Article: More Killing, Please
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More Killing, Please
A grim look at bloodshed in the middle east. I guess a synopsys would be:
Passionate followers to any large movement would rather die than surredner, therefore, the die hard fundamentalists will rack up the death toll long after all hope is lost for their cause. He sights a few examples.
I can't help but agree. I guess it goes to show that I can probably agree on the outcome to a situation even though we have opposing idealogy.
I wanna read more before I post an opinon, I'd love to see how Andy, j00lz, and the rest of the guys see this article.
Thx for the great link Scott.
-R
A grim look at bloodshed in the middle east. I guess a synopsys would be:
Passionate followers to any large movement would rather die than surredner, therefore, the die hard fundamentalists will rack up the death toll long after all hope is lost for their cause. He sights a few examples.
I can't help but agree. I guess it goes to show that I can probably agree on the outcome to a situation even though we have opposing idealogy.
I wanna read more before I post an opinon, I'd love to see how Andy, j00lz, and the rest of the guys see this article.
Thx for the great link Scott.
-R
Replies
Scott
I think numbers about the Vietnam war (I am not comparing the Iraq-war to the Vietnam-war) would be interesting, since there was the case of a retreat... but I have no idea if it was at about the right time, or way too late like it is described in the article above (for the 'south')
Maybe I'm missing something...
-R
Maybe I'm missing something...
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Naa, I think we are talking about the same thing. Of cause you can't compare the Vietnam-war with the American-civilwar. But that is exactly my point, the loser fights not always with the 'power of desperation', sometimes he can just retreat. And thats exactly why I think the article is over simplifying the issue, or is at least indirectly implying that the USA can't loose the Iraq conflict/'war on terror', which simply isn't true.
The author is of cause right about the so called terrorists, since they can't retreat somewhere.
The South wanted to maintain their way of living.
Iraq....the people that are fighting are Sunni Muslims who are a minority in Iraq, but were the ruling class that had perks under Saddam. Keep in mind the Sunni Muslims are killing Shites and Kurds for their bid for power just as they are killing occupying soldiers and foriegners.
Now it seems the Sunni Muslims have aligned themselves with Al Quada, whose only real motive is hate and religuous fanaticism....well, that's the impression I got when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan with Al Quada.
And the Isreal/Palestine conflict....not only do the Palestines have a vested interest in the conflict, but so do neighboring Arabic Countries like Syria, Egypt and Jordan which were countries that were defeated in the 6 day war by isreal......Syria, Egypt, Jordan and Saddam were all supporting terrorist activities in Isreal after the 6 day war at some point.
These terrorist supported activities seem to be more about revenge then a vested interest in the Palestinians. Even when something of a government was established in Palestine it all seemed to devolve into more about graft and extortion then the welfare of Palestinians.
What would be the advantage for Yasser Arafat to have peace with Isreal? He accumulated Millions from his position and support of being anti Isreal.....and the best deal Palestinians could have ever gotten that was offered thru Clinton was refused by Arafat .
Maybe I'm starting to wander a bit, but then you have to go back to the question: "What are you fighting for?....that impassions you to be so diehard."
The South wanted to maintain their way of living.
Why people in the mid east want to maintain theirs......I don't know.
What would be the advantage for Yasser Arafat to have peace with Isreal? He accumulated Millions from his position and support of being anti Isreal...
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The same could be said for Ariel Sharon and his entire party .
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Maybe I'm starting to wander a bit, but then you have to go back to the question: "What are you fighting for?....that impassions you to be so diehard."
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Why people in the mid east want to maintain theirs......I don't know.
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Moral-, religious- and family values, or what was the exact explaination for voting for Bush?
Ask you normal Iraqi what he thinks about gays, too
It's easy to be a warmonger when you don't expierence the attrocities of war, we're guilty of that in western culture for the better part of 50 years.
Palestine is wrought with bloodshed and war. The westerners solution to te problem has 'never' sat well with any of the arabs.
You can't bring people together in a circumstance like this without compromise, there doesn't seem to be any.
I would agree though, that over fifty years of being kicked around and taken advantage of, conflict is a way of life for the people in that region, that's almost 2 generations that have been raised with trauma and conflict. I would argue that they are all justifibly pissed off.
There is an underlying layer of hate that motivates these militant extremeists, but they can't function of only hatred, there needs to be a some substance or spark...and that rests squarly on our shoulders.
-R
There is an underlying layer of hate that motivates these militant extremeists, but they can't function of only hatred, there needs to be a some substance or spark...and that rests squarly on our shoulders.
