You just gotta love msfe's logic: Invading Iraq: BAD Defeating Saddam: BAD Freeing Iraqi People: BAD Invading Iraq, Defeating Saddam, and Freeing Iraqi People with not enough troops: VERY, VERY, VERY BAD. ROFL!
My apologies Db, -- brain out of whack! -- you didn't sarcastically suggest that the Ottoman empire was a good thing. I'm not sure why I thought you did. Weird. Very weird. Sorry, really. With regards to enjoying Kymar's and dgab's posts, I assumed the posts you were referring to were the ones made in this thread (correct me if I'm wrong), and I assumed you enjoyed them because you thought they were solid arguments. If you enjoyed them for any other reasons, my apologies, again.
VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY UNVEILS NOBLE, HONORABLE AND COMPLETELY NON-GREED-INSPIRED TWELVE-STEP RECOVERY PLAN FOR THE FUTURE FORMER NATION OF IRAQAEDA Statement by the Vice President THE VICE PRESIDENT: Please be seated. Today, with fully 250,000 of America's most expendable grunts poised to maybe possibly survive repeated waves of VX nerve gas attacks during our righteous smackdown of the entire hellbound subcontinent of Allahstan, it is my pleasure to announce the details of the Bush Administration's fully noble and honorable twelve-step recovery plan for the future former nation of Iraqaeda. This plan, conceived by yours truly â a life-long public servant with no plans to ever enter the fabulously lucrative private sector â will fundamentally change the way literally dozens of my former petrochemical executive golf partners can relieve the world's poor of their burdensome dreams of not wallowing in human filth. Indeed, it a plan borne of the time-tested American tradition of Compassionate Conservatism - of bombing a demonized and powerless desert armpit to dust, then rehabilitating its easily-malleable raghead populace with steaming bowls of Kraft® Deluxe Macaroni & Cheese and aggressively soul-balming Christian proselytizing until such time as they can properly function as productive drones in a global society that prizes 1/2 pound burgers, white beauty, shiny baubles, and sloth-like complacency. The plan is as follows: http://www.whitehouse.org/news/2003/031303.asp
msfe, can I ask why you continue to post material from that site? I can't believe you actually think you're fooling anyone, so what purpose does it serve?
How Iraqi democracy might look Some Arab countries blend monarchies with parliaments and elections to form 'Oriental democracy.' By Nicholas Blanford | Special to The Christian Science Monitor BEIRUT, LEBANON â There's an old joke Arabs like to tell that illustrates the condition of democracy in the Arab world. A flunky to an Arab dictator breathlessly informs his leader that 99.9 percent of the population reelected him in a nationwide poll in which he was the only candidate. "That means only 0.1 percent of the people didn't vote for you, Mr. President," he says. "What more could you want?" "Their names," comes the cold reply. President Bush says one of the justifications for unseating Saddam Hussein is to bring democracy to Iraq, which, it is hoped in Washington, will spread to the rest of the Arab world. That is no easy task, however, in a region with few democratic traditions. The phrase "tribes with flags" has been used to describe the Arab world, where the concept of the modern state, imposed by European powers in the 20th century, has sat uncomfortably with Arab traditions of loyalty to one's sect, feudal overlord, or religious leader. Many ordinary Arabs, while appreciative of democratic values, have little faith that democracy is feasible in the Arab world. "It's not a good idea for an Arab country to become democratic. I am against it," says Rima Zeitoun, a teacher here. "Arabs tend to be tribal and feudal. If you don't have a strong leader forced on them, to keep them living in harmony, they will fight against each other continuously." That line of thought, however, wins little sympathy from some Arab intellectuals and academics who maintain that democracy can be successfully introduced to the Middle East as it has been elsewhere in the world. "It's a grave mistake to assume that Arab democracy is simply something that Arabs cannot have when