Its those damn Jehovah's Witnesses :wink:
Joe -- you hit the target square on. Except she wasn't smiling, she was grim, and said it with satisfaction. But you are so right about the fanatics within. It may be more obvious here in the south and southern plains, but no serious American should overlook it.
Quote:I've been told by a member of the Great Life Church here that I will definitely be left behind. Permanently.
Tartarin, I have been listening and reading about worm holes and alternate universes. One can be left behind in lotsa ways
Or maybe some of us will be out front...?
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Quote:Tartarin wrote:
Where were you, PDiddie?
Been busy.
Spent most of the past hour reading.
Some of the best postings ever have been going in here lately.
Commendable, each and all.
That has been true of this thread for many months, from before the war.
We may owe this to timberlandko who, although of a conservative bent, has allowed his oppositely configured, and sometimes disputatively but non-furiously posting, compatriots here...each to do his own thing.
Do you think Saddam misses his Saturday night ritualistic sacrificial hootenannies ..... or has he gotten over it?
Quote:By Manny Fernandez
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 26, 2003; Page A08
Tens of thousands of antiwar demonstrators marched in Washington yesterday to call for an end to the U.S. occupation of Iraq, turning out in smaller numbers than for prewar protests but making plain their opposition during a noisy yet peaceful procession.
We shall overcome a..............gain
Peace love dove
Thanks, Kara. It was nice of you to say so. I really appreciate that ... and I really appreciate the quality of by far the bulk of the posts on this thread, its several progenitors, and their kind. Real discourse is much more engaging than mere partisan sniping.
To digress, thinking of puppies and Jehova's Witnesses, one autum day not long ago, a couple of The Puppies were out in The Big World, while the rest were in the fenced yard. A minivan emblazoned with a magnetic sign proclaiming its occupants to be members of the nearby Kingdom Hall pulled into the driveway ... occasioning great leaping and barking from the Puppies already in the driveway, and much canine chaos in the house as the others flooded in through the doggie door to cavil and cavort around the driveway door. The lady driving the van sweetly asked "God Bless you, neighbor! Could you please do something about your dogs?", to which I replied "Sure, no problem", and then I opened the driveway door and let the other 6 out. Sometime I'll tell the one about the Mormon Kids. That was a funny Puppy Story, too.
I don't know.... just because ............
Carl Sandburg
JACK was a swarthy, swaggering son-of-a-gun.
He worked thirty years on the railroad, ten hours a day,
and his hands were tougher than sole leather.
He married a tough woman and they had eight children
and the woman died and the children grew up and
went away and wrote the old man every two years.
He died in the poorhouse sitting on a bench in the sun
telling reminiscences to other old men whose women
were dead and children scattered.
There was joy on his face when he died as there was joy
on his face when he lived--he was a swarthy, swaggering
son-of-a-gun.
night
Are we really prepared to give up a soldier a day to force Iraq into a Democracy?
If so Who wants to volunteer their loved one?
Quote:Fight war on terror by giving Iraq back to Iraqis
LINDA MCQUAIG
Even U.S. Defence Secreatary Donald Rumsfeld now admits that the "war on terror" isn't going all that well. But, then, protecting the American homeland has never been easy ?- as native American Indians will attest.
Rumsfeld's memo about the difficulty of winning the war on terror, leaked to the media last week, brought to mind a clever T-shirt I saw recently. It featured a photo of four armed native Americans along with the words, "Homeland security; fighting terrorism since 1492."
In our obsession with terrorism these days, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that terrorism has been around since time immemorial. And it often comes down to a fight over land ?- which is what wars are generally fought over, too, with results that are just as horrific for innocent civilians.
Once we strip away the now-debunked U.S. justifications for entering Iraq, what we're left with is an old-fashioned invasion of a foreign country.
Washington now insists it was just liberating the Iraqi people, but this doesn't explain why ?- as an occupying power ?- it went ahead last month and launched a massive privatization of the Iraqi economy, rather than leaving this huge political decision to the Iraqi people, once they're given the right to vote (whenever that will be). Why was it so urgent to open up Iraq to foreign ownership ?- before the lights are even working and the water running?
Rumsfeld admits in his memo that things are going worse than the administration usually concedes and he questions whether new "terrorists" (i.e. people resisting U.S. occupation) aren't popping up faster than Washington can kill or capture them. But the memo shows the same old thinking that has produced this dreadful situation.
