I want the US to lose the war in Iraq

How bout Sammy Dole and Hawaii?

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As far as the annexation of Hawaii goes, i'll just quote Senator Hiakawa, speaking during the Panama Canal debates:

"It's ours. We stole it, fair and square, we should keep it."

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Basically, when you talk about American policies in 1898 or 1848, you're talking about a dog-eat-dog world in which, if some technologically backwards place did not get picked up as an American colony then, assuming it was worth anything at all, it would assuredly be picked by by the Japanese, British, or Germans and, like I say, you can see how much the idea of Japanese ownership appealed to the Fillipinos by watching the appropriate literation scenes on Victory at Sea.

Of course, the Phillipines WERE afterwards freed in a world in which small nations could survive without being snapped up by colonialist powers.

The funny thing I notice here is that NOBODY has really challenged my statement that a reasonable person looking for a war in which to root against the US has to either go back a hundred years or more, or look at Slick Clinton and machiavellian machinations behind the operations involving Bosnia and Kosovo.

Canb I assume you all agree with that?

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Slick Willie still owns your soul, I see, Gunga.

Boy...are you gonna be miserable when his wife is elected first female president.

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My own best estimate is that running Hillary for president will bring about the catastrophic demise of the demokkkrat party.

Which is fine with me. The only happy ending I see in this entire picture would be having the dem party go byebye and having the choice on ballots afterwards be republicans vs libertarians, i.e. a legitimate left-centrist party vs a legitimate laissez-faire capitalist/free-enterprise party.

A country with ten or twelve political parties can afford to have one of the dozen or so go rogue the way the demokkkrats have; a country with just two parties cannot.

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gungasnake wrote:

Canb I assume you all agree with that?

Not necessarily . . . in your post to which i responded, there was no qualification about anyone being obliged to "go back a hundred years." As you have added it now, i would say that you have simply pared down the list of unjustified naked aggression to the last century, and conveniently ignored Grenada, Panama, Nicaragua in the 1930's, and the Dominican Republic and Haiti on too many occassions to mention here.

I don't necessarily ever "root for the other side," personally. But that doesn't mean that i am blind to American hypocricy in Mexico (in 1846, in 1911 and in 1916), Cuba, Puerto Rico, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Grenada, Panama (once when we stole it from Columbia, and again when the Elder Shrub was embarrassed into taking down his drug-running puppet, Noriega), Japan in 1853, Korea in 1870, the Philipppines, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Given a little time to think, i could elaborate on those topics, but i haven't sufficient interest now to go into it.

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Setanta wrote:

As you have added it now, i would say that you have simply pared down the list of unjustified naked aggression to the last century, and conveniently ignored Grenada,

Grenada? People I've spoken to who were there tell me the locals were pointing the Cubans out to our troops so they could kill them. Doesn't sound like a whole lot of love lost there...

Quote:

Panama,

Panama? Same thing. I have yet to hear about anybody in Panama who was sorry to see Noriega go.

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Nicaragua in the 1930's,

Nicarague in the 1930s you say? I mean, the other guy who was interested in south and central America in the 1930s was named Adolf Hitler. You're telling me the people in Nicaragua would have been better off working for him than for us??

Quote:

and the Dominican Republic and Haiti on too many occassions to mention here.
.

Haiti you say? I mean, haven't we all pretty much seen what happens when colonialism is removed and demokkkrat presidents install one of their enlightened brethren in charge of that sort of place by now?

Have you (or have any demokkkrats) thought of offering the natives down there the services of Marion Barry as president4life or some such? Or maybe some sort of a Kofi Annan/Marion Barry team (let Barry and Kofi count running Haiti for ten or twelve years as "community service" or something like that)?

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gungasnake wrote:

Grenada? People I've spoken to who were there tell me the locals were pointing the Cubans out to our troops so they could kill them. Doesn't sound like a whole lot of love lost there...

Ah yes, if you can argue nothing else, get out the anectdotal evidence.

