Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I'd like to say I can't believe people here would support this evil but well...

 Orlanth wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:


I am still waiting for his response to me not approving of US drone strikes, which kind of makes his whole argument pointless.

Very well, but I need not have replied to you, but I will as you are 'waiting'. It doesn't matter if you do or don't approve of drone strikes. It makes no difference to my argument a jot, as I need not find an absolute vacuum of contrary opinion for the premise to remain, and I need not give a rodents rectum what any individuals beliefs are. You sound your own, and I will sound mine.

No, you need to change your argument then. You accused me of supporting drone strikes and in turn supporting behaviour such as this. I do not. Neither do other posters.

What is going on in the Phillipines is not legal and not right in any way. Full stop. Your lack of knowledge about addiction and the difficulties involved is glaringly obvious. Because advocating for the extra judicial murder of citizens by authorities as well as other citizens is no way to solve a problem. What you are calling for is genocide and you should be ashamed of yourself for doing so.

Is genocide the right term for this? For that, I usually think of ethnic cleansing or race wars. About the only voluntarily associated group I'd extend the term to are religions.

Should drug users and drug dealers be considered enough of a group to qualify for genocide?

I'm not certain how they're identifying or why they're targeting drug users at this point. Admittedly they did at some point choose to engage in illegal activities, but with all of the loaded rhetoric coming out of the Phillipines about the evil of the 'pushers' it seems their fury is mostly directed at the dealers as the source of corruption.

 Gitzbitah wrote:
Is genocide the right term for this? For that, I usually think of ethnic cleansing or race wars. About the only voluntarily associated group I'd extend the term to are religions.

Should drug users and drug dealers be considered enough of a group to qualify for genocide?

I'm not certain how they're identifying or why they're targeting drug users at this point. Admittedly they did at some point choose to engage in illegal activities, but with all of the loaded rhetoric coming out of the Phillipines about the evil of the 'pushers' it seems their fury is mostly directed at the dealers as the source of corruption.

When you have government death squads roaming the country with an open license from the leader and the belief they are "Angels of Mercy", then exact terminology is kind of beside the point. It's a disgraceful clusterfeth is what it is.

 feeder wrote:

 Gitzbitah wrote:
Is genocide the right term for this? For that, I usually think of ethnic cleansing or race wars. About the only voluntarily associated group I'd extend the term to are religions.

Should drug users and drug dealers be considered enough of a group to qualify for genocide?

I'm not certain how they're identifying or why they're targeting drug users at this point. Admittedly they did at some point choose to engage in illegal activities, but with all of the loaded rhetoric coming out of the Phillipines about the evil of the 'pushers' it seems their fury is mostly directed at the dealers as the source of corruption.

When you have government death squads roaming the country with an open license from the leader and the belief they are "Angels of Mercy", then exact terminology is kind of beside the point. It's a disgraceful clusterfeth is what it is.

If you have a rival or enemy.
Just claim or plant some drugs, and kill em. Its legal .....

People gonna exploit this for own ends for sure.

 Dreadwinter wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:


I am still waiting for his response to me not approving of US drone strikes, which kind of makes his whole argument pointless.

Very well, but I need not have replied to you, but I will as you are 'waiting'. It doesn't matter if you do or don't approve of drone strikes. It makes no difference to my argument a jot, as I need not find an absolute vacuum of contrary opinion for the premise to remain, and I need not give a rodents rectum what any individuals beliefs are. You sound your own, and I will sound mine.

No, you need to change your argument then. You accused me of supporting drone strikes and in turn supporting behaviour such as this. I do not. Neither do other posters.

No I did not make any reference to your opinions. I commented on the general lack of condemnation of si8milar actions like drone strikes. The fasct that you dont like them is not relvant, you were exactly standing up about it either.

 Dreadwinter wrote:

What is going on in the Phillipines is not legal and not right in any way. Full stop.

 Dreadwinter wrote:

Your lack of knowledge about addiction and the difficulties involved is glaringly obvious..