everyone else can have it," says Michael Young, a Lebanese political analyst and commentator in Beirut. "Democracy can work, free markets can work. I don't think you are destined in the Arab world to either have a Saddam [Hussein] or a Bashar [al-Assad, president of Syria]." The trappings of democracy do exist in many Arab countries with parliaments, political parties, elections, and a relatively free press. Some Gulf countries, most of which are ruled by single powerful families, have introduced tentative reforms - Bahrain allowed women the vote for the first time last year, and Qatar has introduced municipal elections. But the fledgling democratic systems in the Arab world are far removed from the Anglo-American model. "I call it 'Oriental democracy,' " says Rami Khouri, a Jordanian-Palestinian and executive editor of Beirut's English-language Daily Star. "You have a demo-cratic system on the ground, but decisions are made according to old Oriental rules of power relationships in society based on ethnicity, religion, control of money, and control of the Army." Analysts agree that the democratic systems found in the US and Europe cannot simply be transplanted onto Arab society. Mr. Khouri argues that the transition to Western-style democracies will be a natural process of evolution, citing the experience of the US as an example. "The early democracy of the United States was not really a democracy.... Real power was tightly controlled by small groups of white guys who owned land, had slaves, and whose wives couldn't vote," he says. "I think the transition comes with time. It comes with emergence of a middle class, it comes with prosperity." One of the obstacles hindering the emergence of a true democracy is the artificial nature of the nation states in the Middle East. Most were carved out by Britain and France to suit their respective imperial interests in the wake of World War I and took scant account of the demographic complications that would ensue. "Most of these countries don't make sense," says one analyst here. "None of these countries drew their own borders, none of them chose their own leaderships, none of them designed their governance systems, that's why they don't work very well. "What has to happen is a process through which the peoples of the region sort out what kind of countries, what kind of sovereignties they want to live in." Take Jordan. On paper, it is a constitutional monarchy with prime ministers appointed by the king and elections for an 80-seat House of Representatives. But in reality, power rests with the monarch and the tribal elite. "There is no real constitutional monarchy in Jordan," says Chibli Mallat, a professor of international law at Beirut's St. Joseph University. The wielding of power "operates at the whim of the king," he adds. Lebanon is perhaps the Arab country with the strongest democratic tradition. It has a 128-seat Parliament elected every six years, a Cabinet, and a prime minister appointed by the president in consultation with Parliament. To reflect the many sects in Lebanon, a power-sharing agreement exists whereby the president is always a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim, and the speaker of parliament a Shia Muslim. Cabinet and Parliament have a 6 to 5 Muslim-Christian ratio. Mr. Young argues that the checks and balances in the complicated power-sharing arrangements prevent the emergence of a dictator. "Lebanon is a curious case," he says. "It is a semidemocracy. The system is corrupt, you have a political elite which imposes itself on the people, you have the traditional zuama [political bosses]. But the paradox is that this has created a balance of power in the system so that you don't have this one dictator emerging to crush all the communities." Syria is the opposite. Like Lebanon, Syria has many different sects. But unlike Lebanon, the state in Syria has been traditionally strong. Lebanon suffered a brutal civil war from 1975 to 1990 which arose in part from the weakness of the Lebanese state. The ruling regime in Syria, however, has ruthlessly crushed any sign of dissent. While Syrians have enjoyed more than three decades of internal stability, the price is paid in living under an authoritarian regime.
