Interesting manifesto. Is it terrorism? I think so.
Update [2010-2-18 15:15:15 by BooMan]: Here’s an active link.
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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I don’t think it is, technically, since the suicide notes suggests he believed nothing would change. “Terrorism” implies an effort to reach a political goal. He sounds like he just wanted to get off one shot at the IRS on his way out.
It is certainly the product of a deranged mind.
Compared to what?
Compared to the minds of people who don’t run planes into buildings?
Yes, but that doesn’t imply a goal. He’s saying that the answer is to take a shot at them, knowing it won’t do any good, and simply hope the public somehow wakes up one day.
It’s also a really redundant and poorly-written sentence, but whatever.
That doesn’t make it terrorism. People act out in violence to protest things every day. Terrorism is about instilling terrorism in others, not just using violence to achieve ones means.
Unless, by THAT definition, you consider the US military a terrorist organization..!
As you said, intent is a necessary ingredient. The definition of terrorism is the use of violence or threat of violence against civilian targets in order to bring about political change. There is quite a bit of wiggle room in that definition, but not nearly enough to justify the blatant overuse of the word we see from the government, law enforcement, media, and most people.
And somewhat off topic, this brought to mind the absurd way the term weapon of mass destruction is being used, as in the charges against the Christmas panty bomber of attempting to detonate a weapon of mass destruction. What is that? Anything that kills more than two people is now WMD?!
It’s a tough call in this case. His suicide note is sort of all over the place on many levels, but I completely agree about the words “terrorism” and “weapons of mass destruction” being thrown around way too much.
Terrorism, to me, implies attempted coercion through a sizable violent physical attack on civilians.
WMDs, to me, implies something on the order of a nuclear weapon or a severe biological attack. Thousands or more. Not some guy with a pipe bomb at a tiki bar.
Yes, at this point at least it might be a tough call. I don’t think we can legitimately call it terrorism without knowing more about his intent.
As for terrorism, it really doesn’t need to be a particularly large attack to qualify, but by definition it needs to be visible and severe enough to potentially make people afraid.
Some very astute and experienced weapons experts would argue that only nuclear weapons qualify as WMD’s. Biological and chemical weapons do not qualify for a variety of reasons, including the scope and magnitude of their effects. We agree that a pipe bomb at a tiki bar or a bit of plastique explosive in someone’s undies is not even remotely a WMD.
I think an act of suicide becomes an act of terrorism when you attempt to take someone else out as part of your grievance. Had he hung himself in his garage, or burned along with his house, then I don’t think terrorism would be an issue. But he flew a plane into a building containing an IRS office and over 200 people. It was 10 am on a weekday, not the middle of the night on a Saturday. He could not have assumed that his act would not cause death and grievous harm to innocent people. His grievance against the IRS and the government and what he saw as his unfair treatment (I’m not arguing for or against his perception here) brought him to fly a plane into a building and his act wasn’t much different, except in scale and the particular nature of the grievance, from that of McVeigh and the 9/11 perpetrators.
An act of suicide that is also intended to cause death and/or grievous harm to others is not terrorism unless it is 1) directed at civilians/innocents, and 2) committed with the specific intent of creating fear that the terrorist hopes will result in a desired political change. It is not clear that this was the intent here.
By your definition an aggrieved lover who murders the object of his affection, then kills himself, or a desperate, enraged, or unbalanced former employee who shoots up his former place of employment, then kills himself, is a terrorist. That blurs the definition and concept to the point that it becomes virtually meaningless.
An act of terrorism is calculated and coherent, if desperate, and is intended to have a specific result. It is not the act of a deranged person who has “lost it”, “gone postal”, or whatever colloquialism we want to use.
Depends. Charlie Manson’s family committed acts of terror in the hope of instigating a race-war. This guy wanted to inspire a revolution against our elites and our tax system. Delusional? Sure. Still terrorism.
I don’t see where we differ. Nothing I said excludes the possibility that delusional thinking is involved. It is quite possible for someone’s thinking to be simultaneously calculated, coherent and completely or partially delusional.
Kinda the definition of religious fundamentalism.
But there’s the political motive and goal. I’m not convinced you have that here with the incident in Austin. Certainly politics entered into it, but he doesn’t seem to have been killing himself by running a plane into a building in order to start some kind of revolution or war.
You read this, right?
It’s still not terrorism to me because he’s acting directly against the perceived enemy.
I read the entire thing, Boo.
The other issue is this: The guy could apparently afford his own plane, but he couldn’t afford to pay his taxes? Doesn’t sound like the beginnings of a great ideological awakening.
The manifesto’s been deleted. More of a blank slate now.
You can find a link to a pdf of the letter at this CNN post:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/02/18/texas.plane.crash/index.html?eref=rss_topstories&utm_source=fee
dburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_topstories+%28RSS%3A+Top+Stories%29&a
mp;utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher
Smoking Gun also has a copy.
Well, the website has been taken down. Hopefully someone cached it.
Ugly url…. http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:pJBrfTfuTX0J:embeddedart.com/+http://embeddedart.com/&cd=1&a
mp;hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a
taken offline ..
how in heck does one capture a specific google cache, ie, from a specific time?
Nothing at that link either.
Looks like it’s been scrubbed.
You can find it in several places. At Smoking Gun and here:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/02/18/texas.plane.crash/index.html?eref=rss_topstories&utm_source=fee
dburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_topstories+%28RSS%3A+Top+Stories%29&a
mp;utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher
Here, and I assume length isn’t an issue on this site.
http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/blotter/entries/2010/02/18/internet_n
ote_posted_by_man_li.html
Internet note posted by man linked to plane crash
Thursday, February 18, 2010, 12:16 PM
Editor’s note: We found this note on a Web site being pointed at by social media users. A search showed the domain that the note was posted on is registered to Joe Stack of San Marcos. A man by the same name, who has addresses in both Austin and San Marcos has been linked to today’s airplane crash.
If you’re reading this, you’re no doubt asking yourself, “Why did this have to happen?” The simple truth is that it is complicated and has been coming for a long time. The writing process, started many months ago, was intended to be therapy in the face of the looming realization that there isn’t enough therapy in the world that can fix what is really broken. Needless to say, this rant could fill volumes with example after example if I would let it. I find the process of writing it frustrating, tedious, and probably pointless… especially given my gross inability to gracefully articulate my thoughts in light of the storm raging in my head. Exactly what is therapeutic about that I’m not sure, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
We are all taught as children that without laws there would be no society, only anarchy. Sadly, starting at early ages we in this country have been brainwashed to believe that, in return for our dedication and service, our government stands for justice for all. We are further brainwashed to believe that there is freedom in this place, and that we should be ready to lay our lives down for the noble principals represented by its founding fathers. Remember? One of these was “no taxation without representation”. I have spent the total years of my adulthood unlearning that crap from only a few years of my childhood. These days anyone who really stands up for that principal is promptly labeled a “crackpot”, traitor and worse.
While very few working people would say they haven’t had their fair share of taxes (as can I), in my lifetime I can say with a great degree of certainty that there has never been a politician cast a vote on any matter with the likes of me or my interests in mind. Nor, for that matter, are they the least bit interested in me or anything I have to say.
Why is it that a handful of thugs and plunderers can commit unthinkable atrocities (and in the case of the GM executives, for scores of years) and when it’s time for their gravy train to crash under the weight of their gluttony and overwhelming stupidity, the force of the full federal government has no difficulty coming to their aid within days if not hours? Yet at the same time, the joke we call the American medical system, including the drug and insurance companies, are murdering tens of thousands of people a year and stealing from the corpses and victims they cripple, and this country’s leaders don’t see this as important as bailing out a few of their vile, rich cronies. Yet, the political “representatives” (thieves, liars, and self-serving scumbags is far more accurate) have endless time to sit around for year after year and debate the state of the “terrible health care problem”. It’s clear they see no crisis as long as the dead people don’t get in the way of their corporate profits rolling in.