Is it? I recognise that drug addicts don't just come off drugs, there needs to be a very strong incentive, and in the cases stick outperforms carrot. Drug addicts are encouraged to 'surrender'. If they do they are forced off drugs.
I am not pretending that isn't nasty, but the Filipino people have decided that a tough approach is better for their society in the long term. They may well be right, they have a chance to live in a future without this problem, or at least drugs problems along the scale they currently suffer for.

 Dreadwinter wrote:

Because advocating for the extra judicial murder of citizens by authorities as well as other citizens is no way to solve a problem. What you are calling for is genocide and you should be ashamed of yourself for doing so.

1. Its not genocide.
2. Those who surrender, including drug pushers avoid further action.
3. Sometimes a hard policy but with a fair opt out is better than the half hearted approaches used elsewhere.
4. The Filipino people are calling down the fire on themselves under their own mandate.
5. More lives might be saved in the long run by removing the problem.
6. Remember again the motive is to force an unconditional surrender of the narcotics community, not the death of citizens. Which instead is the threat to force the surrender.

We must face the facts, the narcotics infrastructure devastates society, the Filipinos know this and want a way out. Rehab is only marginally effective even when vast sums are invested in it. the US which has a far lerger budget to deal with these issues has largely failed. The Philippines considers it is time to try another way.
Besides the vast majority of those at risk are surrendering, this places them under protection.

 Orlanth wrote:

4. The Filipino people are calling down the fire on themselves under their own mandate.

The idea that drug addiction can only be stopped by murder is generally idiotic but it particularly strikes me that the Filipinos getting murdered are perhaps not 100% the ones who voted for Duterte.

Rosebuddy wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

4. The Filipino people are calling down the fire on themselves under their own mandate.

The idea that drug addiction can only be stopped by murder is generally idiotic but it particularly strikes me that the Filipinos getting murdered are perhaps not 100% the ones who voted for Duterte.

Pffft, next you'll be telling me it wasn't the Jews, communists, gypsies and disabled peopled who voted for Hitler [/sarcasm]

Rosebuddy wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

4. The Filipino people are calling down the fire on themselves under their own mandate.

The idea that drug addiction can only be stopped by murder is generally idiotic but it particularly strikes me that the Filipinos getting murdered are perhaps not 100% the ones who voted for Duterte.

And how do you its not motivated by revenge, greed or many other reasons to kill.

Well, it is genocide. You are cleansing a cultural and national group. Unless we stopped referring to it as drug culture.

Do you really consider it a fair opt out when the fair part is you get to keep your life? That doesnt seem fair really. In fact, that sort of thing seems illegal. Last I checked, murder isn't exactly legal.

 Dreadwinter wrote:
Well, it is genocide. You are cleansing a cultural and national group. Unless we stopped referring to it as drug culture.

Do you really consider it a fair opt out when the fair part is you get to keep your life? That doesnt seem fair really. In fact, that sort of thing seems illegal. Last I checked, murder isn't exactly legal.

And those who are guilty of nothing but the bad luck of being in the wrong place at wrong moment. There's no proof, no trial, no evidence, just a killers say so.

 jhe90 wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:
Well, it is genocide. You are cleansing a cultural and national group. Unless we stopped referring to it as drug culture.

Do you really consider it a fair opt out when the fair part is you get to keep your life? That doesnt seem fair really. In fact, that sort of thing seems illegal. Last I checked, murder isn't exactly legal.

And those who are guilty of nothing but the bad luck of being in the wrong place at wrong moment. There's no proof, no trial, no evidence, just a killers say so.

Such as the 5 year old girl who was shot in the head when gunmen entered her home.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 jhe90 wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:
Well, it is genocide. You are cleansing a cultural and national group. Unless we stopped referring to it as drug culture.

Do you really consider it a fair opt out when the fair part is you get to keep your life? That doesnt seem fair really. In fact, that sort of thing seems illegal. Last I checked, murder isn't exactly legal.

And those who are guilty of nothing but the bad luck of being in the wrong place at wrong moment. There's no proof, no trial, no evidence, just a killers say so.

Such as the 5 year old girl who was shot in the head during a raid.

Philippines raid?
Not seen of that sad news story.

 jhe90 wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 jhe90 wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:
Well, it is genocide. You are cleansing a cultural and national group. Unless we stopped referring to it as drug culture.