For instance, he praises the "sensible, logical moves" that have been made ?- apparently referring to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq ?- and asks if these moves are enough. He seems to be angling for the creation of "a new institution ... that seamlessly focuses the capabilities of several departments and agencies on this key problem."
What is needed, then, is another agency? Sounds like an awfully bureaucratic approach to a fairly non-bureaucratic problem (terrorism).
The real flaw in the Bush administration's approach to terrorism ?- and it's reflected in the Rumsfeld memo ?- is that it scrupulously avoids addressing the grievances that seem to drive people to terrorism.
Indeed, it never even acknowledges that grievances exist; terrorists are deemed to act out of nothing more than blind hatred and a wish for death.
But even a superficial analysis reveals that one common cause of "terrorism" is having one's land occupied by a foreign power.
That makes people angry; you could say it makes them crazy with anger. (If the U.S. were occupied by a foreign power, could we count on Americans to respond in ways that were measured, moderate and in keeping with the law?)
One of the biggest complaints of Osama bin Laden was the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia. Interestingly, the U.S. has now withdrawn those troops ?- a smart move, but one that unfortunately was offset by the arrival of many more U.S. troops in neighbouring Iraq.
By invading and occupying Iraq, the U.S. has created a whole new hotbed of "terrorism." The anger of Iraqis used to be directed against Saddam Hussein, but is now directed against U.S. forces, which experience an average of 25 attacks there a day. In what sense can that be seen as progress in the U.S. "war against terror?"
Yet Rumsfeld, in addition to his dreams of a big new bureaucracy, seems to be proposing more of the same, perhaps ratcheted up to a bolder level. But if Washington simply kills more terrorists or kills them faster, won't more terrorists just appear to replace the dead ones?
The best idea I've heard for tackling "terrorism" in Iraq is noticeably absent from the Rumsfeld memo: Hand Iraq over to the Iraqis. Now.
There are lots of problems with this solution, which was proposed last month by the president of France. The only thing in its favour is that the alternative ?- not handing Iraq over to the Iraqis right now ?- is even worse.
It's been suggested that the Iraqis, after decades of tyranny under Saddam, aren't really ready for democracy.
But democracy doesn't guarantee good results, no matter how used to the institution people may be, as we saw in California earlier this month.
Would we expect that Iraqis could do much worse than elect a leader who is alleged to have sexually assaulted more than a dozen women and who once referred to Hitler's good points?
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Linda McQuaig is a Toronto-based author and political commentator. Her column appears Sundays.
source
So what do you recommend, Gel, ... "Cut-and-Run" ... cede victory to The Badguys. Any casualties are too many casualties, but emotion aside, the casualty rate really is operationally insignificant ... not far out of line with what could be expected from a Live Fire Exercize involving a similar force structure. The fight has been carried to the badguy, and frankly, better it be carried on in Baghdad than in Boston, or Brussels or Birmingham. "Handing Iraq over to the Iraqis Now" is just plain politically naieve almost beyond belief. To do so would guarantee the disenfranchisement of the Iraqi people, civil war, and the rise of another totalitarian regime, likely along the lines of the Taliban ... just what the Badguys want. Is that what you want? Personally, I figure whyever, however, we got there, we're there now, and we have a responsibility to ensure the Iraqis have both the means and the opportunity to address the issues confronting them as they, by plebiscite, freely choose. Along with things like power generating plants, telephone exchanges, and sewage-treatment plants, they need a functioning, civilian-controlled defense force, a competent judicial system, and an interdependent, constitutionally validated Civil Administration infrastructure. We owe it to them to provide the security require3d to allow them to establish same. When all is in place, should the people, in free and open election, choose a theocracy, a democracy, or a monarchy, or a whateverchy, fine ... its their choice to make. Its up to the rest of the world to grant them the means and opportunity to make that choice. The only coherent political forces-in-being there at the moment are precisely the forces which have repressed the Iraqis, and much of The Third World, for generations. It is morally and ethically incumbent upon us to nurture other options from among which the Iraqis may choose freely. I for one do not wish to see the Iraqis abandoned once again. Their time as geopolitical football has lasted far more than long enough. Those advocating "Immediate Turnover", even, given its track record in such things, turnover to the UN, lobby for nothing other than putting the hapless Iraqi populace back into play ... a pretty damned irresponsible stance, if you ask me. The US may well be not the best architect for a Nation Building project, but none of the other candidates have demonstrated any success in getting the job done, anywhere, any time. That there is a European Union, and a functioning, vital Asian Economy, is due soley to the initiatives undertaken by the US in the late 1940s. We've done it once; no one else ever has.
timberlandko wrote: That there is a European Union, and a functioning, vital Asian Economy, is due soley to the initiatives undertaken by the US in the late 1940s. We've done it once; no one else ever has.
