Churchill is partly right

[Slinky]

Churchill is saying this:

* WTC was absolutely not a legitimate target.
* US has bombed civilian targets in war numerous times, something international law forbids (take for example, the deliberate bombing of a 100% civilian TV-building in former Yugoslavia).
* So, under US rules, a building that contains parts of US military infra structure is a legitimate target.

I think this reasoning makes sense. This is why it's important to follow international law, even if one has "god" or "freedom" of one's side. Remember, when USA bombed Hiroshima and Nagazaki, or bombed Tokyo with Napalm, killing hundreds of thousands civilians, the elite made excuces for those crimes. The moral thing to do is this: condemn 9/11 and urge the U.S. administation to follow international rule.

Here is an excerpt of an interview with Amy Goodman:

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Churchill, do you think that the World Trade Center was an acceptable target on September 11? Do you think it was a legitimate target?

WARD CHURCHILL: Do I personally think it was a legitimate target or should have been a legitimate target? Absolutely not. And that's said on the basis of all but absolute rejection of and opposition to U.S. policy. But what you have to understand, and what the listeners have to understand, is that under U.S. rules, it was an acceptable target. And the reason it was an acceptable target, if none other, was that because the C.I.A., the Defense Department, and other parts of the U.S. military intelligence infrastructure, had situated offices within it, and you'll recall that that is precisely the justification advanced by the Donald Rumsfelds of the world, the Norman Schwarzkopfs, and the Colin Powells of the world, to explain why civilian targets had been bombed in Baghdad. Because that nefarious Saddam Hussein had situated elements of his command and control infrastructure within otherwise civilian occupied facilities. They said that, in itself, justified their bombing of the civilian facilities in order to eliminate the parts of the command and control infrastructure that were situated there. And of course, that then became Saddam Hussein's fault. Well, if it was Saddam Hussein's fault, sacrificing his own people, by encapsulating strategic targets within civilian facilities, the same rule would apply to the United States. So, if you've got a complaint out there with regard to the people who hit the World Trade Center, you should actually take it to the government of the United States, which, by the rubric they apply elsewhere in the world, everywhere else in the world ultimately, they converted them from civilian targets into legitimate military targets. Now, that logic is there, and it's unassailable. It's not something that I embrace. It's something that I just spell out.

AMY GOODMAN: What are you saying was in the World Trade Center?

WARD CHURCHILL: There was a Central Intelligence Agency office. There were Defense Department offices. There was, I believe, an F.B.I. facility. All of which fit the criteria of the bombing target selection utilized by the Pentagon. If it was fair to bomb such targets in Baghdad, it would be fair for others to bomb such targets in New York. That's what I'm saying. I don't think it's fair to bomb such targets in Baghdad, therefore I reject New York, but so long as United States is applying those rules out in the world, it really has no complaint when those rules are applied to it.

[natedogg]

"Remember, when USA bombed Hiroshima and Nagazaki, or bombed Tokyo with Napalm, killing hundreds of thousands civilians, the elite made excuces for those crimes."

Good lord you people never cease to amaze me.

natedogg

[MMMMMM]

[ QUOTE ]
Good lord you people never cease to amaze me.

[/ QUOTE ]

Natedogg,

I used to be astounded at the percentage of nitwits in the poker world: when I saw so many mind-boggling plays, night after night, I could hardly believe it; and thought that I should never find a higher concentration of nitwits at any venue anywhere in the world, even were I to search the rest of my life.

Then I discovered politics.

[Zeno]

[ QUOTE ]
Churchill is partly right

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree, below are some examples:

What is our policy?.....to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime.

What is our aim?....Victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror; victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.

-Winston Churchill, speech in the House of Commons, 13 May, 1940.

[Chris Alger]

The U.S. also bombed Iraq targets that had no military value at all, namely Iraq's media facilities. This is quite likely a war crime under the Geneva Convention. Notably, the same mainstream media that refuses to acknowledge Churchill's moral consistency argument not only failed to condemn this atrocity but pressured the U.S. government to commit it: <ul type="square">Prior to the bombing, some even seemed anxious to know why the broadcast facilities hadn't been attacked yet. Fox News Channel's John Gibson wondered (3/24/03): "Should we take Iraqi TV off the air? Should we put one down the stove pipe there?" Fox's Bill O'Reilly (3/24/03) agreed: "I think they should have taken out the television, the Iraqi television.... Why haven't they taken out the Iraqi television towers?" MSNBC correspondent David Shuster offered: "A lot of questions about why state-run television is allowed to continue broadcasting. After all, the coalition forces know where those broadcast towers are located." On CNBC, Forrest Sawyer offered tactical alternatives to bombing (3/24/03): "There are operatives in there. You could go in with sabotage, take out the building, you could take out the tower."