Do you really consider it a fair opt out when the fair part is you get to keep your life? That doesnt seem fair really. In fact, that sort of thing seems illegal. Last I checked, murder isn't exactly legal.

And those who are guilty of nothing but the bad luck of being in the wrong place at wrong moment. There's no proof, no trial, no evidence, just a killers say so.

Such as the 5 year old girl who was shot in the head during a raid.

Philippines raid?
Not seen of that sad news story.

Well her grandfather was brought in for questioning as he was suspected of being a drug dealer based on a tip-off (family says he has never been involved in drugs, he used to drive a rickshaw but stopped after having a stroke apparently). He's released and then three days later some guys bust in and start shooting. Don't know whether it is the police or what at this point and, considering it happened in August, I doubt we will.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 jhe90 wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 jhe90 wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:
Well, it is genocide. You are cleansing a cultural and national group. Unless we stopped referring to it as drug culture.

Do you really consider it a fair opt out when the fair part is you get to keep your life? That doesnt seem fair really. In fact, that sort of thing seems illegal. Last I checked, murder isn't exactly legal.

And those who are guilty of nothing but the bad luck of being in the wrong place at wrong moment. There's no proof, no trial, no evidence, just a killers say so.

Such as the 5 year old girl who was shot in the head during a raid.

Philippines raid?
Not seen of that sad news story.

Well her grandfather was brought in for questioning as he was suspected of being a drug dealer based on a tip-off (family says he has never been involved in drugs, he used to drive a rickshaw but stopped after having a stroke apparently). He's released and then three days later some guys bust in and start shooting. Don't know whether it is the police or what at this point and, considering it happened in August, I doubt we will.

Ok, so he taken by police, no charged then a bunch of vigilantes go in gun him down and his granddaughter..

Yeah, people ar using this as a excuse to settle scores it seems.

 Orlanth wrote:
Yes I do understand the situation, in fact I saw it coming, as did many others.. I know Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and know the UK armed forces understood it too and far enough in advance to also see the outcome.. Which is why the emphasis was on low key security, and why initially at least the Uk forces were far better received than the US forces. Though the heavy handedness eventually lumped all the coalition armies under one label.

That’s an interesting and reasonable little aside, but it still involves you walking back on your claim that the US military is all about killing the bad guys, to one in which you now argue that focus on the bad guys too much.

And it’s also very strange that you’re now arguing that the US in Afghanistan and Iraq was too heavy handed and that had negative consequences, but here in this thread you’re arguing in favour of extra-judicial death squads.

Well at least you are forced to accept there that you are being intentionally patronising.

I never said it was intentional. I have just accepted that is how it is coming across.

My points aren't insane you just disagree with them, and have only a different opinion, not an inherently superior one on account of being Sebster. Come off your high horse.

No, you are not giving an insane argument just because it is different from mine. The argument is insane because you are arguing in favour of extra-judicial death squads. I think you need to worry less about any high horse I might be on, and worry more about getting yourself out of the gutter.

You chose the analogy, and insisted they were comperable. I was taking your 'logic' to its natural conclusion.

That isn’t how analogies work. You know this, and don’t pretend otherwise. If I was to say that a new truck was as big as an elephant, that is a comparison of one element between the two. It would make no sense and you make a person sound very foolish to say that ‘that analogy doesn’t work because the truck doesn’t have legs’.
Cartels and car manufacturers are both profit seeking organisations, who compete at times and collude at others. Neither group of organisations stop being seen as profit seeking because they compete and thereby make less money than if they colluded all the time. That is the argument you made, and it was terrible.

Even you somehow worked out that I was saying - cartels are not entirely motivated by profit seeking

Now that you’ve retreated back to that statement, it has become less wrong but meaningless. No organisation anywhere is 100% profit seeking, this does not stop them being understood and seen as profit seeking.

Why is the premise broken? Evidently only because you cant formulate a counter to it?

No, I already countered your argument that people have gotten away with war crimes in the past. I explained to you that simply because someone gets away with something doesn’t stop it being illegal, or being immoral. You responded by repeating your claim that crimes in the past were not punished.

