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Nasty, Brutish and Short (Op-Ed on Iraq))

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Tom2
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Post by Tom2 »

The one and only :)

I am now looking for a new avatar.

I am not sure I understand. Are you saying that the US backed down over democratic elections? And that there now will be elections? As I understand it there won’t be democratic elections.
Sistani pressured the US to hold democratic elections but the US refused. The UN was asked to intervene and it came down on the side of the US. Sistani it is rumoured took this as a betrayal by the UN.

So will Iraq’s constitution be written by the US and approved by a US appointed council. I belive it will. When will we see democracy in Iraq? Beyond 10 years is my guess. I think the US government was hoping for a situation similar to the one in Saudi Arabia – not democratic, doing as the US tells it to and full of oil and US troops.
I am of on holiday - enjoy - as I shall be back :)

And a little quote in the light of the US legalising toture.

"if you encourage totalitarian methods, the time may come when they will be used against you instead of for you."
George Orwell
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Beowulf
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Post by Beowulf »

I'm fairly sure I read it in the Economist, but I could be wrong. I'm going away for a while now, but when I get back see what I can find.
Even so, the rest of what I said still stands. The US know that they have to keep Sistani on side.
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Chanak
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Post by Chanak »

Originally posted by Lazarus
I mention the incidents I do because US soldiers are being accused of killing women and children, and indiscriminantly destroying holy sites (and Lord only knows what next). But when you see the context - i.e. that snipers are using those holy sites, and women and children are participating in action against our soldiers, then you get a whole new perspective, don't you?


Indeed Laz, it should arrange a new one for people. However, this fact stares at us all daily in the media, yet some still don't get it... :rolleyes:

The insurgents demonstrate time and again they have no regard for human life, civilian property and sacred ground (such as a mosque). They purposefully orchestrate their attacks in order to elicit a response from coaltition forces which hopefully (for them) a) Causes as much collateral damage as possible; b) Causes as many "civilian" casualties as possible.

Ah yes. These insurgents could care less about conventions of warfare, nor Iraq itself no less, as they arm children with weapons, disguise female combatants as worried mothers, and so on...yet rail against the US for killing "innocent civilians" when the dust settles. I notice just how effective their propaganda campaign has been looking over many of the responses I see here.
CYNIC, n.:
A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.
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Post by VonDondu »

To defeat an enemy, we must know the enemy. Therefore, it is heartening to see that some of you are identifying the enemy as "insurgents" rather than referring to them simply as "terrorists", a word which has become all but meaningless lately.

Personally, I prefer to call them "freedom fighters", since President Bush says they're "fighting against freedom". There's nothing like a little clarity in a complex situation like this.
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Post by Tom2 »

The Iraqi insurgents are well know for their vast propaganda machine. Pox news and cnm are at their beck and call, selectively screening and glorifying their struggle. Theese evil dooers with their fearsome armaments are so cowardly that they refuse to come out and fight like men.
If they had any courage they would take their AK47s and stand up in front of the F14s, the apache gunships and the tanks. But do they fight fair? No.

The holy American army invaded their country to save them from drowning in oil and ungratefully they now fight back. When the liberating Americans arrived with their precision guided cluster bombs they where the epitome of good behaviour. Safeguarding the average Iraqi was priority number one. That’s why the ministry of oil and the oil fields where seized immediately to prevent looting, who could reasonably have foreseen that looters might target other things?
It is time that we open our eyes and reject the foul Iraqi propaganda. The arabs must understand that president W Bush is their friend – why just recently he skilfully negotiated a handover of Palestinian land with Ariel Sharon, if that is not a sign of good will then what is?
I am of on holiday - enjoy - as I shall be back :)

And a little quote in the light of the US legalising toture.

"if you encourage totalitarian methods, the time may come when they will be used against you instead of for you."
George Orwell
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fable
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Post by fable »

Originally posted by Tom2
The Iraqi insurgents are well know for their vast propaganda machine. Pox news and cnm are at their beck and call, selectively screening and glorifying their struggle. Theese evil dooers with their fearsome armaments are so cowardly that they refuse to come out and fight like men.