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Panama? Same thing. I have yet to hear about anybody in Panama who was sorry to see Noriega go.

I take it you slept for several years at this time. I sure that the surviving family members of the hundreds of Panamanians killed in the initial bombing, and by American troops in the streets thereafter were less than enchanted by the methods used. That is really inexcusable--if you know no more about contemporary events than to make a remark so clueless, you really have no business debating this.

Quote:

Nicarague in the 1930s you say? I mean, the other guy who was interested in south and central America in the 1930s was named Adolf Hitler. You're telling me the people in Nicaragua would have been better off working for him than for us??

As you obviously know nothing about this either, let me drop some hints for you. Sandino tells the peasants to work for themselves as opposed to the United Fruit Company (an American banana and pineapple buyers cartel). The UFC complains to Roosevelt, who sends in the United States Marines. They hunt down Sandino and his followers, killing uncounted hundreds, if not thousands of peasants. Then the dynasty of the vicious, murderous Samozas is installed. They keep up a low and steady level of killing until finally run out themselves. This is followed by the extended horror of civil war, and right wing Contras, who kill on suspicion, and are well-supported by Reagan, acting through scumbags like Ollie North. Your Hitler fantasy is the sort of remark typical of those who haven't a clue what they're talking about.

Quote:

Haiti you say? I mean, haven't we all pretty much seen what happens when colonialism is removed and demokkkrat presidents install one of their enlightened brethren in charge of that sort of place by now?

Have you (or have any demokkkrats) thought of offering the natives down there the services of Marion Barry as president4life or some such? Or maybe some sort of a Kofi Annan/Marion Barry team (let Barry and Kofi count running Haiti for ten or twelve years as "community service" or something like that)?

Ah, now some honesty creeps in. You're just pumping up your ideologically motivated nastiness now. I am not a Democrat, although i respect the legacy they have given this nation. The United States has been involved in Haiti since the late 1790's--before the Democratic Party existed. We didn't get involved in the Dominican Republic until the 20th century, but the Marines have been there often enough since then, that i'm sure they keep detailed maps of the place.

You've demonstrated here that you are largely ignorant of the history of the foreign relations and adventures of the United States. You have demostrated that you have a hateful and lunatic fringe axe to grind. From here on out, you can play your idiotic tunes over and over again for all i care--there's no point in attempting to discuss things with someone whose purpose is to slur entire classes of people, and who prefers fantasy and speculation to an honest look at historical fact. You've demonstrated that your ideas concerning history are at least as goofy as your conspiracy theories and the crackpot "science" you try to foist onto people in these fora.

Bye, bye, have fun, don't write.

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Frank Apisa wrote:

OCCOM BILL wrote:
sozobe wrote:
Amazing quotes, guys, thanks.
Adds another thanks!

While engaged in a very long walk around Manhattan yesterday (with EhBeth and Lola)...your name came up.

We hadn't seen you around for a while...and I mentioned that I missed your posts.

Beth said she thinks you moved back to the mid-West.

Hope all is well.

f.

Hey Frank... I miss yours and lots of other's as well. It's as Tico says (thanks Tico); New restaurant=Busy. Way more work than it looked like but all is well. I hope all is well for ya'll as well (had to get one more ya'll in there before reverting back to yankee-speak). Come on over here and let me buy ya'll a drink!
(Sorry for the distraction Joe.)

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Joe

Your proposition is sheer lunacy. In the short time I have been here I have read some of your "stuff" and had developed an appreciation for your intellect but you destroyed that appreciation with your gambit to garner a few accolades from your choir.

If the US embarked on your adventure it would open a "Pandora's Box" of unintended consequences that could/would destroy all the progress that our brilliant military has achieved to date and what so many have died for, not to mention those who have been maimed for life by those who would take the world back to the 7th century.

Your simplistic and shallow effort to examine a couple of the consequences is certainly not worthy of much discussion and I can only attribute it to a momentary lapse of rational thought on your part. It is analogous to giving the ACLU the keys to the city for their efforts in destroying this country from within..