And justice? You’ve got to be kidding!
How can any rational individual explain that white elephant conundrum in the middle of our tax system and, indeed, our entire legal system? Here we have a system that is, by far, too complicated for the brightest of the master scholars to understand. Yet, it mercilessly “holds accountable” its victims, claiming that they’re responsible for fully complying with laws not even the experts understand. The law “requires” a signature on the bottom of a tax filing; yet no one can say truthfully that they understand what they are signing; if that’s not “duress” than what is. If this is not the measure of a totalitarian regime, nothing is.
How did I get here?
My introduction to the real American nightmare starts back in the early `80s. Unfortunately after more than 16 years of school, somewhere along the line I picked up the absurd, pompous notion that I could read and understand plain English. Some friends introduced me to a group of people who were having `tax code’ readings and discussions. In particular, zeroed in on a section relating to the wonderful “exemptions” that make institutions like the vulgar, corrupt Catholic Church so incredibly wealthy. We carefully studied the law (with the help of some of the “best”, high-paid, experienced tax lawyers in the business), and then began to do exactly what the “big boys” were doing (except that we weren’t steeling from our congregation or lying to the government about our massive profits in the name of God). We took a great deal of care to make it all visible, following all of the rules, exactly the way the law said it was to be done.
The intent of this exercise and our efforts was to bring about a much-needed re-evaluation of the laws that allow the monsters of organized religion to make such a mockery of people who earn an honest living. However, this is where I learned that there are two “interpretations” for every law; one for the very rich, and one for the rest of us… Oh, and the monsters are the very ones making and enforcing the laws; the inquisition is still alive and well today in this country.
That little lesson in patriotism cost me $40,000+, 10 years of my life, and set my retirement plans back to 0. It made me realize for the first time that I live in a country with an ideology that is based on a total and complete lie. It also made me realize, not only how naive I had been, but also the incredible stupidity of the American public; that they buy, hook, line, and sinker, the crap about their “freedom”… and that they continue to do so with eyes closed in the face of overwhelming evidence and all that keeps happening in front of them.
Before even having to make a shaky recovery from the sting of the first lesson on what justice really means in this country (around 1984 after making my way through engineering school and still another five years of “paying my dues”), I felt I finally had to take a chance of launching my dream of becoming an independent engineer.
On the subjects of engineers and dreams of independence, I should digress somewhat to say that I’m sure that I inherited the fascination for creative problem solving from my father. I realized this at a very young age.
The significance of independence, however, came much later during my early years of college; at the age of 18 or 19 when I was living on my own as student in an apartment in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. My neighbor was an elderly retired woman (80+ seemed ancient to me at that age) who was the widowed wife of a retired steel worker. Her husband had worked all his life in the steel mills of central Pennsylvania with promises from big business and the union that, for his 30 years of service, he would have a pension and medical care to look forward to in his retirement. Instead he was one of the thousands who got nothing because the incompetent mill management and corrupt union (not to mention the government) raided their pension funds and stole their retirement. All she had was social security to live on.
In retrospect, the situation was laughable because here I was living on peanut butter and bread (or Ritz crackers when I could afford to splurge) for months at a time. When I got to know this poor figure and heard her story I felt worse for her plight than for my own (I, after all, I thought I had everything to in front of me). I was genuinely appalled at one point, as we exchanged stories and commiserated with each other over our situations, when she in her grandmotherly fashion tried to convince me that I would be “healthier” eating cat food (like her) rather than trying to get all my substance from peanut butter and bread. I couldn’t quite go there, but the impression was made. I decided that I didn’t trust big business to take care of me, and that I would take responsibility for my own future and myself.
Return to the early `80s, and here I was off to a terrifying start as a `wet-behind-the-ears’ contract software engineer… and two years later, thanks to the fine backroom, midnight effort by the sleazy executives of Arthur Andersen (the very same folks who later brought us Enron and other such calamities) and an equally sleazy New York Senator (Patrick Moynihan), we saw the passage of 1986 tax reform act with its section 1706.
For you who are unfamiliar, here is the core text of the IRS Section 1706, defining the treatment of workers (such as contract engineers) for tax purposes. Visit this link for a conference committee report (http://www.synergistech.com/1706.shtml#ConferenceCommitteeReport) regarding the intended interpretation of Section 1706 and the relevant parts of Section 530, as amended. For information on how these laws affect technical services workers and their clients, read our discussion here (http://www.synergistech.com/ic-taxlaw.shtml).
SEC. 1706. TREATMENT OF CERTAIN TECHNICAL PERSONNEL.
(a) IN GENERAL – Section 530 of the Revenue Act of 1978 is amended by adding at the end thereof the following new subsection:
(d) EXCEPTION. – This section shall not apply in the case of an individual who pursuant to an arrangement between the taxpayer and another person, provides services for such other person as an engineer, designer, drafter, computer programmer, systems analyst, or other similarly skilled worker engaged in a similar line of work.
(b) EFFECTIVE DATE. – The amendment made by this section shall apply to remuneration paid and services rendered after December 31, 1986.
Note:
· “another person” is the client in the traditional job-shop relationship.
· “taxpayer” is the recruiter, broker, agency, or job shop.
· “individual”, “employee”, or “worker” is you.
Admittedly, you need to read the treatment to understand what it is saying but it’s not very complicated. The bottom line is that they may as well have put my name right in the text of section (d). Moreover, they could only have been more blunt if they would have came out and directly declared me a criminal and non-citizen slave. Twenty years later, I still can’t believe my eyes.
During 1987, I spent close to $5000 of my `pocket change’, and at least 1000 hours of my time writing, printing, and mailing to any senator, congressman, governor, or slug that might listen; none did, and they universally treated me as if I was wasting their time. I spent countless hours on the L.A. freeways driving to meetings and any and all of the disorganized professional groups who were attempting to mount a campaign against this atrocity. This, only to discover that our efforts were being easily derailed by a few moles from the brokers who were just beginning to enjoy the windfall from the new declaration of their “freedom”. Oh, and don’t forget, for all of the time I was spending on this, I was loosing income that I couldn’t bill clients.
After months of struggling it had clearly gotten to be a futile exercise. The best we could get for all of our trouble is a pronouncement from an IRS mouthpiece that they weren’t going to enforce that provision (read harass engineers and scientists). This immediately proved to be a lie, and the mere existence of the regulation began to have its impact on my bottom line; this, of course, was the intended effect.
Again, rewind my retirement plans back to 0 and shift them into idle. If I had any sense, I clearly should have left abandoned engineering and never looked back.
Instead I got busy working 100-hour workweeks. Then came the L.A. depression of the early 1990s. Our leaders decided that they didn’t need the all of those extra Air Force bases they had in Southern California, so they were closed; just like that. The result was economic devastation in the region that rivaled the widely publicized Texas S&L fiasco. However, because the government caused it, no one gave a shit about all of the young families who lost their homes or street after street of boarded up houses abandoned to the wealthy loan companies who received government funds to “shore up” their windfall. Again, I lost my retirement.
Years later, after weathering a divorce and the constant struggle trying to build some momentum with my business, I find myself once again beginning to finally pick up some speed. Then came the .COM bust and the 911 nightmare. Our leaders decided that all aircraft were grounded for what seemed like an eternity; and long after that, `special’ facilities like San Francisco were on security alert for months. This made access to my customers prohibitively expensive. Ironically, after what they had done the Government came to the aid of the airlines with billions of our tax dollars … as usual they left me to rot and die while they bailed out their rich, incompetent cronies WITH MY MONEY! After these events, there went my business but not quite yet all of my retirement and savings.
By this time, I’m thinking that it might be good for a change. Bye to California, I’ll try Austin for a while. So I moved, only to find out that this is a place with a highly inflated sense of self-importance and where damn little real engineering work is done. I’ve never experienced such a hard time finding work. The rates are 1/3 of what I was earning before the crash, because pay rates here are fixed by the three or four large companies in the area who are in collusion to drive down prices and wages… and this happens because the justice department is all on the take and doesn’t give a fuck about serving anyone or anything but themselves and their rich buddies.
