Topic: The Struggle (Read 4909 times)

Dannyboy · « **Reply #20 on:** April 28, 2006, 10:24:18 AM »

Johnnyjohnny,

Yeah i couldn't get that link to work either (hence my ignorance of the exact motives of the activists - it wasn't just laziness, honest guv'). No worries.

The quickest way to get America out of Iraq is to stop blowing people up and participate in the political process.

"Recognise the circularity. An Iraqi might say, 'The quickest way to get us to stop blowing people up is to get out of Iraq and stop interfering with our political process'."

But of course, my statement was a true statement while this one is false.

i would say that they are both true from the ideological/political perspectives from which they were uttered, but that both ignore their respective responsibilities for the circle of violence in Iraq. You don't accept any such responsibility on behalf of the American forces, but why would you?

The insurgents also disown their responsibilities for the violence. The invading Americans forced us to do this... The terrorist actions of the insurgents meant that we had to respond in that way... Blah. Blah. Blah.

The purpose of the insurgents is fairly clear, really. They don't merely want the Americans out, they want them out humiliated.

Aren't you asking a bit much for these people to be rational on this issue when America and Britain have been either bombing or starving them for the last fifteen years? Yeah yeah, i know you don't accept any responsibility for the effects of sanctions (which i consider to be wilfully self-delusional, but there we are), but wherever the fault for them actually lies (and i'll pretend to be agnostic on the issue for a moment for the sake of argument) most Iraqis believe that America and Britain were to blame, so them wanting us not only out but also humiliated becomes slightly more understandable doesnt it.

For years the liberal media has been worried about 'a civil war' but there wasn't any sign of that. So, now insurgents (you cannot be so certain that they are actually Iraqis, my friend. certainly some are, but be fair), who are not stupid, are trying to set Iraqi against Iraqi. They are getting their cues from the liberal media.

It's about time i properly challenged this view of the 'liberal media', which in my opinion is totally bogus. You realise, don't you, that the world is increasingly dominated by large multi-national companies driven by profit rather than ethical considerations, with a great amount of influence on supposedly democratic governments through the enormous campaign contributions they make on condition of promised support for their own ends, and who also own virtually all the media. On that basis, how frikkin' likely is it that that same media will report the full extent of either the corporations or our governments crimes? Not very, i would suggest. Even the 'independent' news outlets not under the heel of Murdoch or someone like him are heavily dependent (for up to 75% of their profits in some cases) on advertising by, ultimately, the same multi-national companies. Increasingly the only free media is on the internet, which is less susceptable to influence by the creatures of power (for the moment). On the basis of that, i have to conclude that a) what you refer to as the 'liberal media' is actually just the lighter shades of the almost uniformly conservative media, and b) you're an idiot.

Heheh

Also, as for your doubt that 'anyone that mattered' had ever suggested that we would be welcomed in Iraq, a very quick Google found this:

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/bush/cheneymeetthepress.htm

"I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators" - Dick Cheney.

Cheers,

Dan

Yankee · « **Reply #21 on:** May 11, 2006, 02:40:24 AM »

The purpose of the insurgents is fairly clear, really. They don't merely want the Americans out, they want them out humiliated.

Aren't you asking a bit much for these people to be rational on this issue when America and Britain have been either bombing or starving them for the last fifteen years? Yeah yeah, i know you don't accept any responsibility for the effects of sanctions (which i consider to be wilfully self-delusional, but there we are), but wherever the fault for them actually lies (and i'll pretend to be agnostic on the issue for a moment for the sake of argument) most Iraqis believe that America and Britain were to blame, so them wanting us not only out but also humiliated becomes slightly more understandable doesnt it. [Quote:Dannyboy]

Dan, I don't even begin to understand how you can feel that we are responsible for every thing that's wrong in every country in the world. Do you know what happens when we send food, medicine, and equipment to other countries? How much of it do you think gets to the people who need it? What dictator has not set up bank accounts of billions of dollars outside his country? Billions of our money! And d--ned well sent with good intentions despite envious minds looking for something to castigate us with. Before there were sanctions in Iraq, how much aid do you think filtered down to the people? Don't you think that Saddam Hussein used propaganda to present a pitiful picture to the world.

If they couldn't raise enough food in their own country to feed the population, don't you think that they could have figured that they were having too many babies? Why should we put people in a position of procreating at an even faster rate when they are too stupid to do anything but produce offspring and whine for someone else to take care of them. When you say that we are responsible for taking care of other races, you are actually saying that those people have not come far enough in the evolutionary process to take care of themselves. That's baloney!