LOL! When I first read your post, I flashed on some of the English complaints about the revolt in the American Colonies--what we in the US call The Revolutionary War--which led to all sorts of papers among the British condemning the insurgents for their horrific tactics, which were against "all the rules and usages of war." They included hiding in the houses of civilians, sniping at the British endlessly rather than facing them in a frontal battle, taking and killing British civilian hostages, and setting fire to buildings where the British were harboring overnight. It was an ugly, dirty conflict...whose nature we like to forget, now that we're the guys with the big guns. ;)
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Tom2
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Post by Tom2 »

@ fable. Exactly my point. In war the politicians always lie and the media mostly follow the view of the politicians blindly.

It is not that I think that the Iraqi insurgents are lovely people - in fact I think that they are mostly ruthless bastards. They have grown up under a ruthless regime and they now have found a new enemy in the US soldiers. I don't know what image the US media is painting of the average soldier but I imagine it is quite rosy. But here in the UK the US army has been roundly criticised for being too brutal and inconsiderate about local customs. (funny enough the UK soldiers have been described as angels)

When I wrote my post, which I now recognise was probably too troll like, I was annoyed by the insinuation that I (and those with the same opinion as me) where being naïve. After a bit of soul searching I now recall that I too have made similar insinuations about people with the opposite view of my own. So if you where offended by my post let my state my position better.

I am sure that a good proportion of the US soldiers are decent young men and women but the fact is that war brutalises people (on both sides). When you have just seen your friend being shot in the stomach by some people, that you think you did a great favour, you start to hate. Or when you family has been killed at a US checkpoint because the soldiers thought it was a car bomb. You start to think they are not really human.
I have a friend that lives in Israel who served in the defence force there. We often talked politics and I consider him a very moral person but when he talked about the Palestinians as animals and worse I was stunned. His political view was that Israel should withdraw from Gaza and the West Bank and he would agree with me that the rights of the Palestinians was being trampled upon. This apparent contradiction comes from the bitterness of the conflict I think. In the Rwandan genocide the Hutus saw their victims as ****roaches. While this is very different to the situation in Iraq and the US soldiers are very different from the Hutu murderers the US soldiers are not immune to the effect of war any less now than they were in Vietnam where so many atrocities were carried out.
I am not saying this because I am anti-American (I am not) - I myself am certain that should I find my self in a similar situation; fearing for my life and my dearest friends being wounded and killed around me, I too would stop seeing the people opposing me as human. After months in a war zone with my friends dying around me - should shots be fired at us from amongst a crowd of screaming hateful people - could swear that I would not fire straight into that crowd, No. I hope that I wouldn't but I can't swear to it.

I may have the facts wrong but I don't think I am naïve and I do believe the US government spin machine is rather more adept than the Iraqi insurgents.
I am of on holiday - enjoy - as I shall be back :)

And a little quote in the light of the US legalising toture.

"if you encourage totalitarian methods, the time may come when they will be used against you instead of for you."
George Orwell
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Lazarus
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Post by Lazarus »

Originally posted by Tom2
...I may have the facts wrong but I don't think I am naïve and I do believe the US government spin machine is rather more adept than the Iraqi insurgents.
I wonder ... Infinite Nature's post (which I felt compelled to counter) would seem to indicate that the Iraqis have some spin ability in international media. To be honest, I hear far more comments like his than I think is strictly justified by the situation. Looking more locally (i.e. the middle east), of course, I think you would be hard-put to prove that Fox-like commentary beats out Al-Jazzeera. Everybody has their take on things, and I think both sides are quite adept at getting their views across.
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Post by fable »

Originally posted by Tom2
So if you where offended by my post let my state my position better.