It must be embarrassing for you to be caught out like this. [i[I directly quoted you.[/i]

No, you didn’t. Stop lying.

If you want to whitewash it all away why don't you quietly edit your posts before calling me a liar.

What edit? Stop lying.

You made the education level of Filipinos directly relevant to their ability to vote rationally. Which is at best arrogant and frankly downright bigoted.

No, you are lying, it is fething shameless. I said that no country can be assumed to have an electorate that is so rational and well informed that we can assume their democratic decisions are good choices. This becomes a greater issue where education is lower. It’s a pretty simple and obvious position, to put it in your own words…
“Now a better educated electorate is always a plus, but no nation has ever had an enlightened plebiscite”

Now stop fething lying about the simple and obvious thing I said.

but average voters can understand plain issues like drug violence

They can see the problem, but understanding what most effectively controls that problem is very difficult to assess, even for people who work in the field. So the argument that an electorate voted for a solution therefore that solution must be necessary and effectives is a terrible argument.

Evidently you have a poor grounding with which to accuse anyone else of ignorance.
Your just being a parrot here - "you have no idea what X is" being your persistent squark, even when I demonstrate and articulate at least an equal or better understanding of the topics than yourself.
Come up with an honest argument, and argue the topic, not the person, like an adult should.

Wow. You asked a terrible question that tried to link the creation of corruption in the Philippines to the cartels. I pointed out that corruption in that country was around long before cartels, it is a long documented feature of governance of that country. I then said that if you’re ignorant of this you should stop commenting on the issue. You complained this was an ad hominem, I pointed out that it was a comment on what you actually knew on the subject. And then you responded with that.

You edited away the reason for the reply. You have made repeated insinuations about my mental health.

Holy crap what?

 sebster wrote:
.

My points aren't insane you just disagree with them, and have only a different opinion, not an inherently superior one on account of being Sebster. Come off your high horse.

No, you are not giving an insane argument just because it is different from mine. The argument is insane because you are arguing in favour of extra-judicial death squads. I think you need to worry less about any high horse I might be on, and worry more about getting yourself out of the gutter.

I am not in favour of death squads. I am in favour of the surrender of the narcotics infrastructure, that is the goal. However the goal however requires a large stick to back it up, amnd the Filipino people have chosen to back someone who is willing to perform extreme action to achieve this goal.
Other methods of dealing with cartel infrastructure beyond violence have failed, utterly. You are insisting that the Filipino people must adhere to failed methods and face larger losses and more tragedy than the current program is causing, because the methods of ending it dont meet your approval. Due to the cartel infrastructure and drugs culture large scale loss of life is ongoing and unending, the Filipino want it to end, not to be perpetuated and are willing as a sovereign people to instill policies burn out the problem.

 sebster wrote:
.
Wow. You asked a terrible question that tried to link the creation of corruption in the Philippines to the cartels. I pointed out that corruption in that country was around long before cartels, it is a long documented feature of governance of that country. I then said that if you’re ignorant of this you should stop commenting on the issue. You complained this was an ad hominem, I pointed out that it was a comment on what you actually knew on the subject. And then you responded with that.

The Philippines is a developing country, not particularly well off in terms of natural resources, and was under occupation in living memory. It is evident that the society is not going to be settled. however other nations without a cartel problem can overcome corruption, in so much as corruption can be overcome in any nation. However the presence of the cartels eliminates the possibility of reducing corruption, as they cement it in place.
The Philippines cannot move forward until the problem is burned away, drug cartels dont pack up business by being asked nicely.

 Orlanth wrote:

I am not in favour of death squads. I am in favour of the surrender of the narcotics infrastructure, that is the goal. However the goal however requires a large stick to back it up, amnd the Filipino people have chosen to back someone who is willing to perform extreme action to achieve this goal.
Other methods of dealing with cartel infrastructure beyond violence have failed, utterly. You are insisting that the Filipino people must adhere to failed methods and face larger losses and more tragedy than the current program is causing, because the methods of ending it dont meet your approval. Due to the cartel infrastructure and drugs culture large scale loss of life is ongoing and unending, the Filipino want it to end, not to be perpetuated and are willing as a sovereign people to instill policies burn out the problem..

