Reprisals Quotes
The nation was in the midst of a major steel strike and the President felt that the steel companies had reneged on their promises:
One of the must difficult ethical problems is raised in wartime, when one side uses its homes and civilian institutions to store arms and ammunition and house fighters. By international law religious institutions, hospitals, schools and homes forfeit their status when there are fighters in them or weapons are therein. For most American Indians there was no concept of military facilities as separate from civilian, unlike many Arabs of the 20th and 21st century where the military fighters deliberately choose these civilian facilities to fight from. See General Sherman’s reply {617990}.
In September of 2005 a Danish Newspaper published some political cartoons showing the hypocrisy of some Muslims who use Islam to justify murder of innocents and terrorism. Months later, in January of 2006 many in the Middle East protested vehemently and Muslim riots broke out because the Prophet Muhammad's visage was depicted against Islamic tradition. Many Muslim nations started a boycott against Denmark. Many Muslim leaders claimed that insulting religion was an “abuse” of freedom of speech including those from nations which regularly publish material that is virulent against Christians and Jews.
While the idea is not new with Cianci, the particularly colorful expression has yet to be rivaled.
See {620373} for a similar quote. However, there are many who disagree. They point to the Vietnam War as just one counter example. Generally, this tactic has worked for non-democratic nations facing insurgents and terrorists, but has not been very successful for the United States, England, France, Israel and other industrial democracies. These societies have found it difficult to inflict enough terror in the general population to make Luttwak’s tactic effective. The norms and mores of the culture was contrary to the methods that are required, and public opinion forced cessation in the instances where industrial democracies had tried it such as France in Algeria. See {620377}.
Generally after civil wars there have been extensive reprisals and trials of the winning side against the losing one. Lincoln was determined that this pattern not be followed as the bloody war was coming to an end. Ironically, Andrew Johnson, Lincoln’s successor and a Southerner, was, together with some of the Radical Republicans, in favor of trying many of the Southern leaders for treason and rebellion. Lincoln’s view however and that of the moderate members of Congress prevailed. However, the Southern Whites generally would not comply with the Constitutional Amendments and laws regarding the role of the Negro, and Johnson was very sympathetic to their racism which led to a conflict between Johnson and Congress.
The war was an attempt of Muslim Azerbaijan to Islamize a Province of Armenia with both Muslim and Christian residents. While he was surprised that the aggressor, after losing the war then started, began making demands of the victor, this has been a historical, traditional tactic of many Islamic societies. The veiled threat is that if you do not adhere to our demands, we will start another war and another until we get our demands. This has occurred after every war against Israel that the Arabs started. They were always defeated, and they always made demands soon afterward. This technique has been used ever since the Ottoman Empire collapsed. It is one of the reasons that peace treaties with or between Islamic countries are hard to negotiate and implement because the country may have lost the immediate war, but they have not lost the will to fight. There are many military thinkers who believe wars are not won by killing and capturing soldiers and capturing territory, but only by breaking the enemy’s will to fight. Wars in the Middle East have had the pattern of whichever party is clearly losing sues for peace, and is supported by the international community in that goal. So the fighting and damage ceases before the loss can be so great that the loser loses the will to fight.
