3 ms·

IT is not where a lot of my friends make a living; many of them are/were intel analysts (open source, meaning they do not do the classified stuff, they do large

by 616c 13y ago

IT is not where a lot of my friends make a living; many of them are/were intel analysts (open source, meaning they do not do the classified stuff, they do large-scale cultural analysis that is the background to the classified reports; we all know the majority are not reading their work, hecne the problems) because language skills with a certain Middle Eastern language. And they will all tell you the same thing: every strike radicalizes more people, and is causing more problems than they intend to solve. They know this by the way through local media they are paid to read. Also every one I know from Yemen, and I know a few, will tell you the same thing as our government has progressively fucked up their country so bad no one sees straight. Agitating people in a lawless state, as you hint at, is only asking for desperate people to do desperate things. But what do I know, this rationalizing logic (and to be fair it is not yours, it is the USG) is disgusting. But it works in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and worked so well in Iraq, yeah? No, it did not. Strategy bad, implementation bad, and results bad. What a surprise.

rayiner 13y ago
That's tangential to my point. It may be a bad idea to pursue any specific criminal into Yemen. I'm not arguing that. I'm arguing that sovereign states can do so because in a lawless country there is no "cannot" in the face of physical ability to act. "Should" is a wholly different question. This distinction is not irrelevant. In our system of government, courts decide "can" while the political process decides "should." But we have a tendency of equating the two, and responding to every instance of "shouldn't" with "you can't do that!" "Can" Obama pursue terrorist suspects into Yemen with force? Yes! Should he? Who knows.
- 616c 13y ago
  To you it may be tangential, but my large amount of time in the Middle East (and I happen to like it here) has taught me that, unfortunately, stateless states should implode on themselves. They will anyway. The only reason they are able to cause damage is we shorten our proximity to them with forward operating bases and less legitimate covers in countries where the population does not approve of our presence, even nominally. That dislike is because of those very same FOBs, which are there to make the stateless stateful. If we can learn anything from networking jokes, no amount of guns will make UDP TCP, just like forcing Yemenis to accept legitimacy based on your definition of the need for stateful intervention to prevent stateless chaos and terrorism (the biggest fad word of the decade) and will not work (I would not be surprised, knowing my history of ancient Greece, if the terrain and disconnected government are not so uncommon, see Afghanistan also). I agree on the should-can dichotomy. The problem is that I was under the impression the should was important in the betterment of society than the can, and that has recently changed. But maybe because I was raised by lawyers, I was taught the should was more important the can, hence the idea of constitutional powers. I am under the impression that is the outrage with PRISM/FISA/general government malfeasance these days: like a cop who badgers someone he pulls over and does not follow his legal obligations, the USG in Yemen, in signals intelligence, in everything to be honest, does what it can and worries about the should later, and will find any excuse in the should category that is exceptional to justify a "can" they knew to be a "cannot." It is disgusting. It is ok: my time abroad taught me all governments are shams, and we best tolerate them just to make them pleased with themselves. The USG is like all other bullies, and any government bully must be convinced in its total allegiance of the flock or it must (can) flex its muscle even though it knows it should not. Unfortunately when the bully beats too many people, they gang up and trounce on him. Sorry, end rant. Not meant to be directed at you. Your last point is really good, but it defines exactly what makes me want to be Scandinavian. I do not want to support my government even tacitly anymore.

by 616c 13y ago

rayiner 13y ago

That's tangential to my point. It may be a bad idea to pursue any specific criminal into Yemen. I'm not arguing that. I'm arguing that sovereign states can do so because in a lawless country there is no "cannot" in the face of physical ability to act. "Should" is a wholly different question. This distinction is not irrelevant. In our system of government, courts decide "can" while the political process decides "should." But we have a tendency of equating the two, and responding to every instance of "shouldn't" with "you can't do that!" "Can" Obama pursue terrorist suspects into Yemen with force? Yes! Should he? Who knows.

616c 13y ago
To you it may be tangential, but my large amount of time in the Middle East (and I happen to like it here) has taught me that, unfortunately, stateless states should implode on themselves. They will anyway. The only reason they are able to cause damage is we shorten our proximity to them with forward operating bases and less legitimate covers in countries where the population does not approve of our presence, even nominally. That dislike is because of those very same FOBs, which are there to make the stateless stateful. If we can learn anything from networking jokes, no amount of guns will make UDP TCP, just like forcing Yemenis to accept legitimacy based on your definition of the need for stateful intervention to prevent stateless chaos and terrorism (the biggest fad word of the decade) and will not work (I would not be surprised, knowing my history of ancient Greece, if the terrain and disconnected government are not so uncommon, see Afghanistan also). I agree on the should-can dichotomy. The problem is that I was under the impression the should was important in the betterment of society than the can, and that has recently changed. But maybe because I was raised by lawyers, I was taught the should was more important the can, hence the idea of constitutional powers. I am under the impression that is the outrage with PRISM/FISA/general government malfeasance these days: like a cop who badgers someone he pulls over and does not follow his legal obligations, the USG in Yemen, in signals intelligence, in everything to be honest, does what it can and worries about the should later, and will find any excuse in the should category that is exceptional to justify a "can" they knew to be a "cannot." It is disgusting. It is ok: my time abroad taught me all governments are shams, and we best tolerate them just to make them pleased with themselves. The USG is like all other bullies, and any government bully must be convinced in its total allegiance of the flock or it must (can) flex its muscle even though it knows it should not. Unfortunately when the bully beats too many people, they gang up and trounce on him. Sorry, end rant. Not meant to be directed at you. Your last point is really good, but it defines exactly what makes me want to be Scandinavian. I do not want to support my government even tacitly anymore.