I for one welcome our new Iraq-discussing Repubs and thank them for digging their own graves.

If the Dems botch another election cycle, I doubt I'll blame Kerry.

I do wish Kerry would embrace the void that is his charisma and leave the limelight.

I just heard a clip on the news of Bush calling into Limbaugh's radio show. These people have to be kidding me. Don't get me wrong Kerry is a jackass - if you are gonna make a joke like that it's pretty damn important that you get the wording right, but the righteous indignation by conservatives makes me ill. Just so I have this straight - it is inappropriate to call our soldiers stupid (which I agree it is) but to aid in the murder of almost 3000 of them is perfectly acceptable??? I hope you are right Will but I am concerned.

The only people who pay attention to this shit are the people who've already made up their minds. If you must spend time on partisan political bullshit, spend it doorbelling your neighbors and reminding them to vote.

This is sure to get me pilloried, but I'll go one further: The soldiers are either stupid or morally reprehensible and worthy of criticism. Say what you will about the poor being sent to fight the wars of the wealthy, but if you're actively fighting in an immoral war, you're either too dumb to know that it's immoral or you're buying into an immoral ideology/reasoning.

Let's not forget that every soldier opposed to the war in Iraq who is deployed there faces a choice: Fight in an immoral war or refuse to fight in an immoral war. Sure, it's not an easy choice (courtmartial ain't fun, just ask Lt. Watada). But if the choice is between facing time in the brig and killing people for an unjust cause, you damn well better believe that I'll take you to task for choosing to kill.

Support the troops? Hardly.

Lesson: Practice the joke first. Maybe even in front of the person that wrote it for you. Derp!

The practice session went something like this...

Kerry: "Now I would like to share a joke with you regarding the importance of education and the pitfalls that await those who... no, no wait -- am I telling this right? You see, there is, the importance of a good education lies in the contrary position of not having made the most of your good education, or rather -- no, that's not right either. Uh, Iraq... let me start over..."

Advisor: "Uhm, maybe you should read the scripted version first..."

Kerry: "No, wait, I can do this. You see, uneducated people..."

I was clucking, I confess.

I'm glad you're in touch with that.

Superfurry Animal:

The soldiers are either stupid or morally reprehensible and worthy of criticism.

Balls. Soldiers have a legal and a moral obligation to follow orders. Lots of people like to be all snide about that phrase-- "Oh, so you were just following orders?" --like everyone who follows orders is a Nazi or something. But there are good reasons for soldiers to just shut up and do what they're told. Think about it: the military controls the arsenal that could subjugate the rest of the country. The only way they can be trusted with that responsibility is if they're forbidden to make choices about when or how to use it.

The willingness to place him or herself unquestioningly at the disposal of the republic is the core of a soldier's duty and honor. If you can't see the value in that, maybe you should visit someplace where armed men make their own choices-- like Darfur or Mogadishu.

Kerry: From snarl to grovel in double-time cadence. All you fnarftards do know that hairy flip-flop Kerry, who refused to apologize, apologized?

Nice touch: "If it was a joke, it was a pretty bad one, even for him. First, Bush got better grades than Kerry at Yale. More relevant, if launching the Iraq war is a sign of stupidity and a failure to do one’s homework, Kerry should avoid calling attention to the fact that he voted to approve it and defended that vote throughout his 2004 presidential campaign." - Jonah Goldberg, NRO

Joshua: gibberish.

"Soldiers have a legal and a moral obligation to follow orders."

I'm talking about morality, not legality. And you have yet to prove why a practicality -- if every soldier were permitted to make his/her own decisions, they'd raid the arsenals and create another Darfur (pretty specious reasoning, BTW), so we have rules that they have to blindly follow orders -- is a moral justification.

Just because there are "good reasons" for something doesn't mean those reasons are morally right.

"The willingness to place him or herself unquestioningly at the disposal of the republic is the core of a soldier's duty and honor."

Sure, I'll agree with that. But again, duty and honor do not a morally right cause make. And morality supersedes duty and honor in my book every fucking day.

