Short Quiz

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johnkarls
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Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:43 pm

Short Quiz

Post by johnkarls »

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Short Quiz


My apologies to anyone who does NOT believe this Quiz is “fair and balanced” which it probably is NOT because (1) How Everything Became War is the best book Yours Truly has read in many years, and (2) the author’s knowledge and her ability to frame issues in easy-to-understand “law school style” fashion was, for Yours Truly, Champagne for the Soul!!! Even when you disagree with her, it is easy to pinpoint why.

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I. First Important Subject -- Drones

1. Does our author list the advantages of drones (pp. 111-112) as being cheaper than the alternatives (manned air flights, covert ops, etc.), as having less domestic political cost, and as entailing less collateral damage?

2. Is the obvious drawback that the target is killed so that it is not possible to obtain any intelligence from interrogating the target?

3. Is our author’s statistic (p. 60) regarding Guantanamo Bay that only 45% of the detainees have been determined to have committed any hostile acts against the U.S. or its allies surprising? After all, aren’t there zillions of historical examples (Spanish Inquisition, East German Stasi, etc., etc.) in which many of the people being denounced were reported by romantic rivals, professional rivals, etc., and were not guilty at all of the acts being reported about them?

4. So why does our author think that our “kill lists” for drone strikes are not similarly infected?

5. Does our author note (p. 271-3) the assassination IN WASHINGTON DC by Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet of a political opponent, and the assassination IN LONDON by Russian President Vladimir Putin of a political dissident?

6. Does our author posit that there is little difference between these assassinations and American drone assassinations?

7. That, in other words, instead of car bombs in Washington DC and radioactive poisoning in London, we should expect foreign drone strikes in Washington DC and London?

8. After all (comment of Yours Truly), couldn’t drones originating from international waters reach Washington DC or London within a matter of minutes? And if they have “stealth technology” to avoid detection, would there be any defense?

9. Have we set a dangerous precedent? Was/is it worthwhile?

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II. Second Important Issue -- Indefinite (Permanent?) Detention of Enemy Combatants at Guantanamo

10. Does our author imply that everyone detained at Guantanamo was sufficiently harmless so that President Obama’s goal of closing Guantanamo was realistic?

11. Does our author even mention Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (“KSM”), the mastermind of 9/11?

12. Why was KSM never prosecuted?

13. Did President Obama, shunning military tribunals, prosecute at least one terrorist in a U.S. court in what turned out to be a “show trial”?

14. Did the “show trial” turn out to be a fiasco because the evidence had been obtained by enhanced interrogation techniques applied to OTHER PRISONERS to which the Obama Administration claimed THE DEFENDANT had no right to object and the federal trial judge, before ruling the evidence inadmissible, asked the Obama Administration whether the defendant would be released if acquitted, to which the Obama Administration replied -- “Of course not!!!”???

15. What should be done with, for example, KSM who still resides at Guantanamo?

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III. Third Important Issue -- The Law of War; The Law of Self Defense Per United Nations Charter Article 51

16. Does our author spend considerable time throughout her book discussing the Law of War and its peculiarities?

17. For example, does our author say (p. 275) that the Law of Self Defense per U.N. Charter Art. 51 entails, inter alia, the concept that any counter action taken should be “proportional” to the attack?

18. Is “proportionality” a wise restraint? After all, how can attacks be deterred if the malfeasors know that the response can only be “proportional”?

19. Did Yours Truly attend as an undergraduate in the early 1960’s a presentation by a world-famous guest lecturer who claimed that wars “can never happen in the future” because his research demonstrated that groups love their own members EIGHT TIMES as much, on average, as they might hate other groups they might attack?

20. Did the Guest Lecturer have no answer to Yours Truly in the Q&A period regarding why the Guest Lecturer was ignoring things that would spark a war, such as accidents (which the victims perceive as intentional), irrational acts, deniable interference by malicious third-parties who want the first two parties to fight, etc., so now the Guest Lecturer’s “love/hate ratio” would act in reverse to virtually guarantee a brutal war that expands at an exponential rate of EIGHT?

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IV. Fourth Important Issue – Military Personnel Taking Over State Department Civilian Functions

21. Does our author at various points present this as a problem?

22. Does she suggest that the State Dept civilians are better prepared/trained for such missions as implementing traditional foreign-aid programs?

23. Does she suggest that local populations are less suspicious of, and more grateful for, traditional foreign-aid programs implemented by State Dept civilians?

24. Does history contain zillions of examples where political opponents have simply stenciled with spray paint on American foreign-aid supplies -- “Gift of [American opponent]”?

25. Why does our author seem to think that State Dept personnel are gifted and military personnel are nincompoops?

26. Does our author overlook the potential advantage that traditional foreign-aid projects and military protection can be better coordinated if both are performed by the military?

27. Does the military comprise an infinitely-superior solution in situations of grave danger, such as constructing medical facilities and providing medical help during the 2014 Ebola Crisis in West Africa -- since military personnel can simply be ordered to do such things whereas civilian personnel can refuse and, if necessary, quit?

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V. Fifth Important Issue -- Origins of Countries; Failed States; Etc.

28. Does our author have a good grip on how countries outside Europe and except for ancient civilizations such as China, are NOT real countries but rather mere inventions of colonial powers that were made with no regard to the disparate groups that were lumped together into single "countries" and the groups, each of which was divided among two or more "countries"?

