Balkinization: Abrhaham Lincoln and "majority rule"

Comments:

Another problem with Safire's statement that Lincoln's overriding purpose was to establish the principle of majority rule is that Safire contrasts that purpose with the purpose of emancipation, which he notes that Lincoln disavowed. But Safire also notes that Lincoln campaigned before the Civil War to oppose slavery's expansion westward, and Safire seems unaware that such expansion would have led to emancipation because, if the western territories were admitted as free states, they would be able to outvote the South in Congress. Safire also seems unaware that Lincoln disavowed emancipation as a goal in order to bring about emancipation. If Lincoln had acknowledged emancipation as a goal, then the border states might have seceded and many Union soldiers would have deserted. As a result, the North would likely have lost the war and any chance of emancipating the slaves.

# posted by

Henry : 5:02 PM

Lincoln didn't think mere majority rule should allow slavery to arise in the territories. In his Cooper Union Address, he sneered at Douglas' "great principle" that focused on democracy alone on that matter.

The 13th and 14th Amendments particularly arose from the Civil War, based on the basic rights for all. So, majority rule shouldn't be our overall focus here.

I prefer Don Fehrenbacher's book on Dred Scott. Don't know if also ran Bell would have won in a run-off. Douglas might have been more preferred as a second choice.

# posted by

Joe : 6:20 PM

I don't see how the Civil War can be compared to the Iraq War. Both slavery/abolition and federalism/states' rights had been deep faults in the US polity from the beginning. The Civil War resolved those issues for 25 years, then after 75 years of retrogression, we had the Civil Rights movement, which again resolved those issues for 15 years, and then we had the neocons, who hopefully will be done in by Obamanism after only 30 years.

If you want to compare the Iraq War to something Lincolnesque, try the Mexican War, which Lincoln opposed.

# posted by

Anonymous : 7:43 PM

Sandy:

It may be, of course, that Lincoln's election was a good thing precisely BECAUSE it precipitated the slaughter of 2% of the American population and the concomitant formal ending of slavery, just as there are those who defend the war in Iraq and its slaughter, in spite of its rank irrelevance to defending American national interests in any standard-model sense, on the grounds that it is worth paying any price to displace a tyrant like Saddam Hussein. Ditto, for that matter, defense of the Afghan War on the grounds that it is worth paying any price to prevent the fall of Afghanistan's women back into the rule of a truly dreadful bunch of Islamic fanatics who otherwise seem to present little direct threat to American security interests. These are all, matters for entirely separate debates.

Sandy, life, liberty and democracy do not appear to be high on your list of national interests.

From the point of view of a grunt actually fighting in one of these wars, defending national security interests like our oil supply simply did not compare to the deep pride of having Kuwaitis and then Iraqis thanking you for saving them. I would suggest that the highest accomplishment of a soldier is to save and free another.

Conversely, the worst feeling in my life was abandoning the terrified Iraqis we had liberated to Saddam and his mass graves and rape rooms. Then again, George I shared your opinion that people are not national interests and are expendable.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 8:39 PM

I guess Bill Safire has been reading too much Jaffa.

# posted by

Won Joon Choe : 8:58 PM

Henry,

Regarding Lincoln's explicit disavowal of emancipation as a goal, there is much evidence and analyses that indicate that disavowal was merely rhetorical. I don't have the patience and the energy at the moment to develop this point, so I would refer you to well-known works by Jaffa (with whom I admit that I don't always agree) and Anastaplo. And if you are going to disqualify them for their "Straussianism," I can instead point to some mainstream Lincoln scholars like Guelzo, Miller, and countless others (the secondary literature on this issue is downright massive).

# posted by

Won Joon Choe : 9:09 PM

Won Joon Choe,

I agree that Lincoln's disavowal of emancipation as a goal was rhetorical, and I thought that that was what I said. Lincoln could not be candid because, as I said, he might have lost the border states and many Union soldiers, and he might also have lost pro-slavery Democrats in the North. The only way to end slavery was to win the war, and the Emancipation Proclamation was issued under the President's war powers; that's why it did not apply in states that were not in rebellion; it is not that Lincoln didn't want to free all the slaves.

# posted by

Henry : 10:20 PM

I would suggest that the highest accomplishment of a soldier is to save and free another.

# posted by Bart DePalma : 8:39 PM

If you were the one paying for the "liberation" of the Iraqis, I would definitely "support" your efforts.

# posted by

Bartbuster : 10:50 PM

Brad DeLong disagrees with your premises.