I didn't want to copy and paste from an European source, went to "spartacusschoolnet" and was linked from there to the EU-websites :wink:
Honestly, timber, I've never heard before that the EU was "due soley to the initiatives undertaken by the US in the late 1940s".
Although, I've heard and read exactly the opposite.
Quote:... in 1950, the French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman proposed integrating the coal and steel industries of Western Europe. A a result, in 1951, the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was set up, with six members: Belgium, West Germany, Luxembourg, France, Italy and the Netherlands. The power to take decisions about the coal and steel industry in these countries was placed in the hands of an independent, supranational body called the "High Authority". Jean Monnet was its first President.
The ECSC was such a success that, within a few years, these same six countries decided to go further and integrate other sectors of their economies. In 1957 they signed the Treaties of Rome, creating the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM) and the European Economic Community (EEC). The member states set about removing trade barriers between them and forming a "common market".
source:
EU history
Timber asks:
Quote:So what do you recommend, Gel, ... "Cut-and-Run" ... cede victory to The Badguys
As opposed to the last drop of American blood, or theirs??
F&A Timber F&A
Where would you draw the line ...
Would you nuke em?
We cannot win!!!
Walter, I call your attention to WWII and to the Marshall Plan which followed. But for The US, what would Europe have had on which to build? You guys decorated the tree; we planted it.
Gel, I know we are a little oppositely polarized on the issue here, but I really don't see it a "Last Drop of Blood" issue. Given resolve and direction, there will be far, far fewer victims of tyrany, neglect, and exploitation. That's what this war is all about, and Iraq is just a part of it.
Timber -- Why create yet another either/or situation? Clearly the US is pretty good at the kind of "attitude" and violence which is necessary to invade another country. What it's not good at is dealing with humanity after the fact. The US should be out of there. It has provoked and angered. The reconstruction should (from the beginning) have been done by a UN coalition, with a good portion of Arab countries in the mix, and with the US contributing financial support -- and technical support if needed.
That makes sense to me both politically and strategically.
(One of the saddest ironies in your post is your belief that this administration can facilitate "an interdependent, constitutionally validated Civil Administration infrastructure" which is what it has systematically attempted to take apart in its own land.)
timberlandko wrote:Walter, I call your attention to WWII and to the Marshall Plan which followed. But for The US, what would Europe have had on which to build? You guys decorated the tree; we planted it.
You are right, timber, but since the Hanseatic League started already about 1260 ... :wink:
Having grown up as a Marshall Plan kid, I just have to put in that it wasn't all about being nice and helpful to Europe after the war (though the actual support shouldn't be minimalized), it was about stopping the spread of Communism, playing a part in the evolution from colonialism in Africa, Southeast Asia, and in other geopolitical changes -- in short, making our presence felt.
Tart, I don't deny that a better deal would have been a more broadly based international coalition to address and resolve the issues. Unfortunately, that has never worked. As I mentioned, whatever else may be said, the US has demonstrated the ability to pull it off. No one else ever has. That's good enough for me.
timberlandko wrote:Walter, I call your attention to WWII and to the Marshall Plan which followed. But for The US, what would Europe have had on which to build? You guys decorated the tree; we planted it.
Gel, I know we are a little oppositely polarized on the issue here, but I really don't see it a "Last Drop of Blood" issue. Given resolve and direction, there will be far, far fewer victims of tyrany, neglect, and exploitation. That's what this war is all about, and Iraq is just a part of it.
Muqtada al-Sadr has been between 1 and 5 million loyal followers and grows in stature amoung all that follow Islam.
Again, how many have to die so that the 'objective du jour' can be accomplished?
Where would you draw the line?
I admire your ideology but realize it for just that ...... ideology
]
Gel wrote:I admire your ideology but realize it for just that ...... ideology
Its nice we share at least that, isn't it?