29. Does our author refrain from criticizing the Obama Administration for creating a Failed State in Libya which we, at the time, predicted in such voluminous detail?

[Please see the 18 postings 3/21/2011 - 5/24/2011 which have attracted 3,946 views to date (1,268 before our meeting and 2,678 subsequently as of the time of this writing) and which comprised the “Original Proposal” for our 2/8/2012 meeting on “Real Politik (aka National Interest) and Libya vs. Iran” – the 18 postings can be found in the “Original Proposal” section for our 2/8/2012 meeting on http://www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org.]

30. Does our author also refrain from criticizing the Obama Administration for permitting Syria to become a Failed State when so little would have been required to topple the ruling Alawites when Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State and Robert Gates as Defense Secretary (among many others) recommended doing so?

31. BTW, does our author subscribe to the notion of American historians that Germany did not exist before 1871 because a democracy can NOT be a country?

32. And BTW, does our author turn a blind eye to the meaning of Lufthansa?

33. Was Germany’s flagship airlines since 1953 named for Luft (German for air or sky) and Hansa -- the designation for each of the zillions of members of the Hanseatic League that dominated from the 15th to the 19th century Belgium, Holland, Northern Germany and the Baltic Sea all the way to St. Petersburg?

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VI. Sixth Important Issue -- The U.N Security Council vs. the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS)

34. Has the U.N. Security Council FAILED to prevent zillions of atrocities because of the veto power wielded by China and Russia/Soviet Union?

35. Does our author (beginning on p. 245) describe how in the wake of Kosovo, the Canadian Government convened ICISS?

36. Did ICISS decide that, contrary to pre-existing international tradition of ignoring the treatment by sovereign states of their own citizens, sovereignty carries with it a RESPONSIBILITY to protect the human rights of its citizens?

37. Did ICISS also decide that sovereignty carries with it a RESPONSIBILITY to prevent internal groups from attacking other countries or groups within other countries?

38. Was this latter principle already on display when “coalitions of the willing” (such as NATO) decided to take action despite an actual or threatened veto in the U.N. Security Council?

39. Are ICISS principles preferable to the inaction by the U.N. Security Council?

40. Are both preferable to unilateral action? What about our 79 Tomahawk missiles that were fired recently against the Syrian Government’s chemical-weapons facilities?

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VII. Seventh Important Issue -- Non-Defense Benefits of Defense Department Technology

41. Have economists often chronicled how much, if not most, of current human technology resulted from military research which turned out to also have civilian applications?

42. Does our author describe (p. 139) a NON-LETHAL weapon that causes human beings to flee a particular area (similarly in concept, though not similar technology, to how a pet can be restrained from leaving an area with an electronic collar)?

43. Would this non-lethal weapon be a good substitute for police with regard to domestic crowd control?

44. Does a companion non-lethal weapon enable the “painting” of individuals who have penetrated a particular area with invisible traces of a small number of harmless particles? Would this be useful with respect to tracking participants in riots that, for example, resulted in the death of innocent bystanders?

45. BTW, does our author have a lengthy description (pp. 134-139) of “killer robots” and opine that she has more confidence in the “decisions” that would be made by properly-programmed “killer robots” than the decisions that would have been made by military personnel?

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VIII. Frivolous Issue -- The Marine Corps Hymn

46. Has our author, however inadvertently, proved that the first four lines of the famous “Marine Corps Hymn” ARE WRONG???

47. Are the first four lines – “From the Halls of Montezuma – To The Shores of Tripoli – We fight our country’s battles – In the air, on land, and sea”?

48. Does our author report (p. 47) that the last American warship from the Revolutionary War against Britain was sold by Congress in 1785?

49. Does our author explain that prior to the Revolutionary War, American shipping was protected from the notorious pirates of North Africa’s Barbary States by the British fleet?

50. And protected during the Revolutionary War by the French fleet?

51. BTW, was the French fleet responsible for the American victory in the Revolutionary War because Lord Cornwallis knew immediately upon reaching Yorktown VA and seeing that the Chesapeake Bay was blockaded by the French fleet, that he had no choice (for lack of re-supply) but to surrender -- and George Washington, whom he had been chasing south for years (and whose name, ever since the French and Indian War, had been routinely invoked in the British Parliament whenever anyone wanted to describe someone as a nincompoop), was the “nearest offensive player” who got the credit?

52. So does our author report that because of all the ransom that had to be paid to the Barbary Pirates, Congress finally approved the Naval Act of 1794 providing funds for 6 new ships?

53. And does our author report that in 1801, President Thomas Jefferson sent 4 of the 6 new ships to fight the Pirates of the Barbary States (Morocco, Tunis, Algeria and Tripoli) WITHOUT Congressional approval MUCH LESS A DECLARATION OF WAR?

54. Does our author report that Tripoli held out until 1805 when Derna, the capital of its Eastern Province, was conquered by EIGHT U.S. MARINES and several hundred mercenaries invading Tripoli from Egypt?

55. Is 12/8/1941, the day after Pearl Harbor, the last time America bothered with the Constitutional Requirement to Declare War?

56. So did President Thomas Jefferson start an American tradition in 1801 that the Constitutional Requirement of a Declaration of War is NOT necessary if, instead, the President orders it?

57. And was the war against the Barbary Pirates NOT one of “our country’s battles” (but rather an unconstitutional private escapade)?

58. Which would make the Marine Corps Hymn WRONG if Tripoli was NOT one of “our country’s battles”?

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IX. Other Issues???

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