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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   27471 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 28, 2025

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If it is damning of anyone it is damning of the Hamas militant. I do not recall any Western warrior mythos that would permit a warrior to hide behind children. At most it would happen once before the warrior realizes that the enemy is actually not bluffing, and then comes out to fight.

Guerrilla warfare certainly isn't uniquely Western but is positively viewed and admired. Most Americans seem to have broadly positive views of the Viet Cong, whose calling card was using innocent villagers as cover.

Most Americans seem to have broadly positive views of the Viet Cong, whose calling card was using innocent villagers as cover.

"The Vietname war was a mistake" is a common sentiment among Americans, but "the VC were good guys" is not.

Okay, maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but Westerners don't have a problem with guerrilla tactics if it's their side doing it.

There is a moral universe of difference between ambushing patrols in the jungle versus using your children as human shields, or holding a gun to the stomachs of your own pregnant women to threaten your enemy into compliance. The latter in particular literally assumes that your enemy is morally superior to you.

or holding a gun to the stomachs of your own pregnant women to threaten your enemy into compliance

Ironically, the set of people that's less likely to work on are also the set more likely to believe pulling the trigger in that case would be ending two lives.

I do not believe that "Americans who think positively of Viet Cong" and "Americans who know Viet Cong's calling card was using innocent villagers as cover" are sets that overlap too much.

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