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Some hatred is justified and some isn't. Hating Jews because they're jewish doesn't make sense. Holding resentment towards Jews because they decided some 3,000 years ago to settle on land that wasn't theirs, were driven off a few hundred years later, and then were re-planted there again by western Christian superpowers- well, that makes more sense. To ask, "when will the Palestinians give up this pointless fight?" is to ask the wrong question. To say it is an Israeli/Palestinian conflict is only partially correct. It's an Arab/Jewish conflict. It's a Christian/Muslim conflict. It's an East/West conflict. Forgive me if this sounds obvious.
The situation translates well to the American/Iraqi conflict. To say this is a Sunni/Shite-Kurd conflict is to glaringly overlook the American (western Christian) element. To ask, "when will the insurgents give up this pointless fight?" is to ask the wrong question.
All along I've been saying the US action in Iraq is wrongheaded and futile. Our intentions are highly suspect, not just by Iraqis, not just by neighboring Arab nations, and not just by Kerry voters, but by the world at large. We are fighting an enemy much larger than just Sunni Muslims, potentially much larger than Al Qaeda. Our government will continue to do it's best to paint any face of disobedience as the face of 'the terrorists', but it's just a matter of time before we run out of bodies or money or both and have to pull out. The neocons successfully fooled (red)America, but they can't fool the world.
The "more killing please" article reminds me of the "bug zapper" theory of the iraq war: that Bush and his crowd are subscribers to this idea, and rather than having a bunch of radical terrorists come to the US to blow up suicide bombs here, they started the Iraq war so terrorists could blow up suicide bombs over there.
Scott
From Article:
The blame lies at the doorstep of the neo-conservative war-hawks who persuaded the president that America should undertake a democratizing mission among a people who never once voted for their own leaders.
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This is a hard concept for some people to understand, or stomach, especially here. Democracy and freedom are important to us, but perhaps it's not the way some choose to live. The Declairation of independence is quiet spacific about the maltreatment of the colonies. Those same concerns could be raised by middle eastern countries in regards to how they are treated by The Nuclear Club.
Perhaps I'm way off base with my accusations, but I'm of the opinion that you should practice what you preach and offord everyone the right to govern themselves in any way they see fit.
Having said that, I think democracy in the hands of a largly uneducated nation is a dangerous, the Philipines and Thailand are great testaments to that. I think democracy should be slowly introduced, even under the best of circumstances (which Iraq and the rest of the middle east is not) Certainly not a cure-all for problems that have developed since the begining of recorded history. I'm sure we can all agree to that.
I've never been a big fan of totalitarianism...no accountability and absolute power corrupts any man. Communism defies human nature to see the fruits of yiour efforts. Though I'd never force these values on anyone.
Some aren't ready for democracy and freedom.
-R
For instance, having less kids means you hate life or are tired of it, and having more kids means you love life. Or in one part he suggested that liberal/progressive people have less kids because it doesn't fit in with their lifestyle of experimental sex. That's the kind of stuff that seemed like he was off in lala land making broad ignorant assertions, althought sometimes (namely the "what Osama might have said" article) it was presented more like that's what a middle easterner would have thought. Although then he said that's what he (the author) would have said... hence my confusion.
But being a progressive/liberal who had a hard time making the decision to have 2 kids, I can say that I WISH the hardest part was giving up my crazy sex life. After the fairly typical "am I ready to be a parent" crap, 100% of the resistance to kids was from a global perspective - are we past the carrying point of the world as it is, do I want to contribute to an overpopulation, etc., which the author never touches on. He just summarily gives other reasons that liberals aren't having kids, which strike pretty false to me. And he certainly never hit on the fact that less educated people tend to have more kids, and as soon as you bring more education and more women's rights the amount of kids drops, as seen in India recently.
I think there were one or two other cultural things like that where he was painting with a very big clumsy brush across whole chunks of society that put me off a bit and made me wonder if the same thing was going on - would someone from those sections of society look at that and disagree with what he was saying about them?
Other parts I completely agreed with, like how he talks about the hypocrisy of the religious right criticizing Muslims for following their religion. I heard a great faux political commercial along those lines - "It's time to elect someone who has the conviction of faith. Someone who is willing to stand up for what he believes in, and let his morals guide his policy. Someone who is willing to take the fight to the enemy before that enemy has the chance to destroy us. Cast your vote for Osama bin Laden."
Then there were other parts that bothered me but have been very thought provoking, like I think he does a really really good job of helping a westerner to get out of their own mindset and see for a moment what a typical easterner might be thinking, and understand a little better why there continues to be so much support for the resistance/insurgency when it seems to not make sense from our point of view.
Basically, the article states you have to kill all the Tojos and Nazis first before you can expect to achieve any sort of peace or break their will to resist.
But who are the Tojos and Nazis in the middle east?