We will literally never know who might have come out on top if Americans in 1860 had been able to vote either in a runoff election between the two top candidates or cast an alternative transferrable vote. He probably would have beat the Southern Democrat John Breckenridge, who received 72 electoral votes but less than half of Lincoln's popular vote, though Mark Graber, in his essential book on Dred Scott, suggests that an alternative transferrable vote might have made John Bell, the Constitutional Unionist candidate, president instead of Lincoln (and thus forestalled war).

As I understand the alternative vote systems, a single winner election would involve instant run-off voting. In that system, the bottom finisher goes out first and his votes are re-distributed.

John Bell was the last place finisher in 1860, with 590,844 votes, so he could not possibly have won under such a system.

Just to play with the numbers a bit, unless 530,000 of Bell's 590,000 total went to Breckenridge, Breckenridge would have finished third in the next round and thus have been eliminated. That would leave the election to Lincoln or Douglas, depending on the exact distribution of the alternative choices of the Bell and Breckenridge voters. I'm pretty sure that would have made Douglas the winner.

Douglas, it's worth noting, supported Lincoln in the secession crisis.

# posted by

Mark Field : 10:55 PM

Sorry, my numbers were off. At least 561,000 of Bell's votes needed to go to Breckenridge, assuming all the rest went to Douglas. If less than all the rest went to Douglas, the number could drop to 530,000, but no lower.

# posted by

Mark Field : 10:59 PM

Prof. Levinson writes, "It may be, of course, that Lincoln's election was a good thing precisely BECAUSE it precipitated the slaughter of 2% of the American population and the concomitant formal ending of slavery,"

Is the 2% based on the number of soliders killed, the number of all whites killed, or the number of all persons killed?
I'm not sure I catch Prof. Levinson's implication, here, but the saving of 4 million enslaved people seems at least relevant to the utility calculation.
If we also consider that the expansion of slavery to the western terrtiories (and to South America as slave power advocates wished)combined with the ban on slave importation would have required the force reproduction of many more persons to become slaves, and the suffering of those future slaves ... well, maybe it was a good bargain in the end. The lesser of evils, at least.

Having said that, I agree with Joe's observation about Lincoln's views of majoritarianism - particularly in its then form.

# posted by

CTS : 11:44 PM

Henry,

Oops! Mea culpa. I not only failed to read the entire comment entry (which is an occupational hazard when you surf the net and hence somewhat forgivable), but I even misread your first sentence!

Really, I ought to practice more assiduously what I preach: Read and think more carefully before you speak/write!

# posted by

Won Joon Choe : 8:21 AM

What's Bart got against George I? Is he a closet Jacobite, plotting to reimpose Papist dungeons?

# posted by

James Wimberley : 8:26 AM

What's Bart got against George I? Is he a closet Jacobite, plotting to reimpose Papist dungeons?

# posted by James Wimberley : 8:26 AM

George I wasn't a big enough warmonger for Baghdad Bart.

# posted by

Bartbuster : 8:55 AM

Prof. Levinson's complaint against Safire strikes me as a piece of idle theological nominalism of the sort that characterizes too much legal scholarship nowadays.

Lincoln's own 'majority', he sussgest, was not really a "majority". But all majorities are constituted in terms of the institution that defines them -- this ever since clever monks in the 11th and 12th century (as Brad de Long reminds us) combined an odd bit of Roman contract law ('quod omnes tangit') with the new institution of the corporate body, and operationalized the problem of approval ('ab omnibus debet approbari') by providing for decisions by the 'larger and wiser part' ('maior et sanior pars').

Medieval canon law, apparently, saw a problem that Prof. Levinson prefers to ignore: identifying a 'maior pars' always also includes defining a 'sanior pars', that is, those who are qualified to participate, and how.

Lincoln was elected by a constituted majority -- not to be sure, an absolute majority, even disregarding all those slaves, native Americans and women that this discussion ignores, nor also ignoring all of those children, felons, the insane and others who are most certainly 'touched' by elections and their outcomes, and whom we routinely exclude as not being among the 'sanior'.

We today can imagine other ways to constitute a majority than the one that worked for Lincoln, Nixon, Clinton and Bush II. But our conceptions are just as constituted as the one in place in 1860. For a law professor to pretend this is not the case, and to critique Lincoln's defense of majority constitutional rule because he hadn't gotten the kind of 'majority' that Levinson would like, strikes me as a severe oversight.

# posted by

PQuincy : 10:00 AM

PQuincy's post seems internally inconsistent. OTOH, he chides Prof. Levinson for failing to account for the actual system of "majority rule" in operation at the time. The criticism, then, is that Prof. Levinson is guilty of "presentism". OTOH, PQuincy criticizes the definition applied in the post on the ground that it fails to include others who, I guess, might be included in the future. That strikes me as a form of future presentism.

