Setanta wrote:it's costing the lives of far too many Iraqis, as well as the English and American boys who die for no damned good reason.
and of course I agree with that as well. You know what really frightens me is there might be a perfectly understandable imperative that explains why too many Iraqis, Americans Brits and others in Iraq and elsewhere are dying. It might not be a "good" reason, but i fear it might be a "damned" and the real reason...and that is Peak Oil. I dont know of course, I'm not a petro geologist, but I know someone who is (was)
http://www.dti.gov.uk/energy/developep/the_assoc_for_the_study_peak_oil.pdf
I originally did not consider this all to have been about the petroleum--but as time goes on, i become more convinced of it.
People slaughtered one another, literally, for beaver pelts. In about 1640, the Iroquois, dedicated with an unimaginable fervor to the extermination of the French in Canada, set out to exterminate all of the other tribes of the Great Lakes basin. Their purpose was two-fold--to deny the income of the furs to the French (mistakenly believing this would cripple their military effort) and to engross the fur trade to themselves, so as to sell to the English and Dutch at Albany and so finance their military effort. They did manage to exterminate one tribe or sept, known as the Cat people, whom the Jesuits knew of but to whom they had not yet sent a mission, so we know nothing further of them. They very nearly exterminated the Huron, their cultural and linguistic first cousins--the Jesuits estimated that 90% of the Hurons perished. They slaughtered great numbers of the Pottawatomie, and drove them west. They failed in their attempt to exterminate the Illinois, but did manage to wipe out the Tamaroa sept of the Illinois--all for the beaver pelt. Then Prince Albert started wearing silk top hats, and the bottom fell out of the beaver pelt market--overnight.
The English and the Americans were beginning to make themselves rich with whale oil at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th. The Atlantic sources were nearly exhausted, and both nations were transferring to the Pacific. The English, with occassional assistance from the Royal Navy, established themselves in the southeast Pacific near the coast of South America--the Americans were driven west to the Marquesas. In 1812, the frigate Essex, 32 guns, sailed from Boston, and single-handedly destroyed the English South Seas whale fisheries. HMS Phoebe suckered the commander of Essex with false promises at Valparaiso, and subsequently trapped Essex on a lee shore, and destroyed her. But it was too late, and the English whale fisheries never recovered. With almost no competition, the New England whalers, the most of them operating from Nantucket, made themselves fabulously wealthy. So much so, that they could abandon the slave trade which had previously made them wealthy, and it gave them the leisure to become militant abolitionists. Whale oil was the most valuable product in the world in the early 19th century. Petroleum was first systematically pumped from the ground at Titusville, Pennsylvania, and it was a scant generation before whale oil became an almost worthless product--replaced by petroleum.
This suggests to me two things. The first is that we will someday discover that we can do without petroleum. The second is that a lot of people will die, and for no damned good reason, only for the greed of those who would control petroleum, in the interim.
Tico
I challange you to dispute the fact that without "Bush's war". There would be no bombings in Iraq today.
Or we could raise whales for their oil. Biodiesel, anyone?
Sea World stock's looking mighty good.
au1929 wrote:Tico
I challange you to dispute the fact that without "Bush's war". There would be no bombings in Iraq today.
I challenge you to dispute that if Saddam had not been a madman and a supporter of terrorism, the US would not have invaded, and there would be no bombings in Iraq today. Place the blame where it belongs.
I'm just highlighting the lunacy of your logic, au, that's all. Yes we are fighting in Iraq, and yes insurgent/terrorists are bombing civilians in hospitals, etc. But it is the goofy leftist anti-war thinking that does not blame the insurgent/terrorist for the bombing, but only Bush. Ridiculous.
Hussein's support for terrorism? Got anything to support that other than your penchant for imflamatory reationary rhetoric?
That the direct cause is the actions of the insurgents does not remove Bush & Co.'s responsibility for being the indirect cause.
What is it in law? Proximate cause and contributing factors?
Setanta wrote:Hussein's support for terrorism? Got anything to support that other than your penchant for imflamatory reationary rhetoric?
You can spout off the history of the region, to annoyingly inane detail, but you don't even know that Saddam was a supporter of terrorism? Get in the now, set.
You can read these articles about the connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda:
Case Closed, and
The Mother of All Connections, for your edification.
And read
this article in case you've forgotten Saddam paid incentive money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers.
The AQ-Iraq connection is specious, speculative at best, as the September 11th commission demonstrated.