This president has committed this country and all of our resources to the furtherance of freedom and self determination throughout the world which I personally applaud. It is the beginning of an effort to give all oppressed people the will to retake their countries from the thugs who have stolen them ................ those same thugs who now control the UN. You would smash all hope of freedom from millions of people who are dominated by thugs who will spit on your altruistic mumblings about a worldwide rule of law.
These thugs would laugh at you as they jail their opposition who have dared to listen to the words of our President spoken with absolute sincerity. You are absolutely disregarding the world wide protection that the word "SOVEREIGNTY" gives to those who rule these "SOVEREIGN" parcels of misery and poverty for their people but provides luxury for those in power. The UN will always protect these thugs at the expense of the citizens while at the same time the good intentions of civilized countries who propose punishment for oppressors, will be reviled by the liberal media and laughed at by the lawless element.

Not only would the hopes of all oppressed people be permanently destroyed but it would at least temporarily destroy the soul of our military who believe without question we will triumph over evil because of our past history. Do you think that they risk their lives every second of every day for a few dollars???? It is their pride in our country and the idea that we are doing the "right" thing in Iraq and around the world in attempting to destroy those who believe in death and it's rewards in a nonexistent heaven.

Your precious rule of law and your unproven thesis that the war in Iraq is an unjust war puts you in the category of those who have a high IQ but "ZERO" common sense.

In conclusion, I can only express my happiness that you are not our president and are instead just a misguided attorney.

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Everybody sing "America, America..."

We all recall those terrible pictures from Faluja where the American contractors had been pulled from their vehicles, murdered, then lit on fire, than dragged through the streets and hung up on a bridge. We bemoaned the unthinkable barbarism of such a backward people.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/05/01/national/waco.1843.jpg

Quote:

WACO, Tex., April 28 - Gingerly, as if it might be too hot to touch, a large photograph circulated among the pews of the Seventh and James Baptist Church on Wednesday night. It passed from white hands to black hands and back to white hands.

When it reached Amber Franklin, an African-American who is a junior at Waco High School, she recoiled. But she forced herself to study a panorama of spectators in white boater hats, a smudge of wispy smoke and a tangle of naked human limbs fastened to a chain slung over a spindly tree.

She was seeing the lynching of Jesse Washington, a 17-year-old black farmhand railroaded to a conviction in the murder and rape of a white woman in Waco on May 15, 1916. He was snatched from court and mutilated and burned alive outside City Hall before some 15,000 spectators - half of Waco's population at the time - and a photographer alerted in advance to shoot picture postcards. Afterward the charred corpse was dragged through the streets and hung from a telephone pole.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/01/national/01lynch.html?

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What is your point, and what is the relevance to the topic of this thread?

What else was going on in the world in 1916? From Flander's fields to the colonial plantations of Africa there was pointless war and exploitation. Asia was racked in poverty, and a revlution that would bring ghastly horrors to much of the world was brewing in Russsia. The European allies were busily working to bring down the Ottoman Empire (which hadn't harmed them) and unleash bloody war and exterminations throughout the Balkans, the shores of the Agean Sea and across southern Anatolia.

Evidently it is possible to read the Sunday Times with your head up your ass, but it is useful to remove it before sharing the contents so widely.

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rayban1 wrote:

Joe

Your proposition is sheer lunacy. In the short time I have been here I have read some of your "stuff" and had developed an appreciation for your intellect but you destroyed that appreciation with your gambit to garner a few accolades from your choir.

If the US embarked on your adventure it would open a "Pandora's Box" of unintended consequences that could/would destroy all the progress that our brilliant military has achieved to date and what so many have died for, not to mention those who have been maimed for life by those who would take the world back to the 7th century.

Your simplistic and shallow effort to examine a couple of the consequences is certainly not worthy of much discussion and I can only attribute it to a momentary lapse of rational thought on your part. It is analogous to giving the ACLU the keys to the city for their efforts in destroying this country from within..