# posted by

Mark Field : 11:08 AM

If there was some instant run off system, it is quite possible that Stephen Douglas would have won in 1860. Douglas died in 1861. Douglas' running mate was Herschel Johnson. We learn:

"In 1861 he served as a delegate to the state secession convention, and opposed secession from the Union. When it became clear that Georgia would secede, however, he acquiesced out of loyalty to his state and served as a Senator of the Second Confederate Congress from 1862 to the end of the war in 1865. In the Confederate Senate, he opposed conscription and the suspension of habeas corpus. After the Civil War, Johnson was a leader in the Reconstruction and was named head of the Georgia constitutional convention. Upon Georgia's readmission to the Union in 1866, he was chosen as a U.S. Senator, but was disallowed from serving due to his involvement with the rebellion. He again became a circuit court judge in 1873 and served until his death in 1880 in Louisville, Georgia."

Talk about counterfactuals. As to Lincoln's understanding of "majority rule," we would have to respect his understanding of virtual representation. That is, even if women and blacks could not vote, he would feel an obligation to respect their interests.

A realistic understanding of "majority rule" at the time would factor this in -- namely, what candidate would more respect a majority of the population.

Of course, as I said, Lincoln did not rely on simple majority rule, but also honored the principles of the Declaration of Indepedence, applied to all.

I don't want to dwell on the point, but, I have to say also that SL's last paragraph leaves a lot to be desired.

# posted by

Joe : 11:33 AM

A friend of mine asked me to note that Professor Levinson ignores the fact that Lincoln's name did not even appear on the ballots in nine southern states.

Therefore, my friend argues, it is unfair to criticize Lincoln for falling short of a majority when he was kept off the ballot in so many states.

# posted by

Henry : 2:24 PM

I do think it is possible to define Lincoln's defense of majority rule a little more broadly that treating "majority" as anything over 50%.

It is possible that by majority rule Safire means something more like respect for the electoral process, even if one doesn't like the results.

For a long time I saw slavery as the transcendent moral issue of the Civil War and considered secession as something narrower, something that might matter to me as an American, but not to any neutral outside observer. But someone else pointed out to me that secession was also an important moral issue -- the integrity of the electoral process was at stake.

For the South to stay in the Union on the condition that they like the outcome of elections, but reserve the right to secede if they did not goes against the basic sportsmanship (for the lack of a better term) that democracy depends on. It is like the boy who will play the game as long as he is winning, but as soon as he starts to loose he will take his marbles and go home.

# posted by

Essayist-Laywer : 2:54 PM

# posted by

Matthew Tievsky : 3:36 PM

This comment has been removed by the author.

# posted by

Matthew Tievsky : 3:36 PM

Enlightened Layperson said...

It is possible that by majority rule Safire means something more like respect for the electoral process, even if one doesn't like the results.

You probably have pegged Safire's intent in using the not quite accurate term "majority rule." The election of 1860 is the first and thankfully only time our Republic has not experienced the peaceful transition of power necessary for maintaining an democracy. No Republic can long survive if it fragments every time a minority of the citizenry disagrees with the rest of the nation's choice for President.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 3:39 PM

That's a fun point, Henry, but of course the reason Lincoln wasn't on the ballot in those nine states is that the residents mostly despised him. Even were he on those nine ballots, there's no way Lincoln would have won a majority.

The way I see it, no Breckenridge voter would have voted for Lincoln; in an IRV system, they all would have left the 4th line blank. This leaves us to speculate (1) whether the Bell voters would have been so nearly unanimous in their second choice to have pushed Breckenridge ahead of Douglas (thus making the Douglas voters go to their second choice); or whether Breckenridge would have missed catching Douglas, but his voters would have given Douglas enough votes to catch Lincoln.

# posted by

Mark Field : 4:40 PM

Professor Levinson is assuming that if the Civil War wasn't fought in 1861, it wouldn't have been fought at all.

In fact, I suspect that the compromises made in 1787 (and indeed, the very foundation of a union with several states whose economies relied on slave labor on plantations and several others whose economies relied on industry and finance) made civil war inevitable at some point. I admire people like Henry Clay who tried like mad to head it off, but I don't think a Bell election would have done anything more than kick the can down the road.

# posted by

Dilan : 4:48 PM

Bart de Palma writes:
Sandy, life, liberty and democracy do not appear to be high on your list of national interests.

