And my question is are you ever accountable for inaction or being against an action? Can one ever say that one's inaction is accountable for consequences?I am not "against" any of the above, I merely believe that you should be accountable for the actions you do enable. If its police brutality, or collateral damages or the consequences that come from not enabling them.
And my question is are you ever accountable for inaction or being against an action? Can one ever say that one's inaction is accountable for consequences?
I raised the issue of the police because whatever you or don't do - in most countries - your actions AND inaction contribute to various bad consequences.
And then there is my question about how far you take this....Being a consumer in most countries enables one form of abuse or another. Are we, you accountable since your, our consuming enables abuse by making it profitable?
No. But I do not think one can be a member of any even slightly industrialized society, nowadays, without enabling abuse either through act or inaction. Taxes, purchases, tacit support of military and police are a few examples. Also oppressed people may find it very hard to move out of oppression without in some way enabling unjustified violence. Once there is armed struggle all bets are off. On the other hand for an oppressed person not to support violent resistance to oppression can also be argued to enable the oppression. One can say 'this was good' but 'that was bad' but we do not enable simply through our verbalized judgments.Only if you ignore the abuse. Again, just my opinion. Do you believe people must needs be abused for society to function normally?
They are different types of enabling. And then there is the option not taken, or explicitly stated in the two options above of protesting that other people are drinking coffee. Not paying taxes is a step some USA citizens take. And this is a big one, it can lead to all sorts of problems for that person. They could see most americans as supporting the war machine. And the same is true for tax payers in most nations, since their taxes will likely go to severe abuse of one kind or another.Perhaps but buying a cup of coffee and switching off the news when it talks about the exploitation of coffee workers are not the same kind of enabling.
They are different types of enabling. And then there is the option not taken, or explicitly stated in the two options above of protesting that other people are drinking coffee. Not paying taxes is a step some USA citizens take. And this is a big one, it can lead to all sorts of problems for that person. They could see most americans as supporting the war machine. And the same is true for tax payers in most nations, since their taxes will likely go to severe abuse of one kind or another.
It is different and it is apathetic if it sums up your behavior. In the first however you are literally enabling the government to do things. In the second you are being passive - or overwhelmed, or feel hopeless or......And one can watch American Idol AND watch documentaries on Iraq and be upset and pay your taxes. I am not sure how much good this does anyone, but I suppose I can connect to that person better.Again paying taxes is different from watching American Idol when your government is actively torturing people. Thats apathy.
So the mother suffering from severe post-natal psychosis who smothers her child with a pillow.. you'd force her to look at her child's corpse and remind her of her mental short-comings?Sure, similar to a mother whose child dies in an accident vs she smothers him with a pillow. Accountability depends on circumstances.
Really? My mother did not want to see it. Nor did several of my cousins, aunts and friends who have miscarried. Nor did they wish to take the remains.Most women who miscarry want to see the child, but are advised against it. Many want to take the remains as well.
This is where we differ. I wouldn't excuse his behaviour, just as I wouldn't excuse his torturers behaviour.depends on what he went through to get to that place. If he was just released from Gitmo for example, I could see his point of view.
So if I think women should be justified in having a choice whether to abort or not, I should therefore be made or "prepared" to have abortions as well? Or if a soldier is sent to war and at some point, his actions or that of his fellow soldiers result in the deaths of innocent civilians, that soldiers family should be killed and him forced to watch or shown photos of it.. or order him to kill his own family as well... because he might have thought that the war he is sent to fight in is justified?No, I just beleive that if you think something is justified, you should be prepared to do it. If you think waterboarding is not torture, here's your kid, waterboard him.
Why? I would imagine many would be willing to sit through the death sentence of a killer who killed dozens of children for his/her own perverse pleasure. Hell, I'd imagine some would probably cheer as he was killed.You think capital punishment is justified? You should be willing to sit through it when someone is killed.
Who has said that abortion is "right" or somehow terrific?You think abortion is right? Here are abortion products that you said were not a child.
When did this happen?You think this war is right? Here is an item about 80 children under 12 who were killed yesterday and then called insurgents.
How exactly does the public "enable" a war? What? Do you think the public should simply shoot the leader of the country who decides to wage a war on another country?Thats not emotion, thats accountability. You enabled this, so stand for it.
How much is one responsible TO FIND OUT what might be seen as the actions involved that you are openly or tacitly supporting?
I think also the relationship with the police would be very tricky in many countries. If one wants police but some of their practices - or enforcement of certain laws - is abusive, but legal. Must one be willing to perform those acts that seem abusive.
It seems you are against war. Does this mean you are for the unilateral disarmament of India?
If India is attacked and its war machine - as every war machine will - committs attrocities, should you be willing to be a soldier in that war because you were not for disarmament?
And my question is are you ever accountable for inaction or being against an action? Can one ever say that one's inaction is accountable for consequences?