I'm not, though. I read the intended irony right from the start, and I never assumed you were applying it on a "thee, but not me" level. The thing about international relations in peace or war is that there are never any clean hands. People who look for heroes who undoubtedly find them, but IMO only at the cost of disregarding how the real world wags. And living in a fantasy world, even one populated by heroes, can be a very dangerous thing.
To the Righteous belong the fruits of violent victory. The rest of us will have to settle for warm friends, warm lovers, and a wink from a quietly supportive universe.
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Post by VonDondu »

Originally posted by fable
The thing about international relations in peace or war is that there are never any clean hands. People who look for heroes who undoubtedly find them, but IMO only at the cost of disregarding how the real world wags. And living in a fantasy world, even one populated by heroes, can be a very dangerous thing.
Does that include Presidents who believe that they receive Divine guidance and who believe that they never change their minds (even when the facts show otherwise) and who cannot think of anything that they have ever done wrong?
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Post by RandomThug »

<See post on other thread>
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fable
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Post by fable »

Originally posted by VonDondu
Does that include Presidents who believe that they receive Divine guidance and who believe that they never change their minds (even when the facts show otherwise) and who cannot think of anything that they have ever done wrong?


:D

There is no evidence that Dubya's very religious. It's been repeatedly reported (and forgotten) that he seldom attends his "official church," and he was never noted for having been "saved." Like everything he has ever done since coming to the presidential office, his evangelical zeal seems to be directed at one or another part of his and his party's apparent core constituency. Personally, I think it's way off base to do so, since anyone in that designated core group is going to vote for the most perceived "conservative" candidate on a ticket, anyway. Dubya needs to worry about the broad range of undecided moderates, whom he hasn't addressed at all during his administration. Remember, he got into office by insisting that he was a moderate who gets along with everybody, and intended to lead by consensus. (This was right after he got into a major squabble during the party nominations, arguing with his main opponent over who he was the most conservative, hence, best to lead the party. The American public has been educated to a memory rendition of 2 minutes, so of course this, and all salient facts about Dubya's previous gubernatorial style were dismissed by the so-called news media during the election campaign.)

As for believing he's made no mistakes, I'm sure he knows he has. But he'll never admit to it, just like a mentally indigent office position candidate refuses to acknowledge they have any faults when asked during a job interview. Bush can't appear human, because he's afraid it will lose him the next election. I used to think Clinton was bad in that respect, but Bush goes much, much further. He's so craven because of his ambition that he's contemptible.

I think I better go douse myself with water before I spontaneously combust. ;)
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Post by Sojourner »

Re: Re: Re: Oh, look, yet another place we can all discuss the evils of the US
Originally posted by Beowulf
But attacking from Mosques does show the kind of insurgency this really is. They tried parading butchered corpses, a la Mogadishu and they've tried taking hostages, in a very calculated attempt to destroy American domestic support for the occupation. It didn't work.


I believe their goal was closer to home - to knock out one of the props supporting the coalition, and in that, they're succeeding. Contractors are becoming increasingly reluctant to go over there.
There's nothing a little poison couldn't cure...

What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, ... to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if he people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security.
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Post by VonDondu »

No, you've got it all wrong. They're attacking freedom itself.

That's why I call them "freedom fighters".

;)
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Post by Chanak »

Originally posted by fable
:D
I think I better go douse myself with water before I spontaneously combust. ;)


LMAO! :D I am not sure that would help much, fable. From what I understand, spontaneous combustion is not unlike being cooked in a microwave, from the inside out. :eek:

According to some, President Bush is a "man of deep faith." Faith in what? That is open to speculation. ;) I have subdued my criticism of the President in the past as I generally toss my hands in the air, and proclaim that we are all going to hell in a bucket (thank you Grateful Dead). Oy vay.

I've been around long enough to note that things in general are going down the tubes with a swiftness. The public becomes more apathetic, the media more irrational, and the politicians and powermongers more bold. They don't have to worry overmuch about leaks these days, since the average American is more interested in Joe Millionaire than they are about the state of their country.
CYNIC, n.:
A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.
-[url="http://www.alcyone.com/max/lit/devils/a.html"]The Devil's Dictionary[/url]
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Post by Sojourner »

I wonder how long the public will remain apathetic, since Congress now appears to be getting serious about the draft?
There's nothing a little poison couldn't cure...

What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, ... to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if he people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security.
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Post by Moonbiter »

Like I said above, we're back in the early 70s, and history is repeating itself. This is what it takes for a people to wake up. Then you get about 10 years to recover, and the the cycle starts again.
I am not young enough to know everything. - Oscar Wilde

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