From the point of view of a grunt actually fighting in one of these wars, defending national security interests like our oil supply simply did not compare to the deep pride of having Kuwaitis and then Iraqis thanking you for saving them. I would suggest that the highest accomplishment of a soldier is to save and free another.

Conversely, the worst feeling in my life was abandoning the terrified Iraqis we had liberated to Saddam and his mass graves and rape rooms. Then again, George I shared your opinion that people are not national interests and are expendable.

That's the trouble with all "wars," Bart. Innocent people are killed in the process. Yet defenders of a particular military action claim it was all worth it, because slaves were freed or Saddam Hussein was overthrown or some barbarous regime was defeated.

Yet we should not be using a principle of utilitarianism to figure out whether a war is justified, i.e., how many we kill vs. how many we save. What is paramount is the right to live and possession of life by each individual. That means we cannot be justified in killing 100,000 Iraqis because we want to free 24 million. The whole Constitution as well as the legal tradition of the U.S. is built upon protecting the basic rights of the individual as sacred, to hell with the wishes of the majority when individual and majority collide.

Consider the most lethal war of the 20th Century. Was it moral and eithical to kill 100 million people in WWII in order to defeat Hitler? I don't think so although those who don't believe that human rights of the individual trump everything else would quickly say yes.

# posted by

BOB EDER : 6:02 PM

Roberto Antonio Hussein Eder said...

Bart de Palma writes: Sandy, life, liberty and democracy do not appear to be high on your list of national interests.

From the point of view of a grunt actually fighting in one of these wars, defending national security interests like our oil supply simply did not compare to the deep pride of having Kuwaitis and then Iraqis thanking you for saving them. I would suggest that the highest accomplishment of a soldier is to save and free another.

Conversely, the worst feeling in my life was abandoning the terrified Iraqis we had liberated to Saddam and his mass graves and rape rooms. Then again, George I shared your opinion that people are not national interests and are expendable.

RAHE: That's the trouble with all "wars," Bart. Innocent people are killed in the process. Yet defenders of a particular military action claim it was all worth it, because slaves were freed or Saddam Hussein was overthrown or some barbarous regime was defeated.

...I don't think so although those who don't believe that human rights of the individual trump everything else would quickly say yes.

I guess that depends on how much you value life and liberty - your own and that of other peoples. I could not live as a slave nor see others subject to bondage. Thus, I was and am still willing to risk my life to save and free others. I subscribe to the motto: "Live free or die."

It appears that you are willing to live as a slave and allow others to live in bondage rather than risk your life or the lives of others.

Yet we should not be using a principle of utilitarianism to figure out whether a war is justified, i.e., how many we kill vs. how many we save. What is paramount is the right to live and possession of life by each individual. That means we cannot be justified in killing 100,000 Iraqis because we want to free 24 million.

You are raising a classic hostage dilemma. When a gang of criminals has taken hostages and killed some of them, should the police rescue the surviving hostages even if it means that the gang will kill more hostages before being killed themselves.

Your Iraq War example is a perfect illustration of this hostage dilemma. The Baathists held the Iraqi people hostage under a totalitarian regime and had murdered over a million Iraqis and their neighbors. When the liberation came, half of the 100,000 killed during the war were enemy and most of the rest were killed by the enemy.

Rescuing the hostages in both cases is justified because freedom has value and the hostage takers will end up killing more people in the long run if left to murder at their discretion.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 6:48 PM

Rescuing the hostages in both cases is justified because freedom has value and the hostage takers will end up killing more people in the long run if left to murder at their discretion.

# posted by Bart DePalma : 6:48 PM

Baghdad, given your view that we should have intervened in Iran to prop up the Shah, the idea that you support freedom is utterly absurd.

# posted by

Bartbuster : 6:54 PM

Bart de Palma wrote:

I guess that depends on how much you value life and liberty - your own and that of other peoples. I could not live as a slave nor see others subject to bondage. Thus, I was and am still willing to risk my life to save and free others. I subscribe to the motto: "Live free or die."

It appears that you are willing to live as a slave and allow others to live in bondage rather than risk your life or the lives of others.

Bart, I think you are framing the question to suit your own position.

All wars are immoral because they sacrifice innocent lives for some "greater good," as if there could be such a monstrosity. The lives of ordinary men, women and children are all dispensable to the soldier looking to achieve his/her military objective. "Oops, I shot a civilian" or "I ran over a child." "Well, too bad, I am on my way to Berlin, Baghdad, Kabul to liberate the locals." Or how about the American pilots who carpet bombed Dresden, Hamburg and Berlin? Do they think they are heroes for protecting "liberty?"