On NBC Nightly News (3/24/03), Andrea Mitchell noted that "to the surprise of many, the U.S. has not taken out Iraq's TV headquarters." Mitchell's report cautioned that "U.S. officials say the television headquarters is in a civilian area. Bombing it would further infuriate the Arab world, and the U.S. would need the TV station to get out its message once coalition forces reach Baghdad. Still, allowing Iraqi TV to stay on the air gives Saddam a strong tool to help keep his regime intact." She did not offer the Geneva Conventions as a reason to avoid bombing a media outlet.

After the facility was struck, some reporters expressed satisfaction. CNN's Aaron Brown (3/25/03) recalled that "a lot of people wondered why Iraqi TV had been allowed to stay on the air, why the coalition allowed Iraqi TV to stay on the air as long as it did." CNN correspondent Nic Robertson seemed to defend the attack, saying that bombing the TV station "will take away a very important tool from the Iraqi leadership-- that of showing their face, getting their message out to the Iraqi people, and really telling them that they are still in control." It's worth noting that CNN, like other U.S. news outlets, provides all these functions for the U.S. government.

New York Times reporter Michael Gordon appeared on CNN (3/25/03) to endorse the attack: "And personally, I think the television, based on what I've seen of Iraqi television, with Saddam Hussein presenting propaganda to his people and showing off the Apache helicopter and claiming a farmer shot it down and trying to persuade his own public that he was really in charge, when we're trying to send the exact opposite message, I think, was an appropriate target."

According to the New York Times (3/26/03), Fox's Gibson seemed to go so far as to take credit for the bombing of Iraqi TV, suggesting that Fox's "criticism about allowing Saddam Hussein to talk to his citizens and lie to them has had an effect." Fox reporter Major Garrett declared (3/25/03), "It has been a persistent question here, why [Iraqi TV] remains on the air."[/list](excerpt from FAIR, 3/27/03).

The U.S. burned and bombed to death thousands of Iraqi civilians because more than two-thirds of Americans thought Saddam had nuclear weapons and was likely responsible for 9/11. These erroneous beliefs were planted and propagated by the Bush administration and sympathetic "conservative" war mongers with ready access to the mainstream media.

If we accept the logic of the mainstream sources cited above, those opposed to burning children without a compelling defensive reason have as much right as the U.S. to target media facilities, "collateral damage" be damned.

[Chris Alger]

So one must wage war at "all costs," which by definition includes everything worse than the targeted "monstrous tyranny."

It doesn't surprise me that this logic appeals to you, especially coming from one responsible for the first use of mustard gas on the Kurds (while objecting to "squeamishness" of those who "objected to poisonous gas against uncivilised tribes").

[Slinky]

[ QUOTE ]
So one must wage war at "all costs," which by definition includes everything worse than the targeted "monstrous tyranny."

It doesn't surprise me that this logic appeals to you, especially coming from one responsible for the first use of mustard gas on the Kurds (while objecting to "squeamishness" of those who "objected to poisonous gas against uncivilised tribes").

[/ QUOTE ]

Well said.

A murdered civilian is a murdered civilian even if he or she lives under a dictatorship. And a war crime is a war crime, even if those who order the deed are elected.

[natedogg]

" This is quite likely a war crime under the Geneva Convention."

It's a war crime to take out the enemy's communications?

natedogg

[natedogg]

"So one must wage war at "all costs," which by definition includes everything worse than the targeted "monstrous tyranny."

If it is truly a war for survival, then yes. Otherwise you die. I'd be unwilling to die just because, for example, my govt was too squeamish to beat the Japanese.


"It doesn't surprise me that this logic appeals to you, especially coming from one responsible for the first use of mustard gas on the Kurds (while objecting to "squeamishness" of those who "objected to poisonous gas against uncivilised tribes").

This is called "poisoning the well" or "ad hominem". It is a commonly used logical fallacy. In essence you are making the argument that "Churchill has made some odious statements, therefore anything he says is of no value".

natedogg

[Slinky]

Don’t think that this is true:

1) It’s wrong to kill over 3,000 civilians by destroying two office buildings. (Terrorist attack against WTC.)
2) It’s wrong to kill over 100,000 civilians by Napalm bombing a mayor city. (U.S. attack against Tokyo.)

Tokyo had no military value:
“As capital of Japan, Tokyo was an obvious target as part of an assault on the ‘basic economic and social fabric of the country’.” http://www.answers.com/topic/bombing...n-world-war-ii

The justification the U.S. administration used to carry out this attack (or the attack on other purely civilian targets), was probably similar to the justification the terrorist used when they carried out their attack. They were both horribly wrong. It’s is wrong to attack civilian targets, even during war. This is the same point Ward Churchill were making, and if one thinks about it, it’s not very controversial.