You were the one who raised the ridiculous specter of the Nazis, and I'm hesitant to even engage with you on that, but are you really arguing that Nazi soldiers didn't feel a very similar sense of duty and honor as American soldiers also feel?

On top of all of which, the military has its OWN RULES permitting soldiers to refuse to obey illegal orders (hello again, Lt. Watada).

Your argument has fewer legs to stand on than a pogo stick.

Break it down for me, brother: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2006/senate/

Dan's right, for a change. We're going down.

What the Kerry incident and the Cantwell incident both prove is that the liberals will take any excuse to form a circular firing squad. The Republicans barely have to attack us; we'll happily demolish each other.

On top of all of which, the military has its OWN RULES permitting soldiers to refuse to obey illegal orders (hello again, Lt. Watada).

Okay, we'll start with this.

The Uniform Code of Military Justice states in several places that soldiers are bound to carry out lawful orders. The clear implication is that they equally bound not to carry out unlawful orders. Watada is basing his refusal to go to Iraq on, essentially, two points of order. One is statutory; the war in Iraq violates the War Powers act, so orders to fight there are "unlawful." The other regards international law; the war in Iraq is a "war of aggression", illegal under various treaties and international agreements.

Both questions are fairly easy to answer. In the case of statutory concerns, the body of American jurisprudence holds that when two statutes conflict, whichever is of later date prevails. In this regard the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 essentially trumps the War Powers Act with regard to the conflict in Iraq. So orders to fight in Iraq are "lawful" under current American statute.

In the case of international law, Americans are only bound by international law to the extent that the United States government recognizes those laws through treaties. Here again, the body of American jurisprudence indicates that treaties and statues are equal under the Constitution; therefore an international treaty can be partially or completely abrogated by an American statute-- such as the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002.

Watada's only viable defense would be Constitutional. He would be able to claim, for example, that a direct order to commit torture would be unconstitutional, and therefore illegal, because it violates the Fifth Amendment. However, I'm reasonably certain that such an argument could only be applied to refusal to obey a specific order to torture, and not to simply being in the theater of battle.

None of which is to say that I don't admire Lt. Watada and what he's trying to do. And I would love nothing better than a Supreme Court decision committing the U.S. to place international law between U.S. statues and the Constitution on matters of U.S. foreign policy (requiring, say, an explicit denouncement of the relevant treaties by Congress before statutes can be applied against them). But that strikes me as extremely unlikely, and barring something on that order, Watada's pretty much destined to lose.

Most of my reasoning on this is derived from, Nuremberg and Vietnam: An American Tragedy, by Telford Taylor, U.S. Chief Counsel at Nuremberg. It's an excellent book and I recommend the entire volume very highly, but I've quoted the relevant passages here, for your convenience.

And you have yet to prove why a practicality is a moral justification.

The moral justification is that our republican form of government represents a moral imperative (based, if you insist, on a sort of Benthamite Utilitarianism evaluating the moral "goodness" of a thing by what does least harm and produces the most net happiness) in and of itself and that, therefore, soldiers obeying the will of that government are following an overriding moral imperative. That's hardly definitive, but it's a working model.

But again, duty and honor do not a morally right cause make. And morality supersedes duty and honor in my book every fucking day.

Well then. You're not good for much, are you? I mean, to the extent that everyone has their own moral code-- and that morality is absolutely relative, which of course it is --then in order to live in a community or participate in a republican form of government, people are constantly forced to make moral compromises with the collective will. Those moral compromises are the definition of duty and honor; we do these things because we have agreed that the collective will shall govern the individual in certain respects. So if morality supersedes duty and honor in your book every fucking day, then there's basically no trusting you. Pretty much by definition, you have no sense of duty or honor and no agreement with you is binding because your own personal morality will supersede duty and honor every fucking day.