My point is that war and soldiers never take innocent lives into account. They never consider the inalienable human rights of the individual. Maybe it'silitary brainwashing, maybe it's racist ("Kill the Japs"), maybe it's cultural. But there has to be a better way to secure liberty and individual autonomy than your "live free or die."

Bart, forgive me for asking, but the question is apropos. You say you were a "grunt." Have you ever killed an innocent or civilian Iraqi? If so, how do you rationalize it?

# posted by

BOB EDER : 9:53 PM

Roberto Antonio Hussein Eder said...

My point is that war and soldiers never take innocent lives into account.

You have no idea at all what you are talking about. We always took the risk to civilians into account and placed ourselves at risk to minimize the chance that civilians would be harmed.

Bart, forgive me for asking, but the question is apropos. You say you were a "grunt." Have you ever killed an innocent or civilian Iraqi? If so, how do you rationalize it?

No. However, I was a platoon leader and did direct the killing of probably 100 Iraqi soldiers during four firefights over two days.

Even though they were enemy combatants and fair game, we still tried to spare their lives.

During the last night before the ceasefire, our battalion was pulling off the front line rotate into reserve. The battalion was turned to move out with our rear exposed to the enemy. My platoon was acting as rear guard to keep the bad guys away while the battalion was exposed as it pulled out.

Suddenly, our thermal imaging devices showed about 50 figures emerging out of the ground (Probably from trenches) about 1000 meters away spread out into a tactical formation and started advancing towards our battalion.

Chances are the Iraqis did not have night vision devices and did not know we were there. We did not want to kill them just before the ceasefire if we could help it. However, if the enemy came within a few hundred meters, they could use anti-armor weapons against our vehicles. They would not be allowed to get that close.

My company commander and I discussed the situation and decided that my Bradley would fire its machine guns with tracers in front of the enemy unit to scare them off. The rest of my platoon would stay hidden. I put my ass on the line because, if they had anti armor missiles in overwatch, the enemy could have fired at my vehicle by noting where the machine gun tracers started. I swept the ground in front of the enemy with my machine gun and then moved the vehicle to dodge any return fire.

For a few moments, our plan appeared to work. The enemy figures went ground during the fire and then waited. Unfortunately, the enemy decided to continue to push toward our battalion positions.

Too bad.

I then gave the order for all four of my Bradley fighting vehicles to open up with high explosive rounds from our main 25mm guns. Think of a machine gun that fires grenades. The explosions flashed red all across my thermal imaging screen and the screen went black after I ordered a ceasefire. All 50 some of the enemy were in pieces and no longer showed up on our sensors.

You asked me how I felt. I felt like shit and still occasionally dream of that slaughter. Unless you are evil or deranged, no one enjoys killing.

At the same time, I would not do anything differently if I had the chance. My only regret is that we were not allowed to finish the job and the surviving Iraqi Republican Guard murdered 300,000 Iraqis over the next year.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 10:52 PM

Thank you, Bart, for your service.

# posted by

Charles : 11:41 PM

Baghdad, it was mighty brave of you to gun those Iraqis down instead of taking them prisoner.

# posted by

Bartbuster : 11:45 PM

LOL, Bartbuster. You probably don't think WWII was "justified" either?

# posted by

Charles : 11:49 PM

BTW: who is Abrhaham (sic) Lincoln?

# posted by

Charles : 11:55 PM

Chucklehead, what does Baghdad Bart killing Iraqis trying to surrender in a war that was over have to do with WW2?

# posted by

Bartbuster : 11:55 PM

Re-read Antonio's post where he brought up WWII (notwithstanding said post, figuring out where, if at all, you would draw the line is a valid question. As always, you are under no obligation to answer simple questions).

# posted by

Charles : 12:15 AM

I was tempted to respond to "Bart"'s initial missive about the 'appreciative' Kuwaiti emirs that democracy had been restored, and the flowers and candy Valentine's Day run of the Iraqis (I even wrote half of it complete with links), but I see I'm late to the party. "Bart" has said his thing ... as he has said the same damn thing -- must be twenty times so far. And replying would be pointless. Best to leave the thread mucking to others....

Ciao,

P.S.: Folks, there is a "delete" clicky available next to your posts. It's that little garbage can icon by the bottom of your comment. Please feel free to use it, should you feel the urge.

# posted by

Arne Langsetmo : 2:24 AM

I appreciate Bart's discussion of his service in Iraq, even if I might not agree with all of the editorial comments found therein.

Let me add that I agree with someone else here that war is generally a crime and the fact its "hell" will always be there underlines why going to war should be a last resort (one rarely justified).

