Pro-life beliefs

Tom Englehardt examines the massacre at Azizabad, Afghanistan. Afghan President Hamid Karzai cites the work of

Later, the American military was pushed into agreeing that yes, indeed, some civilians did indeed perish. The story contains a very chilling description of the way that American forces view real-time information and air power:

It's just very difficult to believe that the Special Forces really had on-the-ground, real-time, close-up human observers to inform the aircraft that their target was a memorial service. Tactical, close-in air support is of course, vitally important and needed if US troops are to win engagements. But it's really not clear that there was any "hardened compound" involved or that there even was any return fire. The NY Times piece cited in the story refers to "eight bomb-damaged houses," but the only mention of any "compound" is:

In other words, not a "hardened" compound at all, certainly nothing resembling a military bunker. There's no talk in the piece about captured weapons. And as to the "fire" reportedly received from the village:

The real question is then, were the Special Forces anywhere near the village to begin with? Were they observing from a distance, through scopes, or were they even that close? Did they simply hear or did their devices detect a large gathering? This is an inherent problem with airpower and guerrilla wars. Airpower is necessarily a very blunt and clumsy instrument to use against an enemy that slips around barely detectable, mostly unobserved and in the shadows. As stated earlier, close-up air support is vitally important while conducting tactical operations, but planes flying around and bombing targets without any human observers on the ground to confirm that the planes are indeed striking legitimate military targets do counterinsurgency forces far more harm than good.

Problem is, how on Earth can we reconcile military tactics that President Bush has approved with his allegedly "pro-life" stance? In his desire to be seen as a defender of the sanctity of life, he insisted back in 2001 that stem cells could used for medical research, but only under very strict conditions. He also made it clear during the 2000 campaign that he really didn't like abortions and wanted to reduce their incidence. He also favored, in July 2008, a sort-of conscience clause for hospitals that would allow employees to refuse to provide contraceptive services.

Can a human being really be that "Ahh, who gives a $%#@!" when it comes to casualties from an air strike, yet tenderly concerned and solicitous when it comes to decisions involving the unborn? It's not like the Afghan villagers of Azizabad were guilty of anything. Killing them was like killing the drivers and passengers in other cars when one is driving drunk. They were simply slaughtered at a distance. Their "guilt" was not an issue at all as there is no apparent evidence they were even in the vicinity of a legitimate military target.

As Christy Hardin Smith of FDL makes clear, women must have control over their bodies and their reproductive functions if they're to be full human beings and citizens.

Why tell you something so personal? Especially when it is no one's business but ours?

Because it is no one's business but ours how we made the decision, what medical issues were at stake, and what choices we made together. Which is the point of choice. No one but the people involved in the individual circumstances can truly know why the decision is made -- to terminate, to keep, to risk. [emphasis in original]

Well...exactly! That's precisely what pro-choicers have been saying all these many years! How a woman, how a family, deals with a problem pregnancy or with an unwanted pregnancy is their business and should be their choice.

"Pro-lifers" are nothing of the kind. They're people who want to deny choice and to force people to do things that people really don't want to do.

Comments

So In other words

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 4:20pm

So you advocate for the murder of the most innocent. You don't think that they should be protected, that their lives should be a choice of the mother. This is progressive stupidity at it's best. The shedding of innocent blood is ok with progressives and liberals as long as it is still in the womb, but then the hue and cry about children killed in warfare. Oh how horrible they cry. Hypocrites, liars and murderers. Abortion is murder, pure and simple.