This president has committed this country and all of our resources to the furtherance of freedom and self determination throughout the world which I personally applaud. It is the beginning of an effort to give all oppressed people the will to retake their countries from the thugs who have stolen them ................ those same thugs who now control the UN. You would smash all hope of freedom from millions of people who are dominated by thugs who will spit on your altruistic mumblings about a worldwide rule of law.
These thugs would laugh at you as they jail their opposition who have dared to listen to the words of our President spoken with absolute sincerity. You are absolutely disregarding the world wide protection that the word "SOVEREIGNTY" gives to those who rule these "SOVEREIGN" parcels of misery and poverty for their people but provides luxury for those in power. The UN will always protect these thugs at the expense of the citizens while at the same time the good intentions of civilized countries who propose punishment for oppressors, will be reviled by the liberal media and laughed at by the lawless element.

Not only would the hopes of all oppressed people be permanently destroyed but it would at least temporarily destroy the soul of our military who believe without question we will triumph over evil because of our past history. Do you think that they risk their lives every second of every day for a few dollars???? It is their pride in our country and the idea that we are doing the "right" thing in Iraq and around the world in attempting to destroy those who believe in death and it's rewards in a nonexistent heaven.

Your precious rule of law and your unproven thesis that the war in Iraq is an unjust war puts you in the category of those who have a high IQ but "ZERO" common sense.

In conclusion, I can only express my happiness that you are not our president and are instead just a misguided attorney.

Joe
I didn't want you to miss my brilliant expose of your lunacy so I'm reproducing it. Blatham tried to hide it by starting a new page with one of his inane indiscriminant attacks on all Americans using his broadbrush of
bigotry. The same bigotry espoused by the senior democrat senator from West Virginia.......Robert Byrd, when he was Grand Dragon of the KKK.

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blatham wrote:

Everybody sing "America, America..."

We all recall those terrible pictures from Faluja where the American contractors had been pulled from their vehicles, murdered, then lit on fire, than dragged through the streets and hung up on a bridge. We bemoaned the unthinkable barbarism of such a backward people.

Quote:
WACO, Tex., April 28 - Gingerly, as if it might be too hot to touch, a large photograph circulated among the pews of the Seventh and James Baptist Church on Wednesday night. It passed from white hands to black hands and back to white hands.

When it reached Amber Franklin, an African-American who is a junior at Waco High School, she recoiled. But she forced herself to study a panorama of spectators in white boater hats, a smudge of wispy smoke and a tangle of naked human limbs fastened to a chain slung over a spindly tree.

She was seeing the lynching of Jesse Washington, a 17-year-old black farmhand railroaded to a conviction in the murder and rape of a white woman in Waco on May 15, 1916. He was snatched from court and mutilated and burned alive outside City Hall before some 15,000 spectators - half of Waco's population at the time - and a photographer alerted in advance to shoot picture postcards. Afterward the charred corpse was dragged through the streets and hung from a telephone pole.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/01/national/01lynch.html?

Few ascribed the barbaric acts which you've cited as common behavior of the Iraqi people.

The foul criminals who perpetrated the acts in Iraq are kith and kin of the monsters in America who lynched black citizens.

Perhaps there is a posting on this thread that provides context to the point you are trying to make, but if it is broader than a cutting response to an individual, I don't see it.

The majority of those who support the war in Iraq do so, in large measure, precisely because they believe the Iraqis, in general, are a decent and civilized lot for whom freedom is a goal and democracy is not an inherent challenge.

Even those among us who believe America to be the shining star in the firmament of nations would never argue that it does not have it's share of sociopaths and psychopaths, or certain segments of it's people are not susceptible to mob rage and behavior. (Indeed, as such folks tend to also be four square in favor of the death penalty for our home grown monsters).

Yours is a rather cheap argument blatham, and smacks of a similar sentiment I have heard expressed by Liberals that, somehow, we should not rage against Islamist terrorists because White American Timothy McVeigh was responsible for the horrific Oklahoma City bombing. (Again, take note that Mr McVeigh was also executed for his heinous crime).