If England were invaded, would you go around killing other Englishmen to hurt the enemy? Talk about cutting your own nose off to spite someone else's face!! Do you actually believe that you could reason with someone that fanatical? If they kill their own so easily, do you think they could possibly have friendly feelings towards anyone else, ever? There is room for just one at the top of their ladder, and what is happening is that far too many of them want to be that one, so they are killing each other. Actually, the only thing it has to do with us is that we opened the space on the top rung. Beyond that, we are just spectators at a show that they would have with or without us.

Dannyboy · « **Reply #22 on:** May 11, 2006, 04:20:41 AM »

Yankee,

i don't really want to shift a futile debate over to another thread just because we've abandoned the first one. However, i equally can't quite bring myself to leave all these misrepresentations and half-truths lying here unanswered. So:

I don't even begin to understand how you can feel that we are responsible for every thing that's wrong in every country in the world.

i haven't said this and i don't think it. As i have said already, people do have to take responsibility for what goes on in their backyard. However, if (just as a for instance) we send a force of hundreds of thousands of troops to invade and occupy a country, remove its government and install a new one, i would consider it pretty dumb to suggest that we have no responsibility for what subsequently happens there.

Do you know what happens when we send food, medicine, and equipment to other countries? How much of it do you think gets to the people who need it?

In many cases, not much i'm sure. However, in the case of the Iraqi Oil-for-food program (which i suspect is what you are referring to) the aid was administered direct by the UN, and the testimony of the officials in charge of it (some of whom later resigned in protest at the brutality of the sanctions regime) is that what aid there was went directly to the citizens of Iraq. Hans Von Sponeck and Denis Halliday are the ones i'm thinking of primarily. Their take on it, and as the people who actually ran the program i feel they would have a clearer understanding than you or i, is that the deficiencies in the aid system were at the UN end of things, where powerful countries (primarily the US and Britain) threw endless spanners in the works by vetoing essential items of aid on the grounds that they might be dual-purpose. These things included bandages, syringes, ECG and X-Ray equipment...

Before there were sanctions in Iraq, how much aid do you think filtered down to the people?

i don't know, but i can compare the mortality figures fine:

"The surveys reveal that in the south and center of Iraq -- home to 85 per cent of the country's population -- under-5 mortality more than doubled from 56 deaths per 1000 live births (1984-1989) to 131 deaths per 1000 live births (1994-1999). Likewise infant mortality -- defined as the death of children in their first year -- increased from 47 per 1000 live births to 108 per 1000 live births within the same time frame."

From here - http://www.unicef.org/newsline/99pr29.htm

(To put this into context, by the way, Japan's infant mortality rate is 4.5 per 1,000 live births.)

Unicef also reported that, by comparison with pre-sanctions Iraq, there had been 90,000 more deaths per year during the sanctions period. What is the explanation for this?

Don't you think that Saddam Hussein used propaganda to present a pitiful picture to the world.

Yes, i'm sure he did. But it isn't just nasty dictators that use propaganda you know. Our governments do it too, and you sure swallowed yours.

Why should we put people in a position of procreating at an even faster rate when they are too stupid to do anything but produce offspring and whine for someone else to take care of them.

Sure, sure. Hey, lucky we helped them out by killing off all their surplus children eh?

When you say that we are responsible for taking care of other races, you are actually saying that those people have not come far enough in the evolutionary process to take care of themselves. That's baloney!

'Other races' Jeez Yankee, are you even reading this back?

Do you actually believe that you could reason with someone that fanatical?

Who are you even talking about? The insurgents, or are all Iraqis insurgents to you?

It's all very depressing. Why not widen your perspective a bit? Talk to Harry (who has actually been to Iraq) and ask him if every Muslim he meets there is a terrorist.

In fact, go have this whole conversation with him. You might find a bit more common ground there (at least on your views on immigration) and learn something in the process.

Anthony Horvath · « **Reply #23 on:** May 11, 2006, 06:52:39 AM »

I forgot about this thread.

Heretic · « **Reply #24 on:** May 11, 2006, 06:59:59 AM »

"Been to"?! Hell, I'm still here!!

Most assured all Iraqis are not terrorists. I would even go as far to say I consider a few of them very good friends and hope to remain in contact with and continue the friendships long after I decide to return home. And if the day ever comes that Iraq becomes like the U.A.E. and is a safe place, I'd love to return here to visit my friends in their homes or maybe one day have them visit in mine. Hopefully. If their fellow countrymen don't blow them up first.

It would be great news to me to hear that they were immigrating to the U.S. LEGALLY immigrating.

Anthony Horvath · « **Reply #25 on:** May 11, 2006, 07:02:12 AM »

I was wondering how long it would take you to call me on the liberal media stuff. There is just one problem with your analysis: owned by whomever, it is RUN by liberals. The field attracts them. Perhaps, more importantly, the field attracts very AMBITIOUS ones. I have personal experience on that matter.