Al Qaeda
Hamas
Israel
Palestine
US Occupying Forces
Saddam/Sunni Muslims
Saudi Royal Family
Conflicts in the middle east seem to be treated more like a game then a threat. They keep fighting without any resolve to end the conflict.
That article is insinuating you have to be as ruthless as the march of Sherman thru the deep South.
When Al Qaeda attacked the World Trade Centers, it seems Al Qaeda expected the USA to crumble and not do anything beyond sanctions and embargos.......
The March of Sherman has begun.
The article talks about the North vs the South, but it might as well be about the West vs the Mid East.
This has been building up since Isreal took 'the Holy Land' as a country and the Iranians took 50 hostages in the late 1970's.......a lot of it has to do with the resistance of westernization of Muslim Culture. Mid East seems to be fighting for Monotheism.
The Jews have always occupied Palestine, so they had just as much right to make a government there as any other culture.....but that's like saying the Communists had the same right to invade the Hemiphere of Democracy, ie: Cuba on the USA's back door.
Like the Arabs, the USA government initially resisted the Cuban Communist Government, but eventually accepted its existance.....albeit with embargos and sanctions, but not with bullets and bombs.
But the Mid East, jeez. 50 years and still fighting the same ol'shit.
Now it's like Cowboys and Indians, and guess who got shoved off to the Reservations?
But somehow, I don't think the Mid East cares that much about the Isreali/Palestinian conflict. Even Yasser Arafat stated Al Qaeda hijacked the Palestinian cause for political gains, not for the welfare of the people.
A lot of it has to do with the resistance of westernization of Muslim Culture. Mid East seems to be fighting for Monotheism.
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But being a progressive/liberal who had a hard time making the decision to have 2 kids, I can say that I WISH the hardest part was giving up my crazy sex life. After the fairly typical "am I ready to be a parent" crap, 100% of the resistance to kids was from a global perspective - are we past the carrying point of the world as it is, do I want to contribute to an overpopulation, etc.,
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You generally have a pessimistic view and think that Overpopulation is a problem. Whereas I have an optomistic view, may want to have kids sometime, and think that it's more a case of poor distribution via political means that results in famine. I also know a number of Evangelicals without kids, so the anecdotes may balance out, However the numbers, seem to be tranding the way he says, that folks that are pessimistic, won't breed. Even in my family, my Brother the other Conservative Republican has two kids with a third on the way, and my Sister, the progressive Democrat has none, and no pets either. I'm optomistic that AMerica will foind solutions to problems, and selling those solutions for a profit, like they usually do :-)
Scott
Scott
And he details it, where the Neocons saw that the technological, and economic threshold of obtaining Nuclear weapons was lower and lower each year, and that technological, and commercial limitations would not serve to keep them out of the hands of Radical states, so their solution was pre-emptive. Going afterWMD's not yet built, and changing the cultures of the states that despise America for existing, was their solution. He also notes they underestimated the response, and the strength born of desperation. I find the fact that he's taken this long view, refreshing, rather than the usual "up-to-the-minute" worship of the here and now, in the media.
Scott
Andy I loved the "Cast your vote for Osama bin Laden" bit. It's so true, relgious fundamentalism seems to boil down to the same thing.
My father always warned me that the people you usually dislike are the ones who share your negative traits.
-R
But I disagree that it's pessimistic, more like realistic, or to use an annoying buzzword, "proactive"
So I agree with the overall statement of what the trends are, but the deeper analysis is written from such a weird (to me) viewpoint, that's what bugs. Although I suppose if you are going to do any interpretation of the facts at all, you're going to have to use your viewpoint to fit all the facts into a story about what it all means.
And I really appreciate the long view he's taken, too. It drives me nuts to read any of the mainstream news coverage of middle east events because they almost never give any background or show how the last few years fit into the last 50 years. They just treat it like the whole Iraq deal started in the 90's when Iraq invaded Kuwait, if they give any background at all.
Pak - what your father said is so true, anytime something really really pisses you off about somebody else, and really gets under your skin, I think it's always something about yourself that you don't like.
The Viewpoint as far as I can tell is an English Expat living in Hong Kong, and was/is associated with either a Bank, or Financial Investment house, and his expertise sems to be demographics, and economics. I do think things are going to get worse, before they get better, but they will get better. if only because someone will profit from making it better. :-)
Scott
-R
What sort of proof do you have that this solution will become available? When people assert something with zero proof, that's faith.
Also, what is this about the "Voluntary Human Extinction movement"? Sounds like spin. Take these two plans:
1. Carefully manage available resources and make sure we don't exceed them
2. Keep having as many babies as we can and let future scientists sort the whole thing out
Which one of these is really more likely to result in extinction?
Anyhow though, this highlights my point that the author is speaking more in your terms than in mine, which is what bugged me.
Scott