I raised the issue of the police because whatever you or don't do - in most countries - your actions AND inaction contribute to various bad consequences.
And then there is my question about how far you take this....Being a consumer in most countries enables one form of abuse or another. Are we, you accountable since your, our consuming enables abuse by making it profitable?
Sure, without your enabling the war, that child along with "we don't do body count" others, would be alive and well.
Actually that would be your burden to prove. Given Saddam penchant for torture, mustard gasssing and outright murder, there is no guarantee that anyone would be left alive in Iraq right now. In fact it is likely the secular leader might have found himself on the wrong end of the very same people that are bombing crowded marketplaces today.
Shortly after the sanctions were imposed, the Iraqi government developed a system of free food rations comprising of 1000 calories per person/day or 40% of the daily requirements, which an estimated 60% of the population relied on for a vital part of their sustenance. With the introduction of the Oil-for-Food Programme in 1997, this situation gradually improved. In May 2000 a United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) survey noted that almost half the children under 5 years suffered from diarrhoea, in a country where the population is marked by its youth, with 45% being under 14 years of age in 2000. Power shortages, lack of spare parts and insufficient technical know-how lead to the breakdown of many modern facilities.[12]
The overall literacy rate in Iraq had been 78% in 1977 and 87% for adult women by 1985, but declined rapidly since then. Between 1990 and 1998, over one fifth of Iraqi children stopped enrolling in school, consequently increasing the number of non-literates and losing all the gains made in the previous decade. The 1990s also saw a dramatic increase in child labor, from a virtually non-existent level in the 1980s. The per capita income in Iraq dropped from $3510 in 1989 to $450 in 1996, heavily influenced by the rapid devaluation of the Iraqi dinar.[12]
Iraq had been one of the few countries in the Middle East that invested in women’s education. But this situation changed from the late eighties on with increasing militarisation and a declining economic situation. Consequencently the economic hardships and war casualties in the last decades have increased the number of women-headed households and working women.[12]
Some researchers say that over a million Iraqis, disproportionately children, died as a result of the sanctions, [13] although other estimates have ranged as low as 170,000 children. [9] [14] [15] UNICEF announced that 500,000 child deaths have occurred as a result of the sanctions.[16] The sanctions resulted in high rates of malnutrition, lack of medical supplies, and diseases from lack of clean water. Chlorine, was desperately needed to disinfect water supplies, but it was banned from the country due to the potential that it may be used as part of a chemical weapon. On May 10, 1996, Madeleine Albright (U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations at the time) appeared on 60 Minutes and was confronted with statistics of half a million children under five having died as a result of the sanctions. She replied "we think the price is worth it", though in her 2003 autobiography she wrote of her response (answering a loaded question):[17][18]
I should have answered the question by reframing it and pointing out the inherent flaws in the premise behind it. … I had fallen into a trap and said something that I simply did not mean. That is no one’s fault but my own.[19]
Denis Halliday was appointed United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Baghdad, Iraq as of 1 September 1997, at the Assistant Secretary-General level. In October 1998 he resigned after a 34 year career with the UN in order to have the freedom to criticise the sanctions regime, saying "I don't want to administer a programme that satisfies the definition of genocide"
Who cares? It was not because of Saddam that the UN representatives called it genocide and resigned. They could not stomach it, so they did not support it.
yawn
“You have to look at what was the overall goal of the mission. That was pretty evident when, eight months before we even left to go to Kuwait, the Marines were training to shut down and take over the Ar Rumaylah oil fields. We had detailed schematics and terrain models of all of the oil fields outside of Basra, and once we took care of those, all that was left was the ride into Baghdad.
“We were like a bunch of cowboys who rode into town shooting up the place. I saw charred bodies in vehicles that were clearly not military vehicles. I saw people dead on the side of the road in civilian clothes. As a matter of fact, I only remember seeing a couple of bodies in military uniform the whole time.
“There wasn’t a whole lot of direct fighting to speak of. There were some firefights—I mean I had bullet holes in the side of my Humvee—but it wasn’t like major combat action. We took the highway the whole way up to Baghdad. They had no artillery; they had no air support. They were so weakened by all the sanctions. All of their equipment was in very bad shape. Most of their hardware was left over from the war against Iran. The first Gulf War just devastated them. I don’t think they had the will or the opportunity to fight.”
Massey said that the hostility of the Iraqi people to the presence of the US military grew exponentially over the time he was there in direct response to the brutal methods employed by American troops against the entire Iraqi population.
“As far as I’m concerned, the real war did not begin until they saw us murdering innocent civilians,” he said. “I mean, they were witnessing their loved ones being murdered by US Marines. It’s kind of hard to tell someone that they are being liberated when they just saw their child shot or lost their husband or grandmother.”
For example, if you supported the death penalty, I would advise you to go sit through the final moments of a person who is given the death sentence. As a non supporter, I am not obliged to, but as one who believes in it, you are.
Selective reading there.