So they choose yet another proven failure method like slaughtering people you don't like. That has NEVER worked in history of human kind. Actually it just makes things work. Good game!

If you aren't happy with old methods why not try something NEW rather than OLD that not only FAILS but is also INHUMAN? Those supporting this are throwing away their right to call themselves humans.

tneva82 wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

I am not in favour of death squads. I am in favour of the surrender of the narcotics infrastructure, that is the goal. However the goal however requires a large stick to back it up, amnd the Filipino people have chosen to back someone who is willing to perform extreme action to achieve this goal.
Other methods of dealing with cartel infrastructure beyond violence have failed, utterly. You are insisting that the Filipino people must adhere to failed methods and face larger losses and more tragedy than the current program is causing, because the methods of ending it dont meet your approval. Due to the cartel infrastructure and drugs culture large scale loss of life is ongoing and unending, the Filipino want it to end, not to be perpetuated and are willing as a sovereign people to instill policies burn out the problem..

So they choose yet another proven failure method like slaughtering people you don't like. That has NEVER worked in history of human kind. Actually it just makes things work. Good game!

If you aren't happy with old methods why not try something NEW rather than OLD that not only FAILS but is also INHUMAN? Those supporting this are throwing away their right to call themselves humans.

Sovereign states make these sorts of decision frequently, and I am not talking about extreme 'regimes'. Our 'civilised' government just label what they do in another way. Oh and yes slaughtering people does work, it was how Europe was freed etc. Besides the purpose here is NOT to slaughter, but to force 'surrender'. If slaughter was the goal it would not have the backing it has got from the Filipino people.

 Orlanth wrote:

Other methods of dealing with cartel infrastructure beyond violence have failed, utterly. You are insisting that the Filipino people must adhere to failed methods and face larger losses and more tragedy than the current program is causing, because the methods of ending it dont meet your approval. Due to the cartel infrastructure and drugs culture large scale loss of life is ongoing and unending, the Filipino want it to end, not to be perpetuated and are willing as a sovereign people to instill policies burn out the problem.

Seems to me that there is a lot more to the corruption in the Philippines than the cartels and that killing people however and whenever is a terrible idea. You think notions of who uses and sells drugs are racially neutral? There is a huge god damned leap between saying that more direct and drastic measures are needed to combat the cartels and officially sanctioning death squads.

 Orlanth wrote:
I am not in favour of death squads. I am in favour of the surrender of the narcotics infrastructure, that is the goal. However the goal however requires a large stick to back it up, amnd the Filipino people have chosen to back someone who is willing to perform extreme action to achieve this goal.

Yes, and that extreme action is the use of extra-judicial death squads. So your argument boils down to not being favour of death squads, but being in favour of things you believe will be achieved by the use of death squads. This is the same fething thing.

The Philippines is a developing country, not particularly well off in terms of natural resources, and was under occupation in living memory.

Actually the Philippines has pretty reasonable natural resources. It's one of the biggest producers of nickel in the world, and there's good supplies of copper and gold. The issue, like in many countries, is that natural resources don't actually translate in to social wealth when the population is under-skilled and government institutions are badly lacking.

However the presence of the cartels eliminates the possibility of reducing corruption, as they cement it in place.
The Philippines cannot move forward until the problem is burned away, drug cartels dont pack up business by being asked nicely.

These simplistic, hard lines you take are really very telling.

Anyhow, all that is kind of a bit dull by now, I'm really interested in the claims you made that I was abusing your mental health, then sneaking in to edit my comments to something different. Is that really a thing you believe? If so, what led to such a conclusion?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Orlanth wrote:
Sovereign states make these sorts of decision frequently, and I am not talking about extreme 'regimes'. Our 'civilised' government just label what they do in another way. Oh and yes slaughtering people does work, it was how Europe was freed etc. Besides the purpose here is NOT to slaughter, but to force 'surrender'. If slaughter was the goal it would not have the backing it has got from the Filipino people.

This argument reminds me of the Simpsons, when Bart and Lisa are passive aggressive fighting. Bart starts kicking as he walks, saying "I'm just going to walk around like this and if you get in the way". Lisa starts whirling her arms around "I'm just going to do this and if get in the way".