Anyway,

Quote

Also, as for your doubt that 'anyone that mattered' had ever suggested that we would be welcomed in Iraq, a very quick Google found this:

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/bush/cheneymeetthepress.htm

"I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators" - Dick Cheney.

Very good. Now, let's think about this. Liberated from WHOM?

SML · « **Reply #26 on:** May 11, 2006, 09:05:06 AM »

Quote from: sntjohnny

Maj, you strike me as someone who might be of a conservative bent. Did you expect the war to be easy and for the US to be universally accepted?

Sorry, I somehow missed this. Conservative? Me? Why, of course!

On the war... Heck no! I did not expect for a moment that this war would be easy or completely over once Saddam had been removed. I also did not expect for a moment for the world to fall down at our feet in awe. Especially the radical Islamic countries who have a vested interest in Iraq NOT working - their people are opressed, too, after all. If Iraq succeeds and its people become peaceful and free, then they will have to deal with their own people.

A moment of history...
When we defeated Germany, we occupied it and made it an independent and free nation (I don't consider our military base there to be continued occupation and I don't think there is a viable case for such a statement). Right after the war, we had similar reports about how we were losing in Germany. There were terrorist attacks, our soldiers died, innocents died, etc. Oh, woe is me, said the press, we're losing, we should leave... Yeah, and let Germany become true anarchy? Let Germany reorganize into a third militaristic machine which seeks to take over its neighbors? Duh! Of course, we had level-headed people in charge, so we stayed and finished the job. It took a long time. The mindset of a whole people had to be altered. That takes time.

Iraq is like that. Some people want freedom and equality. Some want to hold their neighbors under their thumbs and live a life of relative opulence. Some people are coming in from surrounding countries to stir up the place (remember, vested interest in chaos). I don't know how long it will take. I suspect a full generation. If we continue to stick around, then the ones who want freedom and equality will win out in the end. I am fully confident of it. Now, will they be our good allies in the end? Do the Germans really qualify as 'good' allies? Well, at least as good as the French

. I can live with having a little resentment from a people if they are a free people.

Yankee · « **Reply #27 on:** May 11, 2006, 11:08:30 PM »

Quote from: Dannyboy

Yankee,

i don't really want to shift a futile debate over to another thread just because we've abandoned the first one. However, i equally can't quite bring myself to leave all these misrepresentations and half-truths lying here unanswered. So: [Quote:Dannyboy]

I had no intention of continuing the debate; I just can't let the last word be someone else's. Again, you are saying that the people in Third World countries are not intelligent enough to limit the number of children they produce to the amount of food they can produce by saying that WE are responsible for feeding those children. My saying that THEY should do that is putting the responsibility on them, right where it belongs. You are really reaching when you accuse me of wanting to kill the overflow. I just want them to use birth control. What? Oh, we can't expect poor, oppressed people to be responsible for any phase of their lives?? Bull puckies!

Well, if England were invaded, WOULD you kill other Englishmen to spite the invaders? It is really reaching to say that we are responsible for turning the Iraqis against each other. They had that agenda long before we arrived on the scene. We just gave them a chance to put it into action when we removed Saddam. And as for the Saudis being so friendly and peace loving, where do you think the 9/11 bombers came from?

While, at this point in time, I wouldn't give ten cents for our whole Congress, with the president thrown in for free, I would choose them over the U.N. The corruption there outstrips anything our guys can come up with. And it ain't the U.S. doing it.

And you are also reaching when you call me on using the word "races" to define other cultures. It is accepted that while there is the human race, it is also accepted that different colors are recognized as different races. It is not meant to demean, but to identify.

This can be our last post on this subject if you give it up. I will not allow someone to disparage my country without answering.

Dannyboy · « **Reply #28 on:** May 15, 2006, 06:59:22 AM »

I had no intention of continuing the debate; I just can't let the last word be someone else's.

No, i noticed that.

Again, you are saying that the people in Third World countries are not intelligent enough to limit the number of children they produce to the amount of food they can produce by saying that WE are responsible for feeding those children.

From someone who has repeatedly stated that people in the Third World are inherently incapable of a) understanding equality, b) limiting their population growth or c) forming a democratic government, this accusation is kind of ironic. i would just adore for you to produce a quote of mine which states that we are in any way responsible for doing anything other than clearing up our own mess. Please, feel free to show me up.

The breakdown in our communication on this subject is when i try to demonstrate to you the damage we have done in Third World countries (and which we therefore have some responsibility for), you either stick your fingers in your ears and say

'lalalalalalalaaaaa-can't-hear-you-cant-hear-you-lalalalala', or alternatively you just accuse me of anti-americanism. Whatever works i guess.