But i knew you wouldn't fail me, Tico--you've trotted out the infamous "the check's in the mail" argument. It has never been satisfactorily demonstrated that Hussein actually sent money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, and it is hilariously absurd to see reactionary rhetoric like "incentive money." What the hell kind of incentive can one provide to someone who has already blown himself to smithereens?
Now, all you have to do is demonstrate precisely how the families of self-obliterated Palestinians posed a proximate, a "clear and present" danger to the United States which warranted an invasion.
You jokers are hilarious.
DrewDad wrote:That the direct cause is the actions of the insurgents does not remove Bush & Co.'s responsibility for being the indirect cause.
What is it in law? Proximate cause and contributing factors?
In the law, the proximate cause analysis ends when there is an intervening act to break the chain. In this case, that is the action of the insurgents who decided to bomb the hospital. If Bush did something that set of a natural and continuous chain of events that culminated in the bombing of the hospital, you could legitimately claim Bush was the proximate cause of the bombing. Hoever, in this case there is an intervening action -- that of the terrorists/insurgents -- that is the proximate cause of the event.
-----
"
It were infinite for the law to consider the causes of causes, and their impulsions one of another; therefore it contenteth itself with the immediate cause, and judgeth of acts by that without looking to any further degree." Lord Bacon in his
Maxims of the Law.
Setanta wrote:...
But i knew you wouldn't fail me, Tico--you've trotted out the infamous "the check's in the mail" argument. It has never been satisfactorily demonstrated that Hussein actually sent money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, and it is hilariously absurd to see reactionary rhetoric like "incentive money." What the hell kind of incentive can one provide to someone who has already blown himself to smithereens?
You obviously didn't read the article I linked to, did you?
The BBC wrote: One by one, at least 21 families came up to receive their cheques from the Palestinian Arab Liberation Front (PALF), a local pro-Iraq group.
A Hamas suicide bomber's family got $25,000 while the others - relatives of militants killed in fighting or civilians killed during Israeli military operations - all received $10,000 each.
Another banner in the hall described the cheques as the "blessings of Saddam Hussein" and PALF speakers extolled the Iraqi leader in fiery speeches.
"Saddam Hussein considers those who die in martyrdom attacks as people who have won the highest degree of martyrdom," said one.
The party estimated that Iraq had paid out $35m to Palestinian families since the current uprising began in September 2000.
It appears it was quite an incentive to some poor palestinians to think they were going to set their family up for life with their death.
And is the invasion of Iraq a contributing factor?
Would a reasonable person have been able to forsee the chaos and violence that would follow?
I certainly think so, since I anticipated the insurgency.
Ticomaya wrote:It appears it was quite an incentive to some poor palestinians to think they were going to set their family up for life with their death.
So Palestinian suicide bombers were threatening the United States in 2003? First thing I've heard about
that...
DrewDad wrote:And is the invasion of Iraq a contributing factor?
Would a reasonable person have been able to forsee the chaos and violence that would follow?
I certainly think so, since I anticipated the insurgency.
A reasonable person can foresee a great many things resulting from a war, but that doesn't mean Bush is responsible for everything that happens in the war.
Was Roosevelt responsible for all the deaths of the American G.I.'s that died in WWII? Certainly they were foreseeable.
old europe wrote:Ticomaya wrote:It appears it was quite an incentive to some poor palestinians to think they were going to set their family up for life with their death.
So Palestinian suicide bombers were threatening the United States in 2003? First thing I've heard about
that...
Who's making that claim? Certainly not me.
Setanta was confused about whether Saddam was a supporter of terrorism. He was, and that is the point I was making.
Ticomaya wrote:old europe wrote:Ticomaya wrote:It appears it was quite an incentive to some poor palestinians to think they were going to set their family up for life with their death.
So Palestinian suicide bombers were threatening the United States in 2003? First thing I've heard about
that...
Who's making that claim? Certainly not me.
Setanta was confused about whether Saddam was a supporter of terrorism. He was, and that is the point I was making.
And the United States supported Saddam. So do the United States support terrorism?
The whole argument is one big
non sequitur. That Saddam may or may not have supported Palestinian families of suicide bombers has no relevance at all re the alleged Saddam-Al Qaida connection.
Is the insurgency with it's terrorism the result of the Invasion by the US or isn't it. Let's have a direct answer without the BS. Yes, or No.
In addition faced with the history of the region can you invision the Kurds, Shia and Sunni's able to establish a democratic, melting pot nation where all can in peace.