In this case it's "We're just going to allow death squads to kill any drug traders or addicts that don't surrender, and so if you don't surrender it's your fault, not ours".

 sebster wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
I am not in favour of death squads. I am in favour of the surrender of the narcotics infrastructure, that is the goal. However the goal however requires a large stick to back it up, amnd the Filipino people have chosen to back someone who is willing to perform extreme action to achieve this goal.

Yes, and that extreme action is the use of extra-judicial death squads. So your argument boils down to not being favour of death squads, but being in favour of things you believe will be achieved by the use of death squads. This is the same fething thing.

The emphasis is on forcing surrender, and from what we are seeing that is working.

 sebster wrote:

However the presence of the cartels eliminates the possibility of reducing corruption, as they cement it in place.
The Philippines cannot move forward until the problem is burned away, drug cartels dont pack up business by being asked nicely.

These simplistic, hard lines you take are really very telling.

Sometimes the problem is obvious, but the solution is not.

Dutente beleives he had an answer. he explained his solution to the electorate. The Filipino people voted Dutente in in a democratic mandate and have since endorsed the policy as it is being carried out. They understand will well there has been collateral and innocent lives lost, but that was happening anyway.

Who are you to tell them they cannot fight their way out of their problem. Who are you to say that a sovereign government acting on a clear mandate cannot take the action that the people believe can remove this major curse. The poltical will is present to make good of this tragedy, and yes its a tragedy, nobody denies that, but the Filipino people have decided that not acting, or the usual methods don't work, and is worse.

 sebster wrote:

In this case it's "We're just going to allow death squads to kill any drug traders or addicts that don't surrender, and so if you don't surrender it's your fault, not ours".

Basically this. Starve the narcotics industry of its customer base, and destroy narcotics infrastructure. SAVE LIVES in the longer term. REDUCE VIOLENCE in the longer term.
Drug addiction is powerful but can be countered by force of shock. Crystal meth is the major drug being encountered, which is nasty stuff. Fear of death will be about the only reliable means to get people off it on a large scale.
You need a scalpel to save the patient.

 Orlanth wrote:

Drug addiction is powerful but can be countered by force of shock. Crystal meth is the major drug being encountered, which is nasty stuff. Fear of death will be about the only reliable means to get people off it on a large scale.
You need a scalpel to save the patient.

Isn't the problem with drug addiction that, in severe cases, it's so powerful as to drive people to murder and prostitution to get their fix? I'm really not sure the additional threat of death can do much in those scenarios.

And I'm reminded of that one Bond villain who also compared some of his favorite dictators to "surgeons, cutting off society's rotting flesh". Comparing people (drug addicts here) to a malign tumour or necrosis...

People who use meth are usually at a nadir in their lives anyway and risk death every time they use and certainly from use over time. Healthy successful people with something to lose are generally not the people who start using meth in the first place.

The idea that you can shock people out of drug use with lethal force is, quite frankly, absurd, and has been proven so by every major crackdown on drugs ever. The Chinese killed untold tens of thousands of Opium addicts over many decades, and Amercian nations like Mexico and Columbia certainly havent been able to stamp out their drug problems by killing suppliers and users, nothing changed demand until social changes came about to reduce the perceived need. Meth use is similar, a symptom of larger social problems.

Solve those and you solve the meth problem. Killing drug users and sellers is just playing whackamole with peoples lives in a fruitless but bloody tantrum that avoids confronting the real issues and drives the industry to greater violence and deeper underground. That has been proven many times in the real world.

 Orlanth wrote:

Drug addiction is powerful but can be countered by force of shock. Crystal meth is the major drug being encountered, which is nasty stuff. Fear of death will be about the only reliable means to get people off it on a large scale.
You need a scalpel to save the patient.

Sources on that?

I would really like to see where you came across that knowledge.

 Orlanth wrote:

Dutente beleives he had an answer. he explained his solution to the electorate. The Filipino people voted Dutente in in a democratic mandate and have since endorsed the policy as it is being carried out. They understand will well there has been collateral and innocent lives lost, but that was happening anyway.