How dare we decry the bastards that hung smoking, mutilated American corpses on an Iraqi bridge, when our history has included bastards who have hung smoking, mutilated African-American corpses on southern tree limbs?!

Your opening comment of "Everybody sing America, America..." is truly offensive, and is a perfect example of a sort of anti-Americanism the existence of which you so often deny, or, at least, minimize.

It is always easy to argue with morons, but is it all satisfying? They don't appreciate that you've beaten them, and those that can, see it, at best, as a mean triumph.

There are competitors who seek out the best, so that their victory might be the sweetest, and there are those who call out the weak so that their victory may be assured.

There is another current thread on A2K that involves the remarkable assertations of a member calling herself Constitution Girl (or something similar). It is amazing and disappointing how her statements of ignorance draw so many challengers. Frankly I think "she" is a fascade for someone who wishes to bait (with great success) Liberals, but either way she has shone a light on intellectually bullying A2K members. [Please note that I did not write "intellectual bullies"]

When we respond to those posts for which our response suggests we have nothing but contempt, we are:

1) Taking the opportunity to post what we believe is a witty riposte.
2) Taking the opportunity to make a statement of belief which flows from, but does not respond to the original comment
3) Engaging in a rather pathetic and obvious attempt at discrediting those whom we truly believe are worthy opponents
4) Being bullies

That there were lynchers in Texas and that there are lynchers in Iraq speaks, it seems to me, to two conclusions:

1) Evil is found everywhere
2) Nations can grow and advance

If I was among the red-eyed crowd in Waco who lynched that poor man than I might easily be challenged when I decry the barbarism of modern day Iraqis., but of course I was not. Unless I bear some Jungian guilt for my forbearers crimes, I think I am entitled to be judged on my personal actions. I would argue that the same can be said about America in 2005.

There are those who, seemingly, would argue that because past American Presidents supported past tyrants, current American Presidents cannot denounce current tyrants. This is, of course, nonsense, and yet it seems to have a strong resonance among leftist thinkers.

This is not to say that America 2005 cannot be critiqued. It should be, but I would urge its critics to remain in the relevant present rather than rely upon the convenient past.

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A great deal of the force of your argument is dissipated from your use of a locution such as " . . . yet it seems to have a strong resonance among leftist thinkers." It suggests that you have motives equally unworthy to those whom you criticize for using their scorn to take a cheap shot.

The objection of many on the left to the Shrub, and his witless implementation of a PNAC agenda articulated well before he ran for office in 2000 is precisely that appearance of trying to bury their mistakes which glares out at one when one considers what good buddies the Reagan administration were with Hussein. Further, most of the people of liberal conviction with whom i am conversant do not point to the past--they point to the hypocricy of crying crocodile tears for the poor suffering population of an oil-rich nation strategically located in the world's largest oil producing region--while ignoring the Liberians, the Rawandans, the Sudanese, the North Koreans and so many others suffering a drab quotidian torment under the heels of vicious governments. Were the neo-cons of the PNAC as concerned for every one of the "Persons sitting in darkness" as they claim to have been for the Iraqis, the argument might be more plausible. But when the PNAC has articulated an agenda to include taking over Iraq and establishing military bases in southwest Asia since 1997, and then justifies doing so upon the basis of a deep compassion which they do not show for people in nations without petroleum resources, then certainly, the left charge them with errant and self-interested hypocricy.

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Setanta,

You assume the PNAC has scripted the Persian Gulf policy of the current administration, but you don't know it to be true.

Your assertion that the Reagan admimistration was "good buddies" with Saddam's government is patently false - a slander. You may recall the incident in about 1986 when an Iraqi Mirage aircraft fired a French anti ship missile at what he thought was an Iranian tanker and hit a U.S. destroyer, the USS Stark. I was directly involved in the post event meetings with the Iraqis. We required that in any future flights over the Gulf they commumnicate in certain ways with us and follow certain directions - or we would shoot them down without warning. There was nothing even remotely friendly about these discussions or, more importantly, the political direction we were given by our government. We were glad to see the Iraqis resist Iranian counter invasion, but unwilling to see either party in this conflict win a decisive victory.

