Calling All Democrats

Perhaps the UN will decide to step in and...grk...hmmmkkh...heh....hehhe......HAHAHAHA!!!!!

The Numbers:

Voters in 2004 Indonesian Presidential election: c. 120 million

What They Mean:

Indonesia ranks fourth in the world for population, with 220 million people spread across 13,000 islands. (Roughly speaking, this is about the same as the combined population of the Arab countries.)

<snip>

It is also the world's largest majority-Muslim nation and largest new democracy -- Monday's presidential election brought a reported 120 million voters to the polls, well over America's all-time record of 105 million voters --

Yes we are part of the UN. So? It has proven itself repeatedly to be a useless organization. Were it not for the US, it would have failed long ago.

Lash wrote:

Terrorism breeds in poverty, antiquity, ignorance and fear.

Modernity goes hand in hand with democracy.

I'd always learned that democracy was an ancient concept. About 30 years ago in high school, we were taught that democracy was a staple of Islam before it appeared in much of Western Europe.

This fella seems to have learned the same things

Quote:

Abdallah, founder and director of the Muslim Electorates' Council of America and editor for the Minaret Monthly and Muslim Observer Weekly, then defined democracy by providing those in attendance with various examples of democratic practices in the Islamic religion.

These examples included the Constitution of Medina, the 57th clause in the Koran, which was a religious edict enacted after the verification of tribes of multiple religions including the people of Medina, Mecca, the Jews and pagans in a joint effort to ensure justice among the people.

Abdallah briefly illustrated democracy through another example: a document written to Egypt from the 4th caliph, Ali, which expressed the necessity of human rights including the right to live, the right to think, the right to personal religious practices, the right to labor, the right to family, and the right of the people to select the commander in chief, and head of state.

Abdallah's lecture demonstrates Islam and democracy as Abdallah stated that the claim of Islam was to teach, practice and follow these democratic-type systems.

However these practices became overshadowed as a result of an increase of either Militaristic or Political leadership.

link

Democracy is in trouble in many places, but I think that considering it as a modern construct is dangerously myopic. There is a good solid history for democracy in Islam. May not be the type/style of democracy 'we' want, but it's there.

Interesting points, Parados.




(if anyone's interested in other interesting forms of early democracy, I've found this site interesting <I'm going to link to the page on India and Buddhism> link )

...
Has it occured to you that the way the UN was trying to solve the Iraq issue might have saved the U.S. $100 billion dollars, not to mention the lives, of, uh - let me check - 1,469 soldiers?

Probably not......

McGentrix wrote:

Yes we are part of the UN. So? It has proven itself repeatedly to be a useless organization. Were it not for the US, it would have failed long ago.

Sure it is a useless organization... It claimed there were not WMD in Iraq, for example.... How useless an organization it is indeed! Why should anybody pay money and get nothing back??

Has it occured to you that the way the UN was trying to solve the Iraq issue might have saved the U.S. $100 billion dollars, not to mention the lives, of, uh - let me check - 1,469 soldiers?

Probably not......

Care to share where the UN claimed there were no WMD's in Iraq...

Brandon9000 wrote:

You miss the point entirely. Since Hussein had been so misleading about his WMD and WMD programs for so long, and since he had not provided any real proof that he had disarmed despite the fact that he badly wanted sanctions removed, there was some real chance that he still had them. Had that been so, millions of lives could have been lost down the line. For this reason, the decision to invade was exactly correct.

So North Korea resumed its WMD program. It claims to have WMD. Millions of lives could be lost down the line. For this reason, what would you do?

Ticomaya wrote:

old europe wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:

You miss the point entirely. Since Hussein had been so misleading about his WMD and WMD programs for so long, and since he had not provided any real proof that he had disarmed despite the fact that he badly wanted sanctions removed, there was some real chance that he still had them. Had that been so, millions of lives could have been lost down the line. For this reason, the decision to invade was exactly correct.

So North Korea resumed its WMD program. It claims to have WMD. Millions of lives could be lost down the line. For this reason, what would you do?

Let me guess ... "NOT have invaded Iraq"?

What would you do?

...I just wonder why people seem to be quite eager e.g. to bomb Iran (invasion seems to out of the question, I guess), but nobody seems to care about regimes that DO not only not disarm, but openly proclaim their intentions on becoming nuclear powers.
As far as I know there are hundreds of thousands of North Koreans in gulags or 'work camps'.... So if Kim isn't an evil tyrant, what is he then? On the other hand, being an evil tyrant AND having WMDs, how should we deal with him?

When you guys can name ONE crime that Saddam committed in the last 5 years or one person he gassed in that time frame. Then perhaps you can attack my analogy.

Saddam Hussein's regime has carried out frequent summary executions, including...At least 130 Iraqi women were beheaded between June 2000 and April 2001./quote]

Source: http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/19675.htm

parados wrote:

But to claim that he has a weapon that can kill 100,000 people with one shot shows how far out of touch with reality you really are.

I didn't. Why am I not surprised that your argument is based on misrepresenting my opinions? I claimed that there was uncertainty that he had abandoned such weapons.

parados wrote:

The fact of the matter is that there was no evidence of Saddam using a weapon that was banned after they were banned.