Apology accepted, and congratulations for acknowledging your overstatement regarding the "universality" of anti-American sentiment. Though I disagree with you strongly on many issues as well as on political philosophy, and though I've taken issue with many other of your specific statements and positions, I believe that you've here shown at least some willingness to admit error and to move on. As for the difference between a military occupation and a military presence: To me, military occupation implies the deployment of forces so as to force obedience directly from a populace. The means employed would typically involve high visibility designed to intimidate, aggressive patrolling, direct control over utilities and transportation, detention without recourse or appeal to civil authorities, and so on - as the British occupied Northern Ireland, as the Israelis occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as the Third Reich occupied France and several other countries, as the "United Nations" occupied all of Germany after World War II, as the Red Army occupied Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, and so on. An occupation generally along these lines by coalition forces is clearly being contemplated for Iraq. It is hoped that the end result will be more akin to the occupations of Japan and Germany after World War II (when civilian populations underwent levels of destruction and humiliation that the Iraqis will never approach), than to the occupation of West Bank and Gaza Strip by the Israelis. Mere military presence (there are several other term reflecting different levels of cooperation and basing) connotes the stationing of troops without intervention in the political or other internal affairs of the host country, and with the implication that this presence can at any time be ended by the host government - as when the Phillipines asked US forces to close down their bases and to depart some years ago. Currently, the United States maintains a relatively large presence in Qatar and Kuwait, but does not force its will on the host governments or host populace - though it certainly may continue to seek to influence political affairs, and may also demand considerations or in some cases payment to help cover the costs of basing its forces. Similar arrangements exist in Japan and South Korea. There are also obviously borderline situations, as when American involvement was still undergoing a transformation, from occupation to a strong presence under alliance arrangements in Western Europe, or when the Soviet's repeatedly made it clear that their extensive military presence in the East Bloc could be transformed into occupation at virtually a moment's notice. Finally, on your other point, I did not suggest that all alternatives to current policies were utopian fantasies. I merely sought to make the point that we do not live in a world, nor are we close to living in a world, in which all national leaderships feel able to guarantee their countries' security without accepting the presence of foreign troops. The specific utopian visions to which I was referring are the Euro-socialist utopia in which all disputes and evils can be discussed into non-existence by patient bureaucrats, and the Islamo-fascist utopia that involves the restoration of the 14th Century Caliphate on a global level and under a radically theocratic administration.
Iraq gives up its grim secrets Abandoned warehouse is a tomb for hundreds of tortured and executed Iraqis From Paul Harris in Al Zubayr, Southern Iraq THE coffins are laid out in neat rows in an abandoned warehouse. In each lies a crumpled bag of bones, old and dusty but still recognisably human. Out of the open end of one sack, a skull can be seen buried in the fragments of skeleton. Its eye sockets are empty. Its teeth are smashed. Two ribs point out like accusing fingers. Something terrible happened here. Something murderous. Something evil. The proof lies in a cargo container nearby. Its metal door hangs open and inside are pages and pages of files. Each sheaf of notes contains a picture of a man or woman. Each and every one has been shot in the head. Their wounds are mangled and gaping. Many of them barely look human any more as the anonymous photographer chronicled their dead faces. It is a horror almost beyond words. It is hard not to look at the black-and-white photographs -- two for each victim -- and wince. Yet each was a brother, a father or a son; or a mother, a daughter or a sister. Each had a past and hopes for a future, yet each ended here, in this dry and dusty hall of the dead. There must be at least 200 of them in the plywood coffins, roughly hammered together by a hurried carpenter. All of them are in bags, jumbled together in sad piles of remains. 'Whoever they are, they have been desecrated in their death. No one should ever treat the dead like this,' said Sgt Simon Brain, a veteran of tours in Bosnia, who has seen places in the Balkans that look similar to this. 'That is in two countries now that I have seen mass graves,' he added with a shake of his head. There are signs of torture too. Outside the warehouse stands a wall. It is dotted in the centre with a spray of bullet holes. Nearly all of them are at head height. There is a ditch behind it. If anyone was shot against the wall, their blood would have drained cleanly away. In another warehouse, a dozen tiny concrete cells have been built of breeze blocks inside the hangar. In some of them, portraits of Saddam Hussein stare from the grey walls. In several, an iron pole has been hung from the roof. Dangling from it are cruel, rusting metal hooks. They are ideal torture chambers. 