The world is full of poverty, suffering and sordid exploitation by indigenous criminals. We have probably done far more to alleviate it than has any other nation. However, there is no fault on our part if we start first with those tyrants who in any way, direct or indirect, threaten us. Our European friends note (accurately) that they contribute more, on a per capita or GDP basis through various international or government-to government modalities than do we. At the same time they specialize in protectionism towards the very products recipient countries can export, particularly agricultural. Worse their environmentalists have bullied African governments into accepting their Luddite views about GM seeds that promise to do more to end suffering in Africa and other places than all the bureaucratic assistance proviuded by Europeans.

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The Reagan administration provided substantial aid to Iraq--in so doing, they tacitly encouraged the Europeans to do even more. The hostile atmosphere in a meeting concerning the Stark incident is not to wondered at, nor can it reasonably be said to have been representative of the policy of an administration which sent Rummy over for photo ops with our new friend, and proxy Persian-killer, Hussein. As for slandering the Reagan administraition, few thoughts could give me greater pleasure. We suffer to this day from the shoot-from-the-hip, we're the good guys in the white hats, cowboy foreign policy of a group of self-interested men who knowingly forwarded a plutocratic domestic agenda while congratulating themselves on the tangled webs they had woven abroad. Try not to use the first person plural when referring to the foreign policy of that administration, unless you contend that you were among the policy makers. It was not a policy ratified by the American people, except perhaps by a particularly elastic stretch of the imagination which sought to ramify Reagan's garnering a majority of voter turn-outs twice into the express will of the people, which it certainly was not.

The PNAC frankly states that it is intent upon implementing and completing a Reaganite foreign agenda. Cheney, Rumsfled and Woflowitz notably, and many others less well known who served that administration and serve the current administration, were founding members of the PNAC, which has asserted from its outset that the establishment of military bases in southwest Asia is one of their primary objectives. These same men signed an open letter to Clinton calling for such action.

Although your last paragraph rambles about the topic of who should or should not benefit from the tender mercies of Rummy's Defense Department, one statement i will not let go unchallenged. You wrote: "However, there is no fault on our part if we start first with those tyrants who in any way, direct or indirect, threaten us." It is not established that Hussein threatened us directly or indirectly. Kim Jong Il would be a much better candidate for such a description, but he really does have WoMD's and the will to use them. Additionally, his armed forces could put up one hell of fight if we invaded. Finally, there isn't any petroleum in North Korea. There is a very real threat to us and to our Pacific rim interests, but no oil. The national interests of the United States were only notionally threatened by Hussein, and many of those notions have been exposed as outright fabrications. The self-interests of an energy industry which is allowed to meet secretly with the Vice President could have been served by this invasion, if that pack of aging and doddering Reaganite fools hadn't done such a hatchet job on our otherwise first-class military when they sent them in there. I can never escape the image of overenthusiastic adolescent bullies when i consider the PNAC and their luminaries in positions of power in the current administration.

You say i slander--i haven't slandered them or the Ray-gun cowboys enough to satisfy me.

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Frankly I think you have far more anecdotal knowledge of both history and the way in which governments work than real understanding. That is not to belie your understanding particularly, in that your wealth of anecdotal detail is great. However you manage to get some fundamentals very wrong indeed.

Our government has no obligation legal or moral to cure all the ills of the world.

The order in which one takes out his enemies in a fight or a threatening situation is not necessarily in the rank order of the threats they impose. This is a basic principle of any brawl, and it applies to nations as well.

North Korea is far better contained by its neighbors now than it was by the bribes paid during the Clinton years.