But, life is a matter of degrees. And, the idea that the U.S. military "never take innocent lives into account" etc., in effect, the rules of war are meaningless drivel, is hyperbole.

To say this doesn't justify modern war, but nor does leaving a child alive after you killed her mother justify the murder. It does help the child though.

# posted by

Joe : 9:00 AM

Just a minor technical correction: Abraham's name is spelled wrong in the title.

# posted by

Justin : 1:31 PM

Sandy also has a peculiar way of spelling "pecuuliar" (sic).

# posted by

Charles : 3:51 PM

Too bad we don't have a thread to discuss yesterday's Ninth Circuit hearing in Mohamed v. Jeppesen DataPlan.

# posted by

Charles : 3:52 PM

Baghdad, it was mighty brave of you to gun those Iraqis down instead of taking them prisoner.

# posted by Bartbuster : 11:45 PM

I rarely agree with Bart, but I don't think this is a fair remark.

There's no hint in his account that these Iraqis were trying to surrender and their behavior was not what you'd expect surrendering soldiers to do.

It appears to me that he and his unit went well beyond what was required and took some risks in order to spare lives. But under combat conditions there's a limit on the forbearance you can expect in the face of an armed enemy. If his restraint had cost the life of a soldier under command how would you justify that to their next of kin?

# posted by

Seth Owen : 9:05 PM

There's no hint in his account that these Iraqis were trying to surrender and their behavior was not what you'd expect surrendering soldiers to do.

Actually, there are several hints. If they were attacking, they would have fired their weapons (and you can be sure Baghdad would have mentioned that), or they would have retreated upon realizing they were seriously outgunned. Instead, they either committed suicide (very unlikely), or they were trying to surrender.

there's a limit on the forbearance you can expect in the face of an armed enemy

He didn't say they were armed.

# posted by

Bartbuster : 9:33 PM

I usually ignore bb, but this latest slander cannot stand unanswered.

Hero, our thermal imaging devices were good enough to read car license plates at 300 meters and see small arms out to a kilometer or so. The Iraqi unit advancing on our positions was carrying at least four crew served weapons as well as their rifles. We could not make out whether the larger weapons were machine guns or anti-armor weapons like RPGs. I was not about to walk up and ask.

As for enemy fire, at night, you want to avoid firing your weapons and giving away your positions until you have located the enemy at which you wish to fire. As I posted, I was taking a risk firing warning shots for just that reason.

I had given the rest of my platoon orders not to fire until I gave the command. They would have maintained fire discipline even if the Iraqis had fired back at my track.

The Republican Guard we were facing were the only well trained force the Iraqis fielded. I presume their commander had likewise ordered his troops not to return fire and reveal their positions until he gave the command to fire.

It should have been pretty obvious to experienced soldiers like the RG that the machine gun firing at them was mounted on a tank or a infantry fighting vehicle against which their small arms would have been useless and that they were still out of RPG range.

Because the machine gun fire fell well short of their positions as warning shots, the enemy commander probably also figured that we did not know precisely where they were located. The enemy commander did what I would have done if on patrol probing the enemy positions - paused and then cautiously move to contact without giving away their positions.

There was a sand storm underway at the time and the enemy commander probably figured we were firing wildly and could not see his men. Our after battle intelligence interrogations of the surviving Iraqis after previous engagements indicated that the Iraqis had no idea of the capabilities of our thermal imaging equipment to see through the sand storm and they generally first discovered our presence when their vehicles started blowing up under fire.

So, it is perfectly logical for an enemy patrol using the sandstorm as cover to continue advancing without returning fire to what probably seemed to them to be wild fire from our side.

On the other hand, terrified soldiers trying to surrender do not advance upon enemy positions carrying weapons after they have been fired upon.

bb, take your pathetic act elsewhere and FO.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 10:40 AM

bb, take your pathetic act elsewhere and FO.

You first, asshole. Given your history as a lying scumbag, I don't believe a word you have said.

# posted by

Bartbuster : 10:51 AM

Did little Lisa's bro get a medal for the events he described? Does the Army have documentation of the events that could be accessed to check his description of events? Is there a screenplay in the making, perhaps to star Brad Pitt? Did he provide dates and places? Is he a legend in his own mind?

# posted by

Shag from Brookline : 11:51 AM

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# posted by

Bart DePalma : 12:55 PM

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# posted by

Bart DePalma : 12:59 PM

Shaq:

I was a member of 3d Brigade of 3d Infantry Division acting as the 1st Brigade of 1st Armored during Desert Storm. You can get a general description of our operations here.