But there is considerable evidence of Iraq lying to and misleading inspectors for years, and there was considerable uncertainty that he had destroyed his WMD and WMD programs, which is odd, since it would have been easy to prove he had destroyed them and he wanted sanctions lifted.

parados wrote:

Gee let me rephrase my analogy. I know my neighbor had a machine gun before machine guns were illegal but he never proved to me he got rid of it after it was illegal for him to have it. Ergo.. I can KILL him.

Bad analogy again. The proper analogy is that my neighbor is a known mass murderer and had machine guns at one time that were of a special type that could kill tens of thousands with the firing of a single bullet. He was working on improved machine guns which could kill hundreds of thousands with one bullet. He claims he has given them up, but has no proof, and is, by the way, a well known liar. Negotiation has produced no conclusive evidence of his compliance. Ergo...I can inspect his house whether he likes it or not.

parados wrote:

Funny how when I put it in those terms it makes Bush's attack of Iraq sound silly. But you don't dare admit that it WAS because you would have to admit you backed the wrong horse.

It sounds silly only because of your bad analogies. The horse I back is my own mind's assessment of the situation.

parados wrote:

Gee.. then when my neighbor offers to let me search his house. I should stop searching halfway through the search because he denies he still has the machine gun. Even though the ongoing search has revealed nothing I should still kill him.

We played cat and mouse with Iraq regarding inspections for years. The Iraqis were caught in numerous lies and often prevented inspectors from touring certain facilities until they could be sanitized. On more than one occasion, Iraqi officials forcibly prvented UNSCOM pilots from flying over certain sites. We played with Hussein for long enough. We didn't want to give him an infinite amount of time to perfect his weapons while he dragged out inspections.

parados wrote:

Then after I kill him I can claim I only wanted to release his family from his tyranny and it was never about the machine gun to begin with. Or maybe I can claim that my neighbor embezzeled some money and that was the reason. Or whatever other excuse you want to come up with this week for why we went into Iraq.

Dang, I didn't realize lying was a reason to overthrow a govt. When do we start the revolution here?

Are you claiming that the Iraqis weren't actually living in tyranny??? We went into Iraq to insure that he had no WMD or WMD programs. We did not go into Iraq to free his hideously oppressed people. That's just something that it was nice to be able to do while there.

When you guys can name ONE crime that Saddam committed in the last 5 years or one person he gassed in that time frame. Then perhaps you can attack my analogy.

Saddam Hussein's regime has carried out frequent summary executions, including...At least 130 Iraqi women were beheaded between June 2000 and April 2001.

But to claim that he has a weapon that can kill 100,000 people with one shot shows how far out of touch with reality you really are.

The fact of the matter is that there was no evidence of Saddam using a weapon that was banned after they were banned.

Gee let me rephrase my analogy. I know my neighbor had a machine gun before machine guns were illegal but he never proved to me he got rid of it after it was illegal for him to have it. Ergo.. I can KILL him.

Funny how when I put it in those terms it makes Bush's attack of Iraq sound silly. But you don't dare admit that it WAS because you would have to admit you backed the wrong horse.

Gee.. then when my neighbor offers to let me search his house. I should stop searching halfway through the search because he denies he still has the machine gun. Even though the ongoing search has revealed nothing I should still kill him.

Then after I kill him I can claim I only wanted to release his family from his tyranny and it was never about the machine gun to begin with. Or maybe I can claim that my neighbor embezzeled some money and that was the reason. Or whatever other excuse you want to come up with this week for why we went into Iraq.

Dang, I didn't realize lying was a reason to overthrow a govt. When do we start the revolution here?

Quote:

What has occurred to me that the way the UN was trying to solve the Iraq issue fell in line with it getting its pockets lined through the OFF program, which BTW, did little to sanction Saddam. That corrupt program was hurting more than helping. It is possible that absent the corruption of the UN, the sanctions might have worked, and we would not have needed to invade. That has occurred to me. Has that occurred to you?

estimates, recently published in the Chicago Tribune, that 500,000 Iraqi children have died since the end of the Persian Gulf war as a result of the US-led sanctions.

old europe wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:

You miss the point entirely. Since Hussein had been so misleading about his WMD and WMD programs for so long, and since he had not provided any real proof that he had disarmed despite the fact that he badly wanted sanctions removed, there was some real chance that he still had them. Had that been so, millions of lives could have been lost down the line. For this reason, the decision to invade was exactly correct.

So North Korea resumed its WMD program. It claims to have WMD. Millions of lives could be lost down the line. For this reason, what would you do?

This is so elementary, it's almost sickening that I have to plod through it, but here is your answer. I would negotiate and impotently beg them to be nice. Maybe use an economic carrot and stick. It's too late with North Korea. They have the bomb. If we invaded they could either destroy the south or use nuclear weapons on our troops. We missed the bus on this one. We invaded Iraq to prevent Hussein from achieving this level of near invulnerability.

source

So you say Iray was invaded to prevent Hussein from achieving this level. But then I would ask: What has been done concerning North Korea? A country that admis to a secret nuke program?
AND, at the same time, Iraq has been invaded, even though there was at least a lot of doubt about WMDs?
Can't you see the least bit of incongruency?

The reason that it was a good idea to invade Iraq was because of questions about WMD, not to free his hideously opressed people. That was a fringe benefit. We can't invade North Korea. They are nuclear. All we can do is whine for NK to please play nice.

The reason that it was a good idea to invade Iraq was because of questions about WMD

We can't invade North Korea. They are nuclear.

Date and link?