There is a lot more going on than that. For starters, the Philippines have been ruled by long lines of self-serving incompetent wonks who do stuff like hijack aid shipments to catastrophe-afflicted areas so they can print out stickers with their names on them and put on the packages to fish for votes. Duterte doesn't do that because he's a genuine right-wing strongman. The Philippines also has a long history of getting screwed over by the US, to the point that even though Filipinos are more pro-American than Americans they know that when Duterte talks gak about the US he is correct. The tradition of opposition to China is a US-mandated policy and has so far lost the Philippines an island and a lot of money through import bans in China with no compensation on the part of the US to make up for being a puppet.

There is no cold, hard, factual defence of death squads hunting down anyone they think uses drugs. It's an insane leap of logic to go there. You just really like the thought. That's all there is to it.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Solve those and you solve the meth problem. Killing drug users and sellers is just playing whackamole with peoples lives in a fruitless but bloody tantrum that avoids confronting the real issues and drives the industry to greater violence and deeper underground. That has been proven many times in the real world.

It is a real world solution. Yes addiction is powerful but the fear doesnt need to result in death, it can result in surrender. Surrendering is surrendering, geting registered and monitored and having the ability to take drugs taken away.

People need to open their eyes and look at the issue clearly.

lets look at the hysterical arguements:

1. "Oh my God government death squads!"

Actually the death squads have been there for decades, and run by the cartels and there is no control or restraint involved. What the government is doing is nothing like that and the term death squads is mostly a press and political exaggeration.
By empowering the people the actual death squad culture is diminished.
What Duterte has done is enabled and empowered the people to resist the cartels.
The result is fewer 'death squads' not more.


2. "Violence doesnt work."

Yes it does, or the cartels themselves would not have survived. Their main tool are fear bourne by their extreme violence. Dutente has revitalised a long practiced and worable solution to this: Frontier justice.
What is frontier justice? Frontier justice is a popular enabling and empowering in order to allow the citizenry to resist and deter large scale crime. It works where a broad unity can ber established to knit together the resultant armed populace.
there are numerous examples of this working in history. I will concentrate on one example.

If you look at what Dutente is doing its similar to the 'wild west'. The Old West in the 19th century, used frontier justice frequently. in fact there is a strong connexion between how Dutentes police/vigilante networking operates and the orginal US Marshals service. What is a posse if not a death squad? And while some Us marshals were more interested in arrest than summary execution both methods were used, often with popular support.

It is in a way odd that the US government is strongly condemning these policies even though they closely mirror a period of history their own culture has iconised for a very long time. Frontier justice cannot persist forever, but then it need not, it only needs to persist long enough for a peaceful unity of the people, without threat of large scale organised crime, then replaced with ever more ordered stages of society.

Yes before anyone goes off on one, Dutente and movie westerns should not be confused, and havent been. there are many other parallels, this is just one that is easy to draw open to make a clear example.

3. "This is inhumane and brutal."

When the problem is burned out the Filipino people can afford to be nice. Currently they cant. Brutality is the language of the cartel and that language is spoken on anywhere except the most affluent and well protected neighbourhoods. Compard to the populace the cartels are a tiny minority wielding extreme power, power wielded through fear. That is the inhumanity, that is the true brutality. Duterte has outsourced justice and empowered the people so instead of the multitude being afraid of the cartels the cartels can be afraid of the armed multitude. It is a workable solution. Whether it will work here is yet to be seen, but it can work and is the best chance the Filipino people have had to forge a better future in living memory.


4. "What about the tear inducing stories."

What of them? Yes innocents will die, they do anyway. Yes people will use the new status quo to mislabel opponents and settle scores. In a cartel infested society this happens anyway. If the problem is burned away there can be a future without such tragedies on a large scale.

 Orlanth wrote:


It is a real world solution. Yes addiction is powerful but the fear doesnt need to result in death, it can result in surrender. Surrendering is surrendering, geting registered and monitored and having the ability to take drugs taken away.

People need to open their eyes and look at the issue clearly.

You appear to equate 'opening eyes' and 'seeing the issue clearly' with 'agreeing with Orlanth's view of the world'. As well as rule out the possibility of people understanding everything you are saying, yet still thinking your views are bat-gak crazy.