'We can't speculate on what this is until an investigation,' a British military spokesman said. But one officer, speaking privately and looking in shock at the warehouse, was more blunt. 'Just look at those photos. Look at this place. 'People were being tortured and executed here,' he said. The warehouse has now been declared off limits after being discovered by British soldiers of the Third Regiment of the Royal Horse Artillery yesterday morning. An investigation is now to be launched into exactly who lies in the coffins. War crimes investigators have been alerted to the discovery and the building sealed off and guarded. Though it is hard to imagine who would want to go inside. The warehouse lies on a sprawling and abandoned military base on the outskirts of Az Zubayr, a small town near Basra. Nobody lives nearby. It can only be reached by travelling on rough and pitted mud causeways that traverse a lunar landscape contaminated by oil leaks from nearby refineries. Multi-coloured slicks soak into the dust of the drained salt marshes as they bake in the midday sun. There is no sign of life apart from the stray dogs that swarm over this part of Iraq. The base itself is a mess. Most of the buildings have been trashed or looted and destroyed over the previous decade or so of war and sanctions. There are holes in many of the buildings and roofs missing from some of the barrack huts, yet the warehouse of bones was locked and intact. There is little doubt that the bones are at least several years old. No flesh remains on the long brown leg and arm bones or bits of rib. Only a few tufts of tough black hair lie scattered on the floor, where dogs have tugged at a few of the bags and spilled their grim contents on the unforgiving concrete. But there is no doubt the base was inhabited until only a few weeks ago. Among the buildings are Iraqi army shirts still in their bags, new gas mask respirators, signal huts for an artillery unit and maps with military drawings upon them. Yet the Iraqi soldiers who were living here were literally living beside the corpses of hundreds of people. Exactly who they were is so far a mystery. But there are a few clues. Some of the bags are made of plastic and inside them can be seen a few pieces of military equipment. The green belt of the Iraqi army is plainly visible in several of the sacks. Were they soldiers suspected of disloyalty in recent years? Were they Shia rebels from 1991, many of whom were in the army? More than 50,000 Shia were killed by the forces of Saddam Hussein in their doomed revolt. Are these some of their corpses? In most of the bags there is no trace of clothing. Just bones. In one sack a single photo lies. It is a simple ID card. On it a middle-aged man stares out. He has black hair, a long face and a drooping moustache. In life he would perhaps have looked pensive. But lying, half-covered by his own dusty remains, the man pictured within looks sad and forlorn. He looks regretful for the life stolen from him. A splotch of bloodstain on the corner of the card is reminder enough of the brutality of how all his hopes died. It is hard to stay in the warehouse long. In one corner, empty coffins are stacked four or five high. Whoever was doing this grim work was stopped before they finished their task. That is a small mercy but no respite for those already dead. Inside the hangar, the air is still and thick with dust. It hangs close around the clothes and almost makes one retch to think what is being breathed into the lungs of those who have ventured inside. It is a relief to leave such a charnel house. Outside, the sun is shining over southern Iraq. There is a stiff breeze that blows some of the bone dust away. But inside the horrors remain, testimony to the crimes of a regime that is itself now being killed. Yet these are not isolated horrors. Last night allegations of the torture and murder of dozens of children by Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party also came to light, with bodies discovered hanging from street lighting. The killings were carried out after the party headquarters in Basra was bombed last week, said some Iraqi women, one of whom's niece had been killed. Families believed to have been aiding coalition forces were targeted. Interpreter Vanessa Lough, formerly attached to the UN and based in Basra said: 'In one street alone they said three children could be seen hanging from the lamp posts, and around the corner one child lay burnt on the ground. 'The women said some of the children's bodies are now being held in the city's hospital mortuary.' Web report: Iraq http://www.sundayherald.com/32893
Many comments relevant to the discussion here of international law and sovereignty. In my completely unbiased and unprejudiced opinion, it's a great essay, and deserves to be read in full, and savored. Also happens to show, as if it needed to be shown, that not all European intellectuals have joined the crowd: âTHE STRANGE OVERTHROW OF AN ALLIANCEâ: ANDRÃ GLUCKSMANN EXCERPTS: translation at http://www.cinderellabloggerfeller.blogspot.com/
msfe seems to be a software program written by a few high school pranksters. It just cuts/pastes from extremely biased web sites in the attempt to pass the information on as facts. Most people here have given up on him as he doesn't engage in any constructive dialogue but rather just cuts and pastes. When he does get cornered (I spoke to him about the realities of a police state and the need for people to escape from it) he parrots Baath party vitriol like 'bloodthirsty merceneries killing women and children'. It seems the program is a third generation neural net capable of some rudimentary 'learning'.
Long Shot, do the words weapons - of - mass - destruction mean anything to you? That is the reason why your there, so let's not lose sight of that.