My little part in what was a brigade size series of engagements did not merit any coverage outside of my personal diary.

So far a medals go, I obtained two bronze stars for a gunner from Arizona who destroyed 14 enemy tanks and BMPs and another for a driver for my wing Bradley who pulled his vehicle out of incoming artillery when his sergeant panicked and froze. I simply did my job and did not pull a Kerry putting myself in for medals.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 1:08 PM

I simply did my job and did not pull a Kerry putting myself in for medals.

I'd think it incumbent on someone who has respect for the military to not break bread with the RW snots that malign truly honourable (and demonstrable) service by spreading their lies.

Cheers,

# posted by

Arne Langsetmo : 1:53 PM

Bart de Palma wrote:

"You have no idea at all what you are talking about. We always took the risk to civilians into account and placed ourselves at risk to minimize the chance that civilians would be harmed."

Bart, if the above is true, civilian casualties should be very low if non-existent, so how come some like the John Hopkins/Lancet group estimates Iraqi casualties, both civilian and military, at more than 600,000 resulting from the American invasion of Iraq?

Secondly, Bart, you were a platoon leader. I place little moral blame on you personally for taking lives because you were ordered to do so, but I do place some blame. The ordinary soldier, I give a blame index of 1 out of 10. The platoon leader a 2. The lieutenant at 3. The captain a 4. The colonel a 5. The general a 6. The Secretary of Defense a 7 or 8. Aides to the president a 9. And the most culpable in initiating and pursuing military action whose very purpose is to kill the "enemy," a 10.

All military actions are designed to take lives. We all know that "shock and awe" took civilian lives, whether intentionally or not, not to mention the phosphorous bombs and depleted uranium rockets fired or dropped by A-10s. Every time an American tank fired one of its shells, it could not avoid killing both Iraqi civilians as well as Iraqi. There is no moral justification for the United States to do this.

That's why I do not, as Charles did, "thank you for your service." I want our society to be free of soldiers, tanks, war planes and 2,000 pound bombs. I don't want to live in a world where U.S. forces are continuously engaged in shooting and killing people.

# posted by

BOB EDER : 2:06 PM

Roberto Antonio Hussein Eder said...

Bart de Palma wrote: "You have no idea at all what you are talking about. We always took the risk to civilians into account and placed ourselves at risk to minimize the chance that civilians would be harmed."

Bart, if the above is true, civilian casualties should be very low if non-existent, so how come some like the John Hopkins/Lancet group estimates Iraqi casualties, both civilian and military, at more than 600,000 resulting from the American invasion of Iraq?

1) The widely discredited Lancet election year propaganda "studies" were recently repudiated by the American Association for Public Opinion Research.

2) The ghoulish Iraq Body Count calculates that between 90,000 and 99,000 "civilians" have been killed during the past six years based on actual reports. Let's round it up to 100,000 for ease of calculation.

3) Logic Times broke down the IBC data and found that it wildly disproportionately consists of combat age young males. Once the proportion of the population normally made up of young combat age males is removed from IBC figures, 67.9% of the dead are likely young male insurgents. The remaining 32.1% or roughly 32,000 dead are actually civilians.

4) IBC's data shows that nearly all of the remaining civilian dead were murdered by the terrorist campaign - primarily by bombing. Thus, our troops are probably only responsible for at most a few thousand civilian dead over the past six years. This is historically extremely small as that many died in one day liberating St Lo during the Normandy breakout.

This is why I posted above that we are really dealing with a hostage situation.

Secondly, Bart, you were a platoon leader. I place little moral blame on you personally for taking lives because you were ordered to do so...

Every person is responsible for his or her own acts. I will leave my sins up to God to judge. Under the laws of man, killing an enemy on the battlefield is perfectly lawful.

We all know that "shock and awe" took civilian lives, whether intentionally or not, not to mention the phosphorous bombs and depleted uranium rockets fired or dropped by A-10s.

"We" know no such thing. How do you claim to "know" this.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 3:08 PM

Antonio never answered my question to him.

# posted by

Charles : 8:11 PM

1) The widely discredited Lancet election year propaganda "studies" were recently repudiated by the American Association for Public Opinion Research.

No. They did no such thing. What they did do is to admonish the authors for not disclosing their research methods. They had no opinion as to whether the reported results are overestimated, underestimated, or pretty much accurate.

IIRC, one of the initial complaints as to methodology was that the researchers wouldn't give out raw data or the names of the people they'd hired to collect the data, and that they'd destroyed the records after tabulating results. At the time, they said they did this because of the political sensitivity and risk to the polling personnel and those polled. Agreed this is not standard procedure, but the subject population was hardly in a "standard" situation either.

