide and succeeded because the natural stabilizing pillars of pre-war Cambodian society had collapsed, in large part due to US bombing.
I maintain that a North Korean soldier wandering up to some Americans, telling them they couldn't chop down a tree because it was personally planted by Kim Il Sung and later running up to murder them with axes (over a tree) is pretty weird.
North Korea was less populous than South Korea (20 million to 9 million) and took much higher losses proportionately. Some parts of South Korea weren't wrecked by the war, all of North Korea was wrecked.
Furthermore, I do not claim that all of North Korea's political issues stem from the war (the last couple centuries of Korean history not being terribly fortunate or successful wrt foreign relations). But the war did have significant cultural impacts regarding relations with the outside world, resulting in a more militarized and isolationist dictatorship, even by Stalinist dictatorship standards.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I never noticed this before, but you're dead right. "Punching Richard Spencer will only create a thousand Richard Spencers ready to rise up behind him" is never advanced by leftists as a reason not to punch Richard Spencer.
Of course not, because they have the delusion that their own side is near perfect and won't cause a ton of collateral damage. For example, by having extremists going around punching everyone to the left of Stalin, for being a fascist.
On the right you have people with the same delusions, who think that Israel is surgically hitting Hamas, despite all the evidence to the contrary.
More options
Context Copy link
I have seen this idea advanced by centrist or right-wing figures sometimes, but with two differences:
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Its where you have a large civilian population to draw from, that are currently at least roughly supporters but not actively involved in violence, and where your aim is not to simply kill the population.
Internment and events like Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland, were great recruiting tools for the IRA. If they had simply killed every Catholic, that wouldn't have been an issue. But theres a spot where killing and mistreating becomes a catalyst and a spot where it degrades the numbers of people willing and able to fight.
When you are at a war footing with the majority of the populace are in direct service to a regime, then bombing them is unlikely to make things worse. They are already conscripted or volunteered. However if say only 5% are in service to a group then bombing civilians might make more sign up than you kill.
The question is if bombing Gaza is like bombing Nazi Germany, or bombing Derry. And how many are you willing to kill?
Its basically a straightforward calculus, how many are you willing to kill or maim, vs how many not in service (who survive) will be provoked to service via your actions.
The more you are willing to kill, or the greater the proportion who are already working against you, then the more bombing will help rather than hinder.
And of course as with the Brits in the Troubles, if your allies have a cap on the number they will let you kill before they get squeamish and put pressure on you, then, you may not be able to unleash your full might.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link