But I suspect you've simply misspoken yourself. For example, I imagine (I could be wrong, but I'll assume not) that you pay taxes. So, in spite of your assertion that A) the war is immoral and B) morality supersedes honor and duty in your book every fucking day, you pay taxes that supply war materials to our immoral war. You own a tiny share of every bullet those immoral American soldiers fire into innocent Iraqi civilians.

In conclusion, how do you like my legs now, bitch?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15519404/
Kieth Olbermans newest tirade oabout the Administration and why the president should apoligize,not Kerry.
Hes one tough anchorman editorialist whatever.
Get him on the Daily show asap John Stewart.
How about a face off with him against Rush limbaugh or Michael savage.
I personally dig Savage butit would be interesting debate battle.
The GOP(or Granpas Old Pervs)are gonna falter in this election even if the Dems don't get the 5 seats needed to contol it all. The President and the country will be better off if the Goofy Old Pervs in the Gop would just retire and get the hell out of the senate. I'm sick of those Old bastards because all they do is sniff eachothers nuts and tell us how to be all moral and shit. Dont they realize Hollywood is going to be the new Washington D.C and we dont care one Iota what the Gop thinks. Just retire you old farts and let in some new fresh air in the Senate and Congress. Go to Cabo san Lucas and drink Gin and play golf you GOP goosestepping nut sniffers blah blah pttth. I still like the President though. he just needs a Democratic leash.

Ha! You crack me up, Joshua.

1) I'm not going to try to argue Watada's case for him. I'm sure he made the best case he could that the war is illegal. Frankly, I don't care whether the war is technically illegal, except in so far as it affects Watada. That's not the issue I was addressing.

I was raising the issue of illegality to demonstrate, as you have also conceded, that the military itself allows for some measure of free will: Soldiers are, as you say, "bound not to carry out unlawful orders." That contradicts this statement you made earlier: "The willingness to place him or herself unquestioningly [emphasis mine] at the disposal of the republic is the core of a soldier's duty and honor."

2) Regarding the issue of morality, you write: "soldiers obeying the will of that government are following an overriding moral imperative." Let me see if I follow you -- based on the unimpeachable morality of a utilitarian, greatest-good-for-greatest number reasoning, our democratically elected government, which ideally operates under that utilitarian reasoning, is by definition moral and behaves in moral ways. And so soldiers obeying that moral government's orders are by definition behaving morally?

Setting aside whether or not utilitarianism is ultimately moral, the kind of ideal utilitarianism you refer to is a utopia. Doesn't exist. Our governmental system is not perfect. Our government isn't perfect. Our government is run by people, and people are imperfect. (I can't believe I have to make this point.) Hence any assumptions about the morality of that government's behavior should be tempered by the realization that EVEN DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED GOVERNMENTS CAN DO BAD, BAD SHIT. So being an inhabitant of an ostensibly democratic republic hardly gives one the right to lay claim to moral superiority/purity. I know, Godwin's Law, but you were the one who brought up Nazis. Hello?

3) I'm not sure what point you're trying to make with your response to my statement about morality trumping honor and duty, because I'm not talking about being morally pure. No one can behave completely morally, obviously. Yes, I have a share in the culpability for what's going on in Iraq, by paying taxes, by driving a car that runs on gas, by not going to Iraq to fight U.S. troops, etc., which I do for various reasons (because taxes also go to worthwhile things, because a two-hour bus commute is personally untenable, because I don't want to die, for example). We all have to make those ethical compromises, and duty and honor don't particularly factor. For instance, I obey laws because they're ethical/morally right, not out of a sense of duty or honor. And does that mean I never jaywalk? Hardly. Your histrionic invocations of absolutes -- that I must be an untrustworthy fiend, that valuing morality above duty and honor would lead to violence and anarchy in the military (Darfur, fer chrissakes!) -- are laughable.

And let's not forget that there's an enormous difference between paying taxes or not, and killing a person or not, which you seem to be ignoring. In essence, you're equating the morality of telling Don Corleone what time it is and the morality carrying out a hit for him.