But the bottom line is that the AAPOR might cast doubt on the validity of the numbers, but they hardly put out any different numbers.

2) The ghoulish Iraq Body Count calculates that between 90,000 and 99,000 "civilians" have been killed during the past six years based on actual reports.

The IBC doesn't count all deaths; only those verified by specific means. This is not what the JH researchers did.

3) Logic Times broke down the IBC data and found that it wildly disproportionately consists of combat age young males. Once the proportion of the population normally made up of young combat age males is removed from IBC figures, 67.9% of the dead are likely young male insurgents.

... or perhaps young male targets.

And with that, I'll sign off on the "Iraq casualties" topic, as it is at best peripheral here.

Cheers,

# posted by

Arne Langsetmo : 8:20 PM

Sorry, that was Bartbuster who refused to answer my question. Antonio already said that America fighting in WWII was immoral too. Bartbuster wisely chose to not go THAT far left.

# posted by

Charles : 8:25 PM

Another shit pile thanks to two trolls.

OTOH, tom ricks is like food for the famished.

# posted by

mattski : 9:18 PM

I recently read "Team of Rivals" by Doris Kearns Goodwin. It covers, inter alia, Lincoln's career, his positions on slavery, the run-up to the war, etc.

Much of Safire's article squares with Kearns Goodwin's account but his assertion that Lincoln's "overriding purpose [was] to establish the principle of majority rule in the world’s most daring experiment in self-government by insisting that the whole country abide by the results of its national election" is unsuported by any quotes from Lincoln or any other source that I'm aware of.

Lincoln took the position that states could not withdraw from the Union. This was not idiosyncratic or extreme. There had been a number of secession crises, not related to Presidential elections, since the founding and other Presidents and politicians had stated the same view, e.g:

[D]uring th[e] Nullification Crisis crisis, President Andrew Jackson, in his “Proclamation to the People of South Carolina”, made the case for the perpetuity of the Union while also contrasting the differences between “revolution” and “secession:”

"But each State having expressly parted with so many powers as to constitute jointly with the other States a single nation, cannot from that period possess any right to secede, because such secession does not break a league, but destroys the unity of a nation, and any injury to that unity is not only a breach which would result from the contravention of a compact, but it is an offense against the whole Union. To say that any State may at pleasure secede from the Union, is to say that the United States are not a nation because it would be a solecism to contend that any part of a nation might dissolve its connection with the other parts, to their injury or ruin, without committing any offense. Secession, like any other revolutionary act, may be morally justified by the extremity of oppression; but to call it a constitutional right, is confounding the meaning of terms, and can only be done through gross error, or to deceive those who are willing to assert a right, but would pause before they made a revolution, or incur the penalties consequent upon a failure."

In the midst of the secession crisis that would lead to the Civil War, President James Buchanan in his final State of the Union Speech acknowledged the South would “after having first used all peaceful and constitutional means to obtain redress, would be justified in revolutionary resistance to the Government of the Union”, but he also reiterated the difference between “revolution” and “secession:”

"In order to justify secession as a constitutional remedy, it must be on the principle that the Federal Government is a mere voluntary association of States, to be dissolved at pleasure by any one of the contracting parties. If this be so, the Confederacy is a rope of sand, to be penetrated and dissolved by the first adverse wave of public opinion in any of the States. In this manner our thirty-three States may resolve themselves into as many petty, jarring, and hostile republics, each one retiring from the Union without responsibility whenever any sudden excitement might impel them to such a course. By this process a Union might be entirely broken into fragments in a few weeks which cost our forefathers many years of toil, privation, and blood to establish."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secession_in_the_United_States

Speaking of majority rule, in Illinois' 1858 US Senate campaign Lincoln ran against incumbent Democrat Steven Douglas, and this was the occasion for the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates. Neither candidate appeared on the ballot, because at that time, as per Article 1, Sec.3 of the US Constitution "The Senate of the United States [was] composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years..." (In 1913, the Seventeenth Amendment provided, inter alia, for popular election of Senators.) Lincoln and Douglas were actually campaigning for their respective parties' candidates for, and control of, the Illinois State Legislature. As it turned out, the Republican candidates got a slim majority of the popular vote, but the Democrats won a slim majority in the legislature, which re-elected Douglas to the US Senate. One can speculate on whether or how history would have been affected if control of the legislature had corresponded with the popular vote.

# posted by

tmdoyle : 12:43 AM

# posted by

Unknown : 12:26 PM