You are really reaching when you accuse me of wanting to kill the overflow. I just want them to use birth control.

Sorry, i must have misunderstood you when you said "What we did wrong was to interfere with nature in providing food and medical care to countries who didn't understand that when nature is subverted by giving people longer lives, that it must be balanced by a lower birth rate" [Fri Apr 28, 2006 3:46 am]. That sure sounds like you're saying we should have let some people die there. My bad.

Well, if England were invaded, WOULD you kill other Englishmen to spite the invaders?

No, i'd do the patriotic thing and kill the Scots and Irish instead.

Perhaps you can see that this isn't an entirely analagous situation to that in Iraq.

And as for the Saudis being so friendly and peace loving, where do you think the 9/11 bombers came from?

i don't remember suggesting that the Saudis were friendly and peace-loving, but again, your relentless desire to categorise people into large groups by their ethnicity (or 'race') is interfering with your logic. What you say here makes no more sense than someone saying "And as for Americans being so friendly and peace-loving, where do you think Timothy McVeigh came from?".

While, at this point in time, I wouldn't give ten cents for our whole Congress, with the president thrown in for free, I would choose them over the U.N. The corruption there outstrips anything our guys can come up with. And it ain't the U.S. doing it.

No counter-evidence provided. Statement of opinion. Lalalalalalalalalala-can't-hear-yoooouuuuu!

I will not allow someone to disparage my country without answering.

Sorry if i hurt your feelings. i think i'm done here, so please feel free to have the last word.

Dannyboy · « **Reply #29 on:** May 15, 2006, 07:06:32 AM »

"Been to"?! Hell, I'm still here!!

Sorry dude, i wasn't sure if you'd finished yet. i'll just reproduce the rest of what you said here in case it catches Yankee's attention.

Most assured all Iraqis are not terrorists. I would even go as far to say I consider a few of them very good friends and hope to remain in contact with and continue the friendships long after I decide to return home. And if the day ever comes that Iraq becomes like the U.A.E. and is a safe place, I'd love to return here to visit my friends in their homes or maybe one day have them visit in mine. Hopefully. If their fellow countrymen don't blow them up first.

It would be great news to me to hear that they were immigrating to the U.S. LEGALLY immigrating.

i agree that legal immigration would be preferrable.

Hey i'm still waiting for 'Harry does the Phillipines' by PM, by the way. C'mon, the anticipation is killing me!

Dan

Dannyboy · « **Reply #30 on:** May 16, 2006, 04:24:09 AM »

Johnny,

I was wondering how long it would take you to call me on the liberal media stuff. There is just one problem with your analysis: owned by whomever, it is RUN by liberals.

Rupert Murdoch? Seriously, your suggestion is that despite the fact that the owners of large media conglomerates having vested interests in keeping the news favourable to business and government interests (hard to separate the two really), they nevertheless employ and give free editorial reign to ambitious liberals. Doesn't strike me as particularly likely.

Also, you must admit your personal bias on this point. 'Liberal' and 'conservative' are not fixed positions, but just different ends of a continuum. They are relative values, is what i mean. As someone who is way over at the conservative end of the spectrum, it is quite possible that mainstream conservative views (nearer the middle than the end) will look pretty liberal from your perspective.

An example of this was how the BBC came under fire from all sides during the Iraq war - from the government for being anti-war, and from the anti-war movement for being pro-war. The Labour government (as you may know) launched a pretty devastating attack on the BBC over claims that the evidence for war had been 'sexed-up' by Downing Street, something that there is actually a pretty good case for, but studies have shown that in fact the BBC was the most pro-government news channel.

See here: http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/newsevents/5309.html

Ironically, i have seen the BBC (during that time) referred to contemptuously by people of a similar viewpoint to your own as the 'Baghdad Broadcasting Corporation', and at the same time by people on the anti-war side of the fence (and with rather more justification) as the 'Blair and Bush Corporation'. So, the liberalism of the media is clearly a very subjective matter.

I have personal experience on that matter.

Ok. Since you dont share it i can't really comment, but i don't think that your (possibly isolated) personal experience undermines my argument.

"I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators" - Dick Cheney.

Very good. Now, let's think about this. Liberated from WHOM?

Liberated from Saddam Hussein. What's your point?

Anthony Horvath · « **Reply #31 on:** May 16, 2006, 08:25:12 AM »

"Rupert Murdoch?"

Yea, he owns a lot, but he doesn't own it all, either.

"Seriously, your suggestion is that"

Of course, you have to admit that you