I fall into the latter right now. You really do seem to think this can be solved like an eighties action movie.

Rosebuddy wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

Dutente beleives he had an answer. he explained his solution to the electorate. The Filipino people voted Dutente in in a democratic mandate and have since endorsed the policy as it is being carried out. They understand will well there has been collateral and innocent lives lost, but that was happening anyway.

There is a lot more going on than that. For starters, the Philippines have been ruled by long lines of self-serving incompetent wonks who do stuff like hijack aid shipments to catastrophe-afflicted areas so they can print out stickers with their names on them and put on the packages to fish for votes. Duterte doesn't do that because he's a genuine right-wing strongman. The Philippines also has a long history of getting screwed over by the US, to the point that even though Filipinos are more pro-American than Americans they know that when Duterte talks gak about the US he is correct. The tradition of opposition to China is a US-mandated policy and has so far lost the Philippines an island and a lot of money through import bans in China with no compensation on the part of the US to make up for being a puppet.

China and Russia both are welcoming the switch in Filipino ties. Moscow is probably a better choice of partner than Beijing, Beijing itself wants things the Filipinos don't want to give.

Rosebuddy wrote:

There is no cold, hard, factual defence of death squads hunting down anyone they think uses drugs. It's an insane leap of logic to go there. You just really like the thought. That's all there is to it.

I haven't tried to contest this, it is definitely happening but is likely mushroomed in the press as Dutente makes for a great boogey man right now. Dutente did make an apoplogy to Jerws over the hitler remarks, which is fair enough but hasnt otherwise backed down, as the more balls-on-the-line serious he appears the more the people will take his policy seriously. It takes some guts for those in the villages and suburbs to trust Dutente to come through if you rise up against the cartels, he has shown every indication he is serious.

The comments of I will kill all three million drug users like Hitler is smarter than it sounds. Its not at all like the rhetoric of Mugabe or another wierd dictator. Dutente knows he must go the extra mile to assure those who he wants to stop living in fear of the cartels and make the cartels instead live in fear. In this he is successful.






Ehrmagad. He bans smoking now!!!

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1953605/philippines-president-rodrigo-duterte-outlaws-smoking-after-ordering-the-deaths-of-thousands-of-drug-dealers/

.....The UK has an identical law.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ketara wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:


It is a real world solution. Yes addiction is powerful but the fear doesnt need to result in death, it can result in surrender. Surrendering is surrendering, geting registered and monitored and having the ability to take drugs taken away.

People need to open their eyes and look at the issue clearly.

You appear to equate 'opening eyes' and 'seeing the issue clearly' with 'agreeing with Orlanth's view of the world'. As well as rule out the possibility of people understanding everything you are saying, yet still thinking your views are bat-gak crazy.

I fall into the latter right now. You really do seem to think this can be solved like an eighties action movie.

I am not the only one, even on Dakka.
I am not ruling out the possibility of an alternate point of view. But it isn't bat-gak-crazy.
And what is all this crap about 80's movies, that is a cheap shot.. I have given example and weighting to my comments, articulating them thoroughly. You don't have to agree with the reasoning to at least have the decency to admit that the reasoning has been made. 80's movies means having a fight without a plot, you cant ever label that against me. I explain all my opinions, hence why my political posts are often longer than a sentence or two.

Most of the critique leveled against my arguments is based on press hysteria. Even when pointed out that the whole threat to drug users was in order to force surrender, not to kill them people still talk about death squads as if the Phillipines wasn't already rife with them anyway.

Dutente's governments policy is smarter than you think.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/philippines-drug-addicts-pushers-who-surrender-dutertes-drug-war-make-coffins-rehab-1585654

 Orlanth wrote:


4. "What about the tear inducing stories."

What of them? Yes innocents will die, they do anyway. Yes people will use the new status quo to mislabel opponents and settle scores. In a cartel infested society this happens anyway. If the problem is burned away there can be a future without such tragedies on a large scale.

This is a VERY easy thing to say when you have not held your wife's hand as she dies. If you have not had to wash the blood off the floor, trying to see through the tears. I sincerely hope you never have to endure that.