That's a more defensible choice

Submitted by Rich Gardner on Mon, 09/15/2008 - 4:02pm

than to say "Abortion is murder, but it's acceptable in case of rape or incest." It's much more consistent to say that it's unacceptable murder in all cases.
Problem is, how many people are really willing to inflict murder penalties on wives, sisters, daughters and mothers? Say you have a classmate or workmate that you get along with and you learn that she had an abortion a few months back. How brutal are you willing to be? How many years of jailtime are you willing to demand?
The Iranian Parliament disagrees with the Iranian Guardians (Who can veto decisions that the Parliament makes) and favors a theory known as "quickening," which holds that a fetus gains full human status at four months. The Guardians are more in agreement with the Republican Party, who both hold that fetuses are full humans from the moment of conception.
Seems to me that most people (Leftists, liberals and progressives of course included) tend to come down on the side of the Parliament and favor some version of the quickening theory. That includes Republicans when they are making judgments on women that they personally know. It's one thing to make a judgment on an abstraction, it's quite another to judge a person that one knows personally.

Rich Gardner

http://www.prawnworks.net/

Why are you emphasizing the nuances?

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 09/16/2008 - 12:13am

Rich, why emphasize how much many differ on abortion when we almost all agree that Sarah Palin’s extremism is senseless. As to your comments on abortion, we almost all fail in our attempts to put ideology in front of reality.

Most people calling themselves pro-choice really don't like women in India wanting more status with only male children. If anyone started a harvest body parts industry with repeat 8 months pregnancies to make money harvesting body parts, most people would balk at the practice. Hitler wanted to breed stronger smarter tough-minded people, while Stalin fought fascist ideas with the help of a crackpot scientist called Lysenko, who said breading plants and animals was wrong, permanently screwing up Russian agriculture by putting obedient hacks in charge of growing things.

Sarah Palin is another person who puts belief in front of reality and may be remembered in a similar way by history.

Anyway my niche at this point is to try to form a new organization “Pro-Lifers Against Sarah Palin’s Extremism”,
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/cont/node/11225
RichardKanePA@aol.com

Ideologically pure extremists do silly things that get people hu

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 09/16/2008 - 9:14am

This is Richard again.
I wonder if even people who hate Sarah Palin will find it ridiculous that I compared her with Stalin and crackpot scientist Lysenko, trying to fight Nazi eugenics by ordering farmers to stop breading plants and animals.

Sarah Palin thinks all abortions are wrong, but didn't have the power to band them all in Alaska, so she made rape victims pay for rape kits, so traumatized rape victims suddenly have bills from the state added to their burdens. I'm sure that if President Palin stopped the government from paying for Aids testing for young women, there would be one or two less babies killed by abortion.

She said "McCain saw the face of evil in Vietnam, and thus knows how to stop it”. If President Palin deals with Vietnam from the perspective that they are evil Commies and Saudi Arabia, and Jordon, that they are an evil false faith, then Russia, China, and the Saudi’s might get together and decide that the dollar isn't currency any more, and rather than fighting the unGodly world around us, the US might just shrivel up like the USSR did.

In bin Laden’s mind, God empowered bin Laden to bait, finagle, and inspire the good world to unite against the Evil US monster, Sarah Palin is his best asset for doing so.

http://capitolhillblue.com/cont/blog/2419
RichardKanePA

Hmm...

Submitted by Rich Gardner on Tue, 09/16/2008 - 10:46am

I agree that we pro-choicers are kind of sour on the idea of women in India aborting fetuses because they're of the "wrong" gender, but I don't think anything else you bring up logically follows from the idea of choice.

I wonder if even people who hate Sarah Palin...

What!?!?! Where did this talk of hate come from? How on Earth are people supposed to talk about the future of this country in a civilized manner when people are throwing around words like "hate"? C'mon guy! Watch the frackin' language there.

And just for the fun of it...

Submitted by Rich Gardner on Tue, 09/16/2008 - 1:11pm

Despite his complicity in murdering over six million post-born with gas chambers, ovens, firing squads, starvation, and heinous medical experiments, one thing that all historians can agree upon is Adolph Hitlers staunch pro-life stance. He was so incredibly pro-life that he actually called for the death penalty for mothers who attempted to abort their pre-born Aryan defenders.

http://www.abortiondebate.tribe.net

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