The relationship I characterized with the Iraqis persisted over many years in the Gulf. It was not merely the character of one meeting or (as was the case) several. I was not involved with the formation of our political policy, but I was directly involved with the execution of many aspects of it in both the Atlantic and the Pacific/Indian ocean regions for a long time.

The "aid" provided to Iraq during the '80s was just enough to keep them in the fight with the Iranians, no more. It was not very substantial, and it was given for the most realpolitik of reasons.

Are you trying to say the French sold all those weapons to Saddam and signed all those oil development contracts with him because of our "tacit encouragement"? Funny our "tacit encouragement" of them hasn't worked anywhere else. Moreover you have this detail dead wrong. France was the major western arms supplier to Iraq long before Reagan came on the scene.

The policies that - in the face of general opposition from continental western Europeans - brought down the Soviet Empire without a war were hardly the stuff of "shoot-from-the-hip" policy making. That phase ended in 1982 when the feckless Jimmy Carter left the stage and Reagan took office.

I don't know just what constitutes "ratified by the American people" in your definition. However two elections as president, each by relatively large majorities, does the job in my view.

"Secret meetings" between the Vice President and Energy executives are substantially no different than "secret meetings" between government officials ant the representatives of any interest group -- labor unions, women's rights groups, environmentalists, and so on. It happens all the time.

The Energy Policy document that came our of Cheney's meetings and subsequent planning was almost verbatim reproduced in the recent reissue of the policy document which caused no stir at all. It was all a red herring stirred up by the Democrats to make political points. It was full of radical stuff like renewable fuel initiatives, the resumption of the construction of nuclear power plants in this country, more efficient distribution of natural gas and the licensing of LNG terminal construction to meet our needs, and measures to increase production of petroleum in our own reserves.

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georgeob1 wrote:

What is your point, and what is the relevance to the topic of this thread?

What else was going on in the world in 1916? From Flander's fields to the colonial plantations of Africa there was pointless war and exploitation. Asia was racked in poverty, and a revlution that would bring ghastly horrors to much of the world was brewing in Russsia. The European allies were busily working to bring down the Ottoman Empire (which hadn't harmed them) and unleash bloody war and exterminations throughout the Balkans, the shores of the Agean Sea and across southern Anatolia.

Evidently it is possible to read the Sunday Times with your head up your ass, but it is useful to remove it before sharing the contents so widely.

May or may not be the right thread for it... I'm wondering, georgeob1, whether or not you're speaking in favor of the Ottoman Empire, and whether or not you're aware of what the Ottoman Empire did to the Armenian minority...

Quote:

Between 1915 and 1918 the Ottoman Empire, ruled by Muslim Turks, carried out a policy to eliminate its Christian Armenian minority. This genocide was preceded by a series of massacres in 1894-1896 and in 1909, and was followed by another series of massacres beginning in 1920. By 1922 Armenians had been eradicated from their historic homeland.

There is some discussion about this going on in Europe, as to whether Turkey can deny its inheritance or should aknowledge it. Estimates vary about the loss of lives, but about 1,500,000 people were killed in the Armenian genocide.

source

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I don't think it was the future prospect of a future massacre of Armenians in southern Anatolia that mobilized the fleets and armies of Britain and France in their attempt to seize the Bosporus and beseige Constantinople soon after the war started. Neither do I think it was this massacre that moved the British to put an army of several hundred thousand in Mesopotamia, and another equally large in Egypt.

It was instead the greed and ambition of these overreaching colonial powers that sought the control of this strategic region and the then-known oil riches it possessed. Indeed in the Sykes Piqot treaty of 1915 or 1916 the two powers worked out a secret agreement for the division of the Ottoman spoils after the conquest was completed. France was to get Syria, Lebanon and the province of Mosul in what is today, northern Iraq. Britain was to get all the rest.

The results of this colossal folly included a very bloody war between Turks and Greeks, Zionism and promises made and broken to both sides in Palestine, and the distemper and disaffection of Moslem peoples that besets the world today.

It was not done for the Armenians.

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I want the US to lose the war in Iraq

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