The US, UN & Iraq II

Joe Steve, ...... don't you recognize a Bushisim when you see one?

Is that what those meaningless platitudes are? Bushisms?

The Iraqi streets are full!!
They love them some US/Brit/Aussies!
Bush was right!

Its a Beautiful Day!!

I hope we all realize the price the world has paid for this "victory"

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/04/09/sprj.irq.ali.charity/index.html

Makes me hang my head in shame.

You have to see it to believe it ......

http://www.bushisms.com/index1a.html

There are people all over the world who are not free: from tyranny, from abject poverty, from hunger and homelessness. We cannot deny them dignity, nor can we judge their desire just to exist. Mandela was in prison for decades but he writes that he was free in his mind and his heart. What about the man in the US who was just released after nineteen years in jail for a rape-murder he did not commit and after protesting his innocence all those years. DNA cleared him. I read that he is not bitter, just regretful of those lost years, and wants to get on with his life. There is a man who was "free" even when he was jailed.

Ge, I do not find these words in my Tao Te Ching. What number verse is it?

To attack you must vanquish
To defend you must merely survive

If those are indeed the words of Lao Tsu, then the meaning would be the opposite of perception's interpretation; perhaps that is why he changed it to reflect his own thinking.

perception writes: To survive with DIGNITY you must be free
To be FREE you must sometimes vanquish.

To survive without freedom and dignity is to merely exist
To merely exist is not one of my options."

If you believe that, so be it. But ask John McCain if he felt he had no dignity all of those years as a POW. You cannot take dignity away from a man whose freedom is in his mind. He has the ultimate dignity.

What the original quote means to me -- the quote that started this dust-up -- is that if you go into a fight without being willing to fight to the death, you will never vanquish. This is an old samurai belief.

"To defend you must merely survive" pretty much explains itself. It makes me think of the art of aikido, wherein an attacker's forceful movement is used against him and carried through by the defender to vitiate the attack.

Geli

I used to think Bushisms were funny. Now they scare the hell out of me.

I find interesting that the looting appears chiefly directed at Regime facilities, not surprising ... and UN offices ... which may have heretofore unconsidered implications. Similar civil reaction has broken out in Arbil in Northern Iraq, as well as other cities, both North and South.

I note too that this morning's CENTCOM briefing was characterized more by reporters' interest in the deaths of a few reporters who happened to have been unfortunate enough to find themselves in the middle of the chaos and danger of a firefight than by the momentous shift in the attitudes and reactions of the populace to Coalition troops moving freely throughout cheering, approving crowds. It would seem The Press is attempting to "Drive" the news. Bias, anyone?

The Brits claim Saddam escaped the bombing, the US remains "optimistic but non-commital", and The Rumor Mill is churning out contradictory allegations of who may or may not have been killed or injured in the strike, and is rife with speculation that a critically injured Saddam, perhaps one of his sons, and other Senior Figures are being or have been spirited to Tikrit or possibly Syria.

Kara, it' s not a direct quote, it was what I understood when I first read it a long time ago. Religion is personal inspiration, no two minds receive it with the identical revelation. That is why I left his unchallenged. It is his.

The Tao that is spoken is not the eternal Tao ...

Somewhere, a journalism class or Think Tank is studying the bias of the journalists at CENTCOM.

They are mad they got shot at, and don't want to give life to stories that show coalition success. GGGRRRRRRR. But, just because they don't report it, don't mean it ain't true! The world sees what's going on.

And, I usually hate looting, but if there was ever a bunch of people who deserved some new furniture, and ever the right situation.....

One guy was reported to be 'chewing' a portrait of Saddam. I would give $20. for a still of that.

Ge, this is from the Tao Te Ching:

Whenever you advise a ruler in the way of Tao,
Counsel him not to use force to conquer the universe.
For this would only cause resistance.
Thorn bushes spring up wherever the army has passed.
Lean years follow in the wake of a great war.
Just do what needs to be done.
Never take advantage of power.

(That is the beginning stanza of verse Thirty.)

Tanks roll through downtown Baghdad! Journalists right behind tank caravan, jumping out of trucks and photographing the wild street scene.

It is surreal!

The live feed from the so-familiar downtown Baghdad cameras is pretty close to evidence that it is nearly over. Paradise Square is filled with US Marines, freely-wandering, un-"Mindered" reporters, and jubilant, welcoming civilians.

And, the interviews with freed Iraqis begin....


Oh........yeah.

"Empty uniforms, abandoned weapons, deserted defensive positions are everywhere. Resistance has been confined to light, sporadic, ineffective sniper fire."

Hey, I mean - OK, I was watching the street scenes in Basra, the looting (or should I say: total deconstruction) of the Sheraton (not exactly a government building, btw, Timber), and Anastasia and I were, like - hell - we'd go out looting if we were there. Just imagine! You've lived in an absolute dictatorship for decades, at the mercy of those in power and dirt-poor - the "new" soldiers have come in, you don't know what they will bring, what kind of regime will be - and there's just a few days in between to go get yourself whatever you can before the **** might start flying again - hell, I'd take myself down for a stroll past the Sheraton and get me one of those fancy chairs, or even just the carpet ... <grins>

Open the torture chambers!
Open the prisons! Let Daddy come home!


A historic day! My chillbumps won't go down!

nimh, apparent indiscriminate looting in Basra has been well reported the last several days. In Baghdad, at least presently, the looting, or at least as it has been reported, seems more focused.

Trivial, and likely to get little notice: the fighting vehicles of the Marines in Paradise Square show clear signs of having been engaged ... but the scars do not appear very recent: caked dust, streamers of fresh rust are evident on the battle scars. Some tanks are missing bits of the armor skirting which protects the treads and running gear, and I've noticed quite a few combat vehicles with broken windows and shot-up running lights.

Ok, the war is over, to the victors go the spoils ....
Now , where shall we focus .... unemployment at home, health insurance, mega mega deficets, infrastructue that is falling apart ....... keeping our promises to the people in Afghanistan, BORING

Lets go kick some Iranian butt YEAH, DATS DA TICKET