Slog - Comments on Re: 2008 It�s 10 O�clock. Do President Bush and John McCain Know Where Condoleezza Rice Is?

Comment by elenchos

elenchos — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 16:43:28 -0800

One of the problems when you make your living killing people is that you become willing and able to carry out all kinds of gratuitous violence on top of what your job entails. All sorts of military codes of honor have been developed over the centuries to try to focus the violence into a narrow band under the control of the state. The problem with all those codes of honor is that they are just as effective at making the military resist orders from rogue governments that want them to carry out acts of torture or theft of natural resources or suppression of civil liberties.

So an administration that weakens the foundation of military conduct unleashes something they can't control that spills over even on their own troops. There was a time when they thought they were so clever calling these rules "quaint."

Comment by Fnarf

Fnarf — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 17:17:17 -0800

Elenchos, there's a bit of a difference between the ease with which a soldier has tradionally extended his war power into the sexual realm and what's happening in the DR of the Congo, where rape is an official policy designed to humiliate, destroy and force out a population. Rape is not an unpleasant side effect of war in Congo; it IS THE POLICY; it is the means of war. It's different, and it's worse.

Getting any action through the UN is impossible, of course, because in the UN "human rights" MEANS the fundamental right to use rape as a way to execute policy, as long as that policy is formulated by non-Western powers. Objecting to rape is a violation of human rights, in their view.

I applaud Ms. Rice's recent conversion to the right side of this issue, and only ask "where the fuck have you been for the past seven years?"

Comment by Greg

Greg — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:57:25 -0800

It's a wonderful speech and resolution, and a nice change from Rice. Now it needs teeth. Oh, and don't forget that we need to get our own military house in order.

Comment by Lydia

Lydia — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 21:28:37 -0800

Wow... the comments on that article that you linked to are absolutely disgusting. "Anyone who joins the army deserves what they get"? I'm so tired of this impulse to demonize soldiers, to assume that they're all (or mostly) vicious thugs... I'm a female Army officer, I've been in the Army for five years, and I've never once felt even remotely threatened by a male soldier. Most soldiers are lovely, courageous people.