If you choose to fight with the U.S. military in Iraq, you're either uninformed or stupid enough to believe government rhetoric, or you're buying into an immoral war. Yep, you're still legless.

Obviously, that should be "and the morality OF carrying out a hit for him." Typos are so immoral.

I'm not going to try to argue Watada's case for him. (*snip*) That's not the issue I was addressing.

Fine. What were your grounds for claiming that the war in Iraq is immoral and that the soldiers fighting it are morally reprehensible?

Soldiers are, as you say, "bound not to carry out unlawful orders." That contradicts this statement you made earlier: "The willingness to place him or herself unquestioningly [emphasis mine] at the disposal of the republic is the core of a soldier's duty and honor."

No, it doesn't. The UCMJ is an expression of the will of the republic. Therefore a soldier's duty/right/obligation to disobey illegal orders represents loyalty to the republic (as opposed to loyalty to commanding officer or President, which I'm not advocating).

Setting aside whether or not utilitarianism is ultimately moral, the kind of ideal utilitarianism you refer to is a utopia. Doesn't exist.

My thesis regarding the morality of government viz utilitarianism in no way requires "ideal utilitarianism" or "utopia". The intention of a republican form of government is that, given the fallibility of humans, it minimizes the impacts of their "vices" while maximizing the impacts of their "virtues", thus producing the best possible "net good." The Framers went on about this point at some length in the Federalist Papers. So the idea here-- and I'll reframe this to see if you can recognize it from the other side --is that the republican form of government is the least immoral of the various immoral forms of government that imperfect and inherently immoral humans are likely to create.

Given that you didn't seem to be able to grasp my initial point, much of the rest of your response here is irrelevant.

So being an inhabitant of an ostensibly democratic republic hardly gives one the right to lay claim to moral superiority/purity. I know, Godwin's Law, but you were the one who brought up Nazis.

I did bring them up, and your determination to keep them around is really my favorite thing about you so far-- second only, of course, to your endearing habit of misconstruing my arguments, then arguing with your own misperceptions.

I believe-- I hope --I addressed your misperception that I was arguing that republics have a claim to moral "purity." As to the question of Nazis-- the Nazi government was a totalitarian dictatorship, not a democratic republic. Nazis were put into power by a republican process, but I'm fairly confident that neither they nor their agenda would have survived as long as it did, or achieved such horrifying extremes, had the German government maintained the basic republican framework of the Weimar Constitution-- flawed as it obviously was. In any event, the excesses of the Nazis do not, as a matter of definition, reflect on the efficacy of democratic republics generally.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make with your response to my statement about morality trumping honor and duty...

Allow me to clarify: my point was that your willingness to brand the soldiers your tax dollars arm and equip as "morally reprehensible," is arbitrary and hypocritical.

Your histrionic invocations of absolutes

You're projecting.

And let's not forget that there's an enormous difference between paying taxes or not, and killing a person or not, which you seem to be ignoring.

First of all, being a soldier is not necessarily the same moral choice as "killing a person." Soldiers are often called upon to kill. But they kill in the course of attempting to achieve other objectives. If the objectives could be achieved bloodlessly, they would be. Even if you discount the psychic cost of killing, from a strictly pragmatic perspective a casualty-free war would make for much better press.

Second of all, no, there isn't an enormous difference between paying taxes and being a soldier. That's the part where you're drawing an arbitrary and self-serving distinction: you look at the soldiers and say, in effect, "If it wasn't for you guys, there'd be no war." But without the weapons, vehicles, armor and ammunition our tax dollars supply, there wouldn't be any soldiers. You give yourself a free pass because it's convenient for you, but you have yet to present a logical basis for that distinction.

In essence, you're equating the morality of telling Don Corleone what time it is and the morality of carrying out a hit for him.

No, actually, I'm equating the morality of you giving an unarmed man a gun with the morality of that person using the gun you gave them to knock over a liquor store. Your decision to downplay the importance of your role in the crimes that follow is obviously much more strongly motivated by simple self-interest than by logic or morality.