To survive, I was forced to cannibalize my savings and retirement, the last of which was a small IRA. This came in a year with mammoth expenses and not a single dollar of income. I filed no return that year thinking that because I didn’t have any income there was no need. The sleazy government decided that they disagreed. But they didn’t notify me in time for me to launch a legal objection so when I attempted to get a protest filed with the court I was told I was no longer entitled to due process because the time to file ran out. Bend over for another $10,000 helping of justice.
So now we come to the present. After my experience with the CPA world, following the business crash I swore that I’d never enter another accountant’s office again. But here I am with a new marriage and a boatload of undocumented income, not to mention an expensive new business asset, a piano, which I had no idea how to handle. After considerable thought I decided that it would be irresponsible NOT to get professional help; a very big mistake.
When we received the forms back I was very optimistic that they were in order. I had taken all of the years information to XXXX XXXX, and he came back with results very similar to what I was expecting. Except that he had neglected to include the contents of Sheryl’s unreported income; $12,700 worth of it. To make matters worse, XXXX knew all along this was missing and I didn’t have a clue until he pointed it out in the middle of the audit. By that time it had become brutally evident that he was representing himself and not me.
This left me stuck in the middle of this disaster trying to defend transactions that have no relationship to anything tax-related (at least the tax-related transactions were poorly documented). Things I never knew anything about and things my wife had no clue would ever matter to anyone. The end result is… well, just look around.
I remember reading about the stock market crash before the “great” depression and how there were wealthy bankers and businessmen jumping out of windows when they realized they screwed up and lost everything. Isn’t it ironic how far we’ve come in 60 years in this country that they now know how to fix that little economic problem; they just steal from the middle class (who doesn’t have any say in it, elections are a joke) to cover their asses and it’s “business-as-usual”. Now when the wealthy fuck up, the poor get to die for the mistakes… isn’t that a clever, tidy solution.
As government agencies go, the FAA is often justifiably referred to as a tombstone agency, though they are hardly alone. The recent presidential puppet GW Bush and his cronies in their eight years certainly reinforced for all of us that this criticism rings equally true for all of the government. Nothing changes unless there is a body count (unless it is in the interest of the wealthy sows at the government trough). In a government full of hypocrites from top to bottom, life is as cheap as their lies and their self-serving laws.
I know I’m hardly the first one to decide I have had all I can stand. It has always been a myth that people have stopped dying for their freedom in this country, and it isn’t limited to the blacks, and poor immigrants. I know there have been countless before me and there are sure to be as many after. But I also know that by not adding my body to the count, I insure nothing will change. I choose to not keep looking over my shoulder at “big brother” while he strips my carcass, I choose not to ignore what is going on all around me, I choose not to pretend that business as usual won’t continue; I have just had enough.
I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt; it will take nothing less. I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are. Sadly, though I spent my entire life trying to believe it wasn’t so, but violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer. The cruel joke is that the really big chunks of shit at the top have known this all along and have been laughing, at and using this awareness against, fools like me all along.
I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different. I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well.
The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.
The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.
Joe Stack (1956-2010)
02/18/2010
Get the latest crime reports in your neighborhood with the Statesman’s Crime Tracker.
It’s a slam dunk act of terrorism.
http://westgatehouse.com/art98.html
And yes, it is also an act of a deranged mind, but most, if not all terrorists are deranged. Only a deranged mind would believe that the act of murder, or attempted murder, is a positive act.
That manifesto is so like a tea bagger rant as to have no difference.
nalbar
Intent is key. I’m not sure you have intent in this case.
Intent? Someone writes a letter of grievance, burns their house down, steals a plane full of fuel, and flies it into a building that houses an agency which is the focus of their grievance, and which contains 200+ people on 10 am on a workday. If that’s not a matter of forming intent and acting on it then I don’t know what is.
Of course there was intent to do something very harmful. That is not the point. There was clear intent to commit a series of violent acts, and to grievously harm other people, yes, but that does not make it terrorism. If I am enraged at my neighbor for having noisy parties, and I conceive and execute a plan to burn down his house with all his noisy guests inside, I certainly have formed the intent to harm or even kill my neighbor and his guests, but that does not make me a terrorist by any stretch of the imagination. It makes me an arsonist, a murderer (if anyone dies), and so on, but that is not an act of terrorism. To qualify as an act of terrorism requires a specific kind of intent, and it is not clear that this specific kind of intent was present in this case.
We have different words for different kinds of things for a reason. When we start blurring the usage until one becomes indistinguishable from the other we do ourselves, the language, logic, and reason a huge disservice.
“Only a deranged mind would believe that the act of murder, or attempted murder, is a positive act.”
Unless it’s “official”, of course. Maybe it’s as simple as monkey see, monkey do.
What is war but exactly that act?
What was the American Revolution but this act, only with consensus?
Right on.
Precisely.
AG
New link to the manifesto:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2010/0218102stack1.html
Also at NPR.
One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, I just read it and he does have a righteous point.
Maybe if 50 people a day protested these travesties in Washington and Wall Street, we the People might have a chance of being treated like more than fodder for the Elite Class.
Not that I applaud his method, mind you, but the man is exactly correct. We are playing a deck stacked against for lies than never come true in brainwashed minds.
We are truly fucked, and they don’t care.
Amen.
Well, quite to the point. And quite correct, I’m afraid.
Right, because the poor were so much better off after Hoover’s approach was attempted.
All ‘they’ did was ask him to pay his taxes. He refused.
And you call the man ‘exactly correct’.
To me he sounds like a guy who got every advantage our system can give to educate himself and improve his life, then he refused to pay the system its tolls.
He may be a freedom fighter to you, but I have higher standards. To me he is a greedy ingrate, who when ‘they’ billed him, decided to kill himself and maybe burn is wife up in the process.
Me?, I just pay my damn taxes and be grateful for what the system has given me.
nalbar
That is exactly the herd mentality they count on when they allow corruption to happen.
Be grateful for the scraps master throws you, now.
Its like a bad B & D video.
Sorry, when they handed bazillions to the ponzi-scheming lying bastards trading phantom stocks, then put the same men in charge of reforming it… as our jobs ended, loans defaulted and economy blew up…. they proved that the American Dream has always been a lie.
He is Right: We have no representation.
Somewhere between the two of you (and your seemingly opposed representations) exists a glimpse of a solution, and that’s what we need to work toward. I don’t know what it is but I know that if we stop aligning ourselves with the extremes on either side of the issue we can improve things.
Yes, we have corrupt politicians. The very system in which they operate is rife with and encouraging of corruption. But within that system we also have politicians who work for us, for We the People. They get drowned out by the whiners and defeatists on both sides, but they’re there – Sanders, Leahy, Feingold, Slaughter, DeFazio, Weiner, Reed, Schakowsky, Ryan (Tim), Merkley, Brown (Sherrod), Whitehouse, Waxman, Conyers, McDermott, and more.
I’m sure we’ll learn more about Stack in the coming weeks, and get to know what proportions of his calamity were self-inflicted and what proportions were inflicted by inept government policies, as well as those conditions which were simply a matter of the economic rollercoaster. I would like to think that we’ll have a rational national discussion about this, rather than divide into factions that shout at each other from across an ideological divide, but I’m not terribly optimistic about it.
Geeze, there is something seriously wrong with some of the people on this site.
You wrote;
“I’m sure we’ll learn more about Stack in the coming weeks, and get to know what proportions of his calamity were self-inflicted and what proportions were inflicted by inept government policies,”
He flew a freaking plane into an IRS office! It’s ALL “self-inflicted”!
nalbar
And there’s something seriously wrong with people who can’t read.
It’s fairly obvious that my reference to “his calamity” referred not to the plane being flown into the building, but to that which led up to his desperate decision.
That was perfectly clear to me.
Here is the PDF
http://is.gd/8FNmQ
The mind is very whacked out.
Read it, please.
AG
As long as he’s a lone actor, I think whether this was an act of terrorism or insanity or both is irrelevant. He’ll be 15 minute media phenom.
Why on earth does this blog spend so many posts on lone acts of craziness? For as little as you guys publish, it’s frustrating to see you waste posts on lone crazy people.
Seems to me that if the patient is sick, it’s a good idea to examine the symptoms.
The patient is dead. Even if right-wing rhetoric contributed, you’ll never get the media to admit it.
There are more important things happening, and I’d rather keep my eye on the ball.
I’m thinking of the US as the patient. Not quite dead yet.
I think the utility of using lone maniac murder-suicides to illustrate that point is highly limited at best.
What caused Mr. Stack pain, apparently, was a realization that he’s been used.
What is it about this form of redress that will keep him from being used?
I’d say it’s absolutely assured — cri de couer or no.
Ironically enough, his chosen method of redress only underlines his societal position, which is not as one of the most ill-used at all.
He wasted his time.
What caused Mr. Stack pain, was the realization he had to pay taxes.
And he did not want to. So he decided to kill the people who were making him.
nalbar
That is not necessarily the case. There might be much more to the story than that. He might have even had a legitimate, rational grievance. He might also have had a grievance beyond merely having to pay taxes that was irrational, but that he believed was legitimate. That does not, of course, make his actions in any way legitimate or rational, but you can’t really assume that it was all merely about having to pay taxes.
People here keep saying variations of ‘that does not his actions legitimate’ while attempting to give him legitimate reasons for his actions (but the government gave banks big bail outs, but the government is corrupt, but he had no real representation in he government).
By his own admission he had tries a tax scam in the eighties (that is what he is saying when he says some friends and him read the tax code and came up with a way to be treated like the ‘big boys’. He even calls it ‘patriotism’.
Then he goes off on when the government changed the code so he had to declare his income.
By his own words he has been on arguments with the IRS for the past 30 years.
Sure, there ‘might’ be more to the story than that. But all the people I have known that had long term arguments with the IRS have been of one type.
The type that does not want to pay their taxes.
nalbar
Sorry, I should have proof read that. And not a great idea to type in the dark. Lots of typos.
“People here keep saying variations of ‘that does not his actions legitimate’ while attempting to give him legitimate reasons for his actions…“
Please do not include me among those unnamed “people”. Having a legitimate grievance does not legitimize criminal actions, and nothing I said implies that it does. Someone who is treated unjustly has a legitimate grievance. Someone who believes they are treated unjustly believes they have a legitimate grievance. That does not give them carte blanche to take any action they decide to take.
Exactly right.
reading the manifesto, his intent was for his action to cause “draconian regulation” that would make the common man rise up against the government and corporations.
That’s pretty much textbook terror.
Yep!
I’d be careful of labeling this guy right-wing. It actually sounds like he was a centrist-liberal at some point (anti-corporatist, pro HCR, etc.), but just got tired of the system’s odious mechanisms and double-standards. I can relate to him there. By his own admission, he wasn’t terribly good at following written instructions and continuously paid a price for that deficit, as many people unwittingly do every time they fill out a 1040 form.
I’m a freelance engineer too, and while I hate getting double taxed,etc. etc. etc., I seem to have a better ability to follow instructions. I hope there is a lot more than that and no flight experience keeping me from doing the same, but I’ve only lost my retirement once.
I DO agree with this jackass that we’ve been long overdue for a massive tax-protest, but a non-violent one. Just because the popular Left is bought off with the occasional policy bone and the Right by tax cuts for people they wish they were, it doesn’t mean that any tax-money fueled outrages have ceased or will cease short of turning off the money hose.
The ‘body count’ method of societal change/control is the method of the empowered and those who seek that power, not of the ‘little people’. Too bad Mr. Stack couldn’t live with that.
He probably wasn’t much of a people person and figured that the sort of organizing us ‘zombies’ need wasn’t within his power, so he did what he thought he could.
A profoundly stupid and destructive decision. Government workers are not the problem, just symptoms. How odd someone conscious of Big Health’s treatment of symptoms, not diseases would apply their methods to his own effort to make change.
[MSM is bending over backwards to describe his suicide note as ‘rambling’, ‘unfocussed’ – a screed. I’d beg to differ. I found it effective, coherent writing. Given the breadth of subject matter, I’d also call it concise. Goes to show that smarts aren’t any sort of prophylaxis against our societal insanity. Perhaps intelligence is even dangerous to the intelligent (and people under their planes) in this modern world..]
http://crooksandliars.com/node/35039
Crooks and Liars asks the right question.
nalbar
The writer, dave niewert, has made a long study of extremism and domestic terror, mainly in the Pacific NW region.
I find his work informative and worrisome, much in teh same way as I find the publications of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
If anybody in the Blogs is likely to be asking the right questions, it’ll be Dave Niewert, imo.
btw….was this Terror? Yes
It’s that simple….the executor need not have an Arabic name, brown skin, or adhere to Islam….he need not be part of a group. Take a look at McVeigh, Rudolph, Roeder, the Knoxville shooter, the Holocaust Museum shooter. All are or were White christian Men acting on their own (whatever one may say, only one man pulled the trigger, or placed the bomb, Terry Nichols notwithstanding). Religion need not play a role, although it’s been a convenient excuse since long before Romans decided it was feeding time in the zoo….
Terrorism is the use of fear and force (actual or threatened) to get one’s desired ends. Religion, politics, economics, Sex&gender, Identity…all are excuses used by Terrorists
Religion: Al Quaeda, Roeder&’project rescue’, Rudolph, Gandhi’s assassin, Rabin’s assassin
Politics: Rabin&Gandhi again, Pol Pot & the Khmer Rouge, the Nazis
economics: Soviet government (under Stalin especially, but Brezhnev was no angel either), China’s government, under Mao (any time from the ’50s till he died) and the present government
Sex&gender: the Knoxville shooter, Matthew Shepard’s and Eddie/gwen araujo’s killers, gay bashers in general
Identity: Nazis, KKK, Aryan identity movements, Black Panthers at their height, Patriot movements (the Order and the Freemen come to mind)
Terrorism has many faces and many excuses, but the basics are there: they wanted to do violence or threaten violence to get what they wanted.
It really is that simple…
“It really is that simple…“
It really is not.
I accept that we can agree to disagree….
You’ve made good points, I just see the issue differently than you do…
thanks for giving me more to think over…
There are matters about which reasonable people can reasonably disagree. A lot depends on one’s frame of reference. Because of the experiences and information I carry, mine is clearly different from that of most Americans. By seeing different ways to view things, we have an opportunity to learn. Even if it does not cause us to change our positions, it is useful to know how others with different sets of experiences and information think about things. I might not agree with someone, but it is enlightening to see what informs their opinions and ways of viewing issues.
OK, justadood…I have a question or two for you and all of the other people here who are debating the question of whether this was “terrorism” or not.
You say:
I concur.
Do the tactics used by the government of the United States …or any other government on earth..to ensure “order” fit this description?
My own answer is yes, they do to a great degree.
Example…?
Sure.
The IRS is a perfect example.
Anyone U.S., citizen with half a brain in their head knows that a large part of the money that they pay in taxes is wasted in graft, corruption and the enforcement of policies with which they do not in the least agree but are almost totally powerless powerless to influence. (What’s that you say? Vote? Riiiiight. Look at what happened in 200. In fact…look at what has happened since 2008. Please.)
Why then do they pay their taxes? (Of course…they do not. Tax fraud is a universal crime here, only the IRS does not…yet…have the resources to catch it all.)
But why do they pay taxes on what what they cannot hide or from which they cannot otherwise hustle away?
“Fear and force. (Actual or threatened.)”
Yup.
OK.
Next question.
Do the tactics used by the government of the United States …or any other government on earth that attempts to dominate other countries by the use of imperialist measures, be they economic, cultural, religious and/or military…..to achieve that “desired end” fit this description?
Again…and remember, it’s your definition ( “…the use of fear and force [actual or threatened] to get one’s desired ends.”)…my answer is yes, that shoe also fits quite nicely.
So…what is one to do if these are the real facts of the matter?
Roll over and proffer one’s ass to the thieves? (Which is the preferred tactic of the vast majority of United States sheepizens at the present time.)
Resist with whatever power one has? To the point of death, if necessary? (A perfect description of the…largely quite successful…reaction of many of the victims of international economic imperialist aggression since Fidel Castro and Ho Chi Minh proved that the paper tiger could be beaten. Also a perfect description of the reaction of large parts of the population of colonial America to the economic imperialism of Great Britain in the late 1700s.)
There comes a time, justadood, when the worm turns. A sea change is in the air. It has been in the air here for quite some time. All of the senseless killings? The Columbines, the campus murders, the “going postal” of worker bees over the past few decades? The media paint them as “just (another) one of those things”. As “madmen on the loose.” As “people who cannot handle the pressures of modern life,” etc. etc. etc. But it is more than those things, just as the anti-imperialist movements of he last 60 years have not been simply the acts of criminals and bloodthirsty savages. There is a reason for the gradual unraveling of the society here, and that reason is the ongoing, increasingly unbearable depredations of the rich.
It’s that simple, justadood.
It’s just that simple.
Before a fabric totally unravels, at first little pieces of that fabric begin to come loose.
Little loose ends.
Lots of them.
Bet on it.
Joe Stack was one of those loose ends. In point of fact he was not the first one by a long shot, and it appears to me…he was largely a reasonable, peaceful, intelligent, accomplished man by all accounts…that his own unraveling is a sign that the kinds of pressures that have been working on the poor and working classes of the U.S. during those same 60+ anti-imperialist years are beginning to work on the middle class as well. (Remember, the U.S. has the highest percentage of people in prison per capita of any country in the world at present, and there ain’t that many white middle classers serving hard time in that population. Bet on that as well. Not yet there aren’t.)
So…yeah. Joe Stack lost it. But he “lost” it after battling for nearly 30 years to make sense of the situation as it stands in the United States. (Read his last post.)
Hmmmmm….
That’s all I have to say to all of the so-called “left wing” people who are piling on Joe Stack right now.
Hmmmmm…..
Before a volcano blows, there are always warnings.
Sputterings, small earthquakes, preshadowings of things to come.
This was one of them.
Listen well.
Keep your ear to the ground, folks.
It’s gonna get worse before it gets better.
Watch.
AG
The U.S. military and the Israeli military employ terrorism as SOP. They commit massive violence with the intention instill terror in populations in order to achieve political change that suits them. What do you think Israel’s 2006 atrocity in Lebanon, and its 2008-9 atrocity in Gaza were all about? Hezballah and Hamas were not their primary targets, civilians and their infrastructure were. It is especially clear that Gaza was virtually all about terrorizing civilians.
It’s actually a doctrine:
I wouldn’t classify it as terrorism. It’s a theory for how to deal with terrorism.
This does not address the intentional targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure for the purpose of instilling terror in civilians in order to affect political change. That the U.S. and Israeli militaries intentionally target civilians and civilian infrastructure with the goal of affecting civilians is unarguable. Over the decades we have seen enough statements from U.S. and Israeli government and military officials as well as troops who were in the field that there is simply no question about this. As Naomi Kline and others have pointed out so well the use of widespread torture is less an interrogation tool than a way to terrorize the population into cooperating. Iraqis knew the Americans were regularly torturing and “mistreating” detainees well before Sy Hersch “broke” the story of Abu Ghraib.
Targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure with the goal of affecting change by the population is terrorism whether it is a tool used by the weak and oppressed, or whether it is a tool used by the oppressor.
well, it isn’t really aimed at civilians except as they have an influence on their leaders. The doctrine advocates excessive force (not precisely defined) as the best way to deter terrorism. The Israeli’s definitely use this doctrine, and so did the Bush administration. There are other instances of the United States using excessive force, including in World War Two, but they didn’t have a doctrine backing it. And, in any case, we later concluded that targeting civilians during that war helped the enemy maintain domestic support rather than the opposite. So, no, the United States has not pursued any strategy of excessive force for most of its recent history. That changed with the rise of the neo-cons, who use the doctrine on both the micro and macro scale.
“well, it isn’t really aimed at civilians except as they have an influence on their leaders.“
I’m not sure what your argument is. Aiming violence at civilians in the hope that they will influence their leaders fits the definition of terrorism very well. Or are you trying to argue that the U.S. and the Israelis do not and have not specifically and intentionally target civilians and civilian infrastructure?
And by the way, the use of excessive force, especially when it is aimed at civilians IS a war crime.
What did I say when Israel destroyed Lebanon? What did I say when they destroyed Gaza? What did I say when the US invaded Iraq and used disproportionate force in Falluja? What did I say about Abu Ghraib and the use of torture?
But that isn’t the history of the USA. After World War Two, we led the way in setting up new standards for the waging of war and the care for human rights. Yes, we fought a vicious war in Vietnam, but we did a decent job of living up to those post-WW2 values until 9/11 happened and Bush and Cheney went nuts.
You fought a vicious war in Vietnam in which you did things like destroying villages in order to save them, and at the same time you did a decent job of living up to high standards for waging war and care for human rights? Right. And you followed such VERY high standards and care for human rights in Iraq in 1991 while you systematically destroyed not only the electrical, communication, and transportation infrastructure there, but hospitals, water processing and delivery facilities, and even sewage plants. Oh, and then there was that little incident in which you massacred thousands of retreating Iraqi troops. What great standards and care for human rights you exercised in that situation. And then, of course, there was the little matter of inciting the insurgency of 1991, and then not merely abandoning the insurgents, but actually aiding and abetting Saddam as he brutally squashed them. GREAT high standards and care for human rights.
And you showed enormous care for human rights as for thirteen years you intentionally deprived Iraqi children and their parents of clean drinking water, adequate nutrition, vaccines, essential medicines and medical supplies and equipment, denied doctors and medical students access to medical books and journals, banned school children and university students from having such dangerous things as paper, pencils, school books, and on and on and on.
And do you seriously believe that America did not torture and murder, and have black sites until after 9/11?
now you are telling me that Iraq couldn’t buy pencils? There was a pencil shortage? You know what a sane regime does when it can’t find anyone to sell them pencils? They make them.
Saddam Hussein wasn’t interested in taking care of his people, he was too busy pretending to be King Nebuchadnezzar II.
Oh, what a nice, simple solution, BooMan! Now that’s real American resourcefulness at work. Why couldn’t Arabs be resourceful like that?
Oh, wait – do you know WHY pencils were banned? They were banned because they contained graphite. So, out of what would you suggest that the Iraqis have made pencils given that the key ingredient, graphite, was banned?
Oh, yes, and also banned were many small and large items needed for manufacture of items such as pencils – you know, machinery, equipment, chemicals, and materials needed to repair and maintain machinery, not to mention raw materials – you know, like graphite? So, under those circumstances how would Americans have made these pencils? Carve them by hand?
And where were they supposed to get even the wood, given that Iraq does not grow the kind wood that would be suitable for pencils?
I remember the story – it was when I started getting angry about the embargo against Iraq, I mean how silly embargoing pencils, because the graphite could be used for bomb making or what ever. It was the story that startet me loose respect for the US politics in the ME.
It was never Saddam that suffered, but the people – the talk was even about half a million children dying because needed medicines were embargoed. Nothing to be proud about in the West and it seems to be forgotten so easily.
Thanks Fran.
You know, during the sanctions the current list of thousands of blocked contracts and contracts that were put “on hold” was available on the UN website, and I, among others, spent quite a few hours reviewing that list on a fairly regular basis. Putting a contract “on hold” was a way of preventing Iraq from obtaining certain things without actually banning them. The contract would be put “on hold” long enough to become invalid, whereupon it would have to be renegotiated, resubmitted, and would then almost certainly be put “on hold” again. It was instructive to see the kinds of items that were on the “hold” list. It included pages and pages of things like “educational supplies”, different kinds of medical items, including major things like heart-Lung machines, dialysis machines, and smaller things like insulin and insulin needles. You could even find items such as music paper, violin strings, replacement hair for stringed instrument bows, glass ash trays, and many, many other ordinary every day items that most people in the world buy and use without even thinking about it.
Looking at the list of banned, blocked, and “on hold” items made it very clear that the primary target of the embargo was the Iraqi people. Various statements from government officials should erase any doubt at all. There are also, by the way, statements by government and military officials that make it clear that destroying things like water processing and delivery systems, sewage transport and processing systems, and other purely civilian infrastructure had the same purpose. They hoped to weaken Saddam by turning the Iraqi people against him. Of course, predictably, the inhuman idiots achieved the opposite effect of weakening the people and strengthening Saddam.
And this is the way the United States government upholds high standards in waging war, and shows great care for human rights.
Just for accuracy’s sake, it was only children under five who made up that half-million figure, and that was only in the first several years of the embargo, not for the entire period. In other words, that number does not include children over five, or adults or elderly who suffered and died as a result of U.S. destruction of civilian infrastructure and embargo of goods needed to rebuild and maintain it, only children under five, and only over a period of four years, not the full thirteen. So, it does not give a picture of the full magnitude of the devastation.
It also does not include the children who were permanently physically, mentally, or developmentally disabled as a result of malnutrition or easily preventable, curable chronic diseases. It also does not include the children who suffered and/or lived shortened lives due to a massive increase in birth defects and childhood cancers, that clustered mainly in areas where the U.S. had made heavy use of depleted uranium weapons. And of course, cancer was a death sentence in nearly every case because the drugs and equipment needed to treat them were embargoed.
And let us please never forget that the Democratic administration of Bill Clinton did the most damage to Iraqi people, not only by refusing to lift or even effectively relieve the effects of the sanctions for eight years, but by conducting twice and thrice-weekly minor bombings, and periodic major ones. One of those major bombings was aimed at a particular neighborhood in Baghdad, and killed one of the most prominent Iraqi artists and her husband, blinding her aspiring artist daughter in one eye. I despise conspiracy theories, but the fact that this particular major bombing campaign was supposedly to “punish Saddam” (by bombing civilians?) over a bogus claim that he was plotting to assassinate Bush I, and that it killed the artist who had designed the mosaic of Bush’s face on the floor of the entrance to the five star Rashid hotel seems too much to be a mere coincidence.
What is most appalling about this discussion, aside from the events we are talking about, is seeing just exactly how close self-proclaimed American “progressives” are to the heartless right wing on some things, and how unsubtle their thinking becomes as soon as they feel a need to rise up and defend their national pride.
Thanks for both comments, Hurria – I must admit, despite having turned against the politics against ‘Saddam’ aka the ‘Iraqi people’, over the years , I forgot many of those informations. In a way it is shameful how easily we forget these things and move on and do not look back. So it is good to hear your voice who reminds us of what happend.
Here in Europe these things were talked about in the press, but as Clinton was respected and even admired it was not very effectiv. Though many European countries, except for the UK, were not as actively involved as they are now in Afganisthan.
And the frustrating thing is, that without the interference and support by US, there might never have been a Saddam, like no Shah, or Bin Laden. But that’s another topic.
Indeed, Fran, there might never have been a Saddam, and once there was, he most likely would have been overthrown without the support he received from the United States for many years until he became just a bit too independent to be useful.
“Saddam Hussein wasn’t interested in taking care of his people, he was too busy pretending to be King Nebuchadnezzar II.“
More standard right-wing American (il)logic coming from a self-proclaimed progressive. One minute you insist that the United States lived up to high standards of waging war, and showed great care for human rights, and the next minute you try to convince me that it was OK for your government to systematically destroy most of Iraq’s essential civilian infrastructure, and then subject the Iraqi people to a thirteen-year genocidal (in the words of several UN and WHO professionals) embargo on the basis that a narcissistic, megalomaniacal dictator was more interested in self-glorification than in taking care of “his” people.
That, by the way, is an extreme case of classic collective punishment, which is a war crime, and in the case of Iraq certainly rises to a crime against humanity.
“the United States has not pursued any strategy of excessive force for most of its recent history.“
I guess that depends how you define recent. Try telling that to Iraqis who were around in 1991, and who lived trough the 13 years of sanctions and periodic major and minor bombing campaigns (sanctions such as the ones visited on the Iraqis, mainly by Bill “I Feel Your Pain” Clinton, are certainly a kind of violence on a psychological, societal, and physical level – they killed hundreds of thousands of children, left many times more than that with permanent mental, physical, and developmental disabilities, caused an epidemic of severe birth defects, and childhood cancers, deprived a generation or two of a remotely adequate education, contact with the outside world, etc., etc.).
well, sanctions are not very effective in most cases. South Africa is the notable exception, but sanctions are an alternative short of war that gives a government the chance to cave in to international pressure rather than continue policies that are roundly condemned.
In the case of Iraq, the primary blame for the impact of the sanctions falls on Saddam Hussein and his government. He spent lavishly on stupid palaces and Babylon and paying off tribes and on repression in general when the government was short on cash for basic medicines and necessities.
It wasn’t a war crime to put sanctions on Iraq even though they made Saddam more powerful and Iraqis more miserable. Hussein always had the option of putting his people before himself.
The US did not use excessive force during the Gulf War with the exception of the Highway of Hell bombings, but in greater context the US used wise restraint in not pursuing the war further after Kuwait was liberated.
“sanctions are not very effective in most cases…sanctions are an alternative short of war that gives a government the chance to cave in to international pressure rather than continue policies that are roundly condemned.“
If you can’t see the contradiction in that statement, then it can only be that you are blinding yourself to it. But to address specifically the sanctions that were imposed on Iraq, those were aimed primarily not at the government, but at the civilian population. That becomes obvious when you understand how the sanctions were set up and how they operated. But you don’t really need to do that kind of analysis, because US government and military officials have made a number of statements that are very clear in that regard.
“In the case of Iraq, the primary blame for the impact of the sanctions falls on Saddam Hussein and his government.“
That is a standard right wing argument, and is pure bull. The blame for the impact of the sanctions falls on the one that imposed them, administrated them, continually raised the bar for having them lifted or eased, and ultimately insisted that they remain in place as long as Saddam Hussein was in power. That was, for the majority of the sanctions period, Bill Clinton and his administration, including the great humanitarian Madeline “The Price is Worth It” Albright. To blame Saddam for the effect of the sanctions is Alice in Wonderland logic at its best, and the fact that you can make this statement shows, among other things, that you do not really understand how the sanctions operated.
It didn’t matter how much money the regime may or may not have spent on stupid things like turning Babylon from a legitimate and awe-inspiring archeological site into a kitchy showpiece. The effects of the sanctions were much less due to a lack of funds than to the banning of sales of all kinds of things to Iraq. Contracts for all kinds of items from paper and pencils and school books for children to tractors, fertilizers, pesticides, and other agricultural equipment (agriculture used to be Iraq’s second industry, and Iraq was, for example, THE major supplier of dates to the world until the sanctions); materials and equipment to maintain and improve electrical, communication, water, sewage, and other critical infrastructure; chlorine for water purification; medical equipment, supplies, texts, and journals; insulin and the needles to deliver it; even things like ashtrays, wheelbarrows, spare tires, soaps, detergents – all of these things and more were either flat out banned as “dual purpose”, or blocked until the contracts expired and had to be renegotiated, and then they were blocked again until they expired again.
The fact that two UN humanitarian coordinators resigned in protest, giving up long-term, high-level UN careers, and that both of them along with the World Health Organization director for Iraq called the sanctions genocidal means more to me than your right wing standard-issue claim that it was all Saddam’s fault. There is a lot we can blame on Saddam, but responsibility for the deadly cost of the sanctions lies squarely on the shoulders of the United States government.
Far more qualified people than you or I consider that the sanctions on Iraq were a war crime, particularly when the effect on civilians became clear, and I hope you will understand when I say I will take their judgment over yours. The sanctions on Iraq as they were designed, maintained, and intended to operate were indeed not only a war crime, but a crime against humanity. At the very least when the effect on the population was clear, they should have been lifted or modified to avoid harm to the people and society of Iraq, but that did not happen in any real or effective way. The noting that Saddam “always had the option of putting his people before himself” in no way mitigates U.S. responsibility for the sanctions and their effects, and I am disappointed to see you using this illogical standard right wing argument.
Many people consider the systematic and comprehensive destruction of critical civilian infrastructure, particularly things like medical infrastructure, water purification and delivery systems, sewage transport and processing systems, as well as transportation, electrical and communication infrastructure to be “excessive force”. In fact, the United States left Iraqi civilian infrastructure devastated, and then for thirteen years intentionally and systematically denied Iraq the ability to adequately rebuild or maintain that infrastructure. As for the “highway of hell” action, that was a war crime, pure and simple.
I do love your nice, dispassionate approach to all this, though. It is as if in your mind the permanent and devastating harm done to millions real, live, normal human beings is irrelevant compared to – I don’t know, national pride? American exceptionalism? What?
I wonder exactly how dispassionate you would be if you were an Iraqi and your lovely new baby boy were one of the half million children under five years whose lives were ended forever in the first four years as a direct result of the sanctions. I also wonder how dispassionate you would be if, as a result of the U.S. deliberately targeting your water infrastructure you could not turn the taps in your bathrooms or kitchen and have nice, clean water flow out of them; or if you could not simply flush your toilets and have all the nasty stuff in them flow away through some pipes to be turned into nice, clean water and harmless sludge; or if you or a member of your family could not get a needed medical treatment because the United States government would not allow the necessary drugs or supplies or equipment into your country. I suspect you would not be able in any of those cases to discuss the issue in such a nice, detached manner, or pretend the actions of the United States were really quite reasonable and humane.
And please spare me the “wise restraint” nonsense. The United States conducted the so-called “Gulf” war under UN auspices, and was constrained legally and more importantly politically by the agreement reached in the Security Council. In addition, it would have lost backing from most or nearly all of the coalition had it gone beyond the UN mandated goal of getting Iraq out of Kuwait. And finally, the U.S. government and military leadership did not consider overthrowing the regime as in the interest of the U.S. It was not “wise restraint” that prevented the U.S. from “pursuing the war further”, it was pure self interest.
My inclination was to let Saddam Hussein keep Kuwait since I didn’t want America to get into the business of policing the Persian Gulf. It’s not that I thought it would be a good thing for Saddam to increase his power, it’s just that I didn’t want America to take on that role and I feared a major backlash. In principle, however, I agreed that members of the UN in good standing have the right to expect that other members will come to their defense if they are wiped off the map. So, I felt a little ambivalent. I thought the war was bad for the United States, but I didn’t think it was unjustified. And once we decided to liberate Kuwait, we had the right to cripple the regime and its armed forces so that we wouldn’t need to do a reprise.
The sanctions didn’t make Hussein less powerful and lead to a coup, which was the hope. But they did keep him isolated and prevented him from rebuilding and threatening anyone else. Unfortunately, even that limited good was squandered when Bush decided to treat him as a mortal threat anyway.
So, looking back, there isn’t anything positive to say about the sanctions, but the blame for them certainly falls squarely on the man who inspired them and the regime that lived high on the hog while others went without.
You don’t think there was some middle ground between letting Saddam keep Kuwait, and destroying Iraq and the lives of tens of millions of its citizens? You don’t think there were other actions that might have effectively “liberated” Kuwait without leaving Iraq devastated, bombing it back to the previous century, and committing collective punishment on its entire population for thirteen years? I often disagree with you, but you have always struck me as someone who is capable of far more subtle thinking than you are displaying on this subject.
One little-known piece of this history is that while George H.W. Bush was enthusiastically beating his war drums, and ginning up all kinds of elaborate lies to sell the American public and others on his war plans the Arab League was making good progress toward getting Saddam to withdraw from Kuwait voluntarily. While the Bush multi-million-dollar P.R. machine was grinding out lies about Kuwaiti babies being torn from incubators and left on cold floors to die, the Arab League had obtained from Saddam a pledge that he would send no additional troops or equipment into Kuwait. While the Bush I administration was working overtime to convince the world – and the Saudis – that the Saudis were under imminent threat of invasion by Iraqi troops massed at their border (a claim the evidence and logic contradict), Saddam was announcing to the Arab League that he had no problem withdrawing as long as the Kuwaitis would agree to participate in talks intended to address Iraq’s grievances against Kuwait. While the Bush administration was using lies and faked satellite pictures to convince the Saudis to allow them to set up bases on their soil, it was becoming clear that the main impediment to an Iraqi withdrawal was Kuwaiti intransigence.
Setting aside the fact that the U.S., intentionally or inadvertently, green-lighted the invasion of Kuwait, and the fact that the U.S. most likely could have prevented it with a few words on the part of the hapless April Glaspie, the reality was that by the time the invasion took place, the Bush I administration, the Kuwaiti royal family, and the Israelis WANTED an all-out war on Iraq, and did not want any middle way solution.
“once we decided to liberate Kuwait, we had the right to cripple the regime and its armed forces so that we wouldn’t need to do a reprise.“
And you chose to do that not by going after the regime and its armed forces directly, but by inflicting collective punishment on the Iraqi population. In other words, you chose to do that by first destroying the infrastructure needed to deliver the most essential human necessities such as water, food, medical care, electricity, and then committing a thirteen year war crime that many human rights professionals believe rises to the level of a crime against humanity, or even genocide. And by the way, it was a Democratic administration that not only continued this war crime of collective punishment for eight years, but continually raised the bar that the Iraqi regime had to meet in order to stop your criminal actions. In fact, Clinton ultimately stated that the sanctions would never be lifted as long as Saddam remained in power. Way to care for human rights, America.
“The sanctions didn’t make Hussein less powerful and lead to a coup, which was the hope.“
Thanks for admitting that you know damned well that the Iraqi people were the target of the sanctions. Thanks for admitting that you know damned well that your government, and mainly your wonderful beloved Democrats, committed the war crime of collective punishment of an entire population of more than twenty million human beings for thirteen years.
“there isn’t anything positive to say about the sanctions, but the blame for them certainly falls squarely on the man who inspired them and the regime that lived high on the hog while others went without.“
Oh, yeah! Responsibility for this massive crime falls not on the one who committed it but on the man who “inspired” the crime. The blood of 500,000 Iraqi children under five who died in the first four years of this thirteen year crime lies not on the hands of those who intentionally deprived them of what they needed to live, but on the man who inspired them to deprive these children of the necessities of life. What twisted, mangled logic you indulge in sometimes.
At the time the sanctions were imposed, many people felt that they were perfectly ethical and because they were non-violent, they were preferable to continued military force. But the idea behind them was to cause a coup which had failed to materialize as expected after the liberation of Kuwait and the demolition of the armed forces. Therefore, it was essentially impossible for Saddam Hussein to comply. Nevertheless, we now know that Hussein disarmed, so the ostensible purpose of the sanctions was achieved.
As I have already point out (with a link) the child mortality rate in the Kurdish areas was half what it was in the areas controlled by Hussein, and that was a reversal of the conditions prior to Saddam’s wars. He carries the blame for invading Kuwait, for refusing to abdicate, and for wasting precious resources at a time when his countrymen were facing
international
sanctions. The US and UK should have changed the sanctions sooner and they should have reassessed the entire strategy in a fact-based manner when they realized they were not and never were likely to have the desired effect. But however you slice it, Saddam Hussein is the man responsible for the suffering of his people. He made the decisions. A man with an ounce of love for his country would have sized up the situation and stepped down to help his people.
“At the time the sanctions were imposed, many people felt that they were perfectly ethical…“
Yeah, and many people believe that indefinite detention without charge, torture, and other human rights abuses are perfectly ethical. So that makes it right? And once the horrific effect of the sanctions on the Iraqi population became clear, any claims that they were ethical were shown for the bullshit they were.
In any case, you don’t appear to know some of the basic facts about the sanctions, including when they were imposed, by whom, or for what purpose. Sanctions were imposed by the UN on August 6, 1990, shortly after the invasion of Kuwait, and well before military action began. They were intended to pressure Saddam into withdrawing from Kuwait, and they were to be lifted once that was accomplished. The UN hoped the combination of sanctions and other inducements would obviate a war by bringing about a withdrawal, and as I pointed out earlier, there was a good chance that would happen, but the Bush I administration, the Kuwaiti royal family, and Israel had other ideas from the beginning, so there was no way the sanctions were going to achieve their true original purpose. The sanctions were continued by the UN after the U.S. and its coalition attacked Iraq as an adjunct to military force, not to “avoid continued military force”.
It was the United States that insisted upon continuing the sanctions after the war under the guise of forcing Saddam to disarm, but with the actual intent of using them to affect “regime change” under the ridiculous and plainly unethical theory that if they could just cause sufficient suffering to the Iraqi people they would turn against the regime. This is a clear case of collective punishment of an entire population for the crime of having a bad leader, and anyone who considers this ethical has problems as serious as those of John Yoo and his ilk who think cutting off a child’s testicles to get his father to speak is a reasonable thing to do.
The sanctions were never intended by the UN as a means of collectively punishing the people of Iraq witht the ludicrous goal that they would overthrow the government. They were never intended by the UN in any way as a means of affecting “regime change” at all. The fact that the United States insisted upon continuing them for that purpose constituted a grievous abuse not only of the human rights of the Iraqi people, but of the authority of the UN and the Security Council.
The fact that the sanctions (and the systematic destruction of infrastructure during the war) clearly targeted civilians showed that they were not intended primarily to get Saddam to disarm. That could have been accomplished by more limited sanctions, without embargoing goods necessary for civilian life, and without killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi infants and children.
Saddam carries the blame for invading Kuwait, and he carries blame for lots of other things as well, but you have got to be joking with that utterly naive abdication rubbish. You cannot possibly seriously suggest that it is in any way appropriate for the United States or any other foreign power to demand that any national leader abdicate. That is simply beyond hubris. And it is the height of folly to expect that any national leader, particularly a narcissistic, megalomaniacal sociopath like Saddam Hussein would ever abdicate under foreign pressure, or to blame him for refusing to do so. Despite your distinctly non-progressive positions on so many foreign policy matters, you are much too sophisticated a thinker to be suggesting such things.
“the child mortality rate in the Kurdish areas was half what it was in the areas controlled by Hussein, and that was a reversal of the conditions prior to Saddam’s wars.“
Ah yes, the well-worn Kurdish child mortality rate argument. First, this is on its face a bogus argument on several levels. Among other things, Kurdistan received significant outside aid that was denied to other Iraqis, including food, medical, and other aid, they were able to get around many of the embargo restrictions in a number of ways, and when the oil for food program was instituted Kurdish areas received more per capita than did the rest of Iraq. In addition, Kurdistan had not been subjected to the devastating destruction of infrastructure that was visited on Iraqis elsewhere, and were better off in that way. Kurds in fact had favoured status as U.S. “allies”, and were treated as a separate entity in most respects. All of this together added up to an overall improvement compared to their situation during the terrible decade or so prior to 1990, while the situation in the rest of Iraq went from not very good to catastrophic. Therefore, the improved situation in Kurdistan led to improved health statistics while the situation in the rest of Iraq got dramatically worse.
Second, even if the superior child mortality rate had been due to the magnanimity and wise management of leaders who genuinely cared about “their people” (something that has never been in evidence), it does nothing to support your illogical and immoral argument that Saddam is to blame for the negative effects on the Iraqi population of sanctions and embargoes imposed by the United States. No matter how many times you repeat it, Saddam is not responsible for anyone’s crimes but his own, and using him as a pretext for US crimes against the Iraqi people does not change that reality.
“The US and UK should have changed the sanctions sooner and they should have reassessed the entire strategy in a fact-based manner when they realized they were not and never were likely to have the desired effect.“
I suppose I should be used to your cold-blooded attitude about these things, but I am still shocked. So, the US and UK (which was just following puppy-like behind the US much as it did with Bush II) should have changed the sanctions sooner (sooner than what? They never changed them in any significant way), not because of their catastrophic effect on millions of human beings, but because they did not achieve the illegitimate and illegal purpose for which they were designed. Very progressive, not to mention humanitarian of you, I must say.
Saddam Hussein is responsible for the suffering that he caused. He is not responsible for the suffering caused by outside powers. That suffering is purely the responsibility of the United States government and its military. The fact that a country has a dictator who is a narcissistic megalomaniacal sociopath and who is only interested in glorifying himself and punishing anyone who opposes him does not justify further punishing the population by depriving them for more than a decade of the basic necessities of life. As for your repeated insistence that he should have stepped down to help his people, that is so far beyond naively stupid that I cannot find a good word for it. I also find it astonishing that someone as politically and intellectually sophisticated as you are can say such a thing with a straight face.
PS I think it is important for me to re-emphasize the critical importance of the very comprehensive embargo of goods necessary for human life, as well as ordinary items such as school supplies, paper, books, magazines, ash trays, wheel barrows, agricultural equipment, chlorine for water purification, equipment and materials needed to repair medical machinery, medical syringes, drugs, vaccines, antibiotics, and on and on and on. This embargo was not part of the original sanctions imposed by the UN, which were not intended to cause suffering to the Iraqi people, but to make it more difficult for the regime to operate, and in particular for it to continue military actions against Kuwait. This is particularly important since you keep talking as if Saddam could have solved the problem by spending the money on “his people” instead of making Babylon into a gaudy mess, or building monuments to his own glory when the fact is that when there is an embargo on goods money will not solve the problem.
So, in addition to having some views on this issue that are incredibly cold-blooded and anti-humanitarian, and the antithesis of progressive, not to mention naive and illogical, you really do not appear to have a very good understanding of either the history or the nature of what was imposed on the Iraqi people.
Domestic terrorism? I hope you are joking, Booman. It’s hard to detect sarcasm sometimes.
This is a guy who understands the world is jerry-rigged to support the wealthy. But unlike most of us, that bothered him to the point where he decided to take his own life. Most of us either don’t care that much, or values our lives too much to sacrifice it in that way.
And it’s obvious that, although he doesn’t say it, his marriage was in trouble to the point where he burned the house down. I mean, the guy was unstable.
But terrorism? Protest, yes. Terrorism is about creating terror. And almost be definition, no single act can do that. That’s why 9/11 was so powerful. It wasn’t just one madman. It was several acting together.
“And almost be definition, no single act can do that. “
That is ridiculous. But it is certainly true that if a person reserves the right to define words the way they want and ignore all other definitions, you would be correct.
What Glenn said;
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/02/19/terrorism/index.html
I can only assume that your definition would change if the person had been muslim.
nalbar
Your assumption is not only false, it’s laughable to anyone who knows me.
Terrorism is very specific. See Hurria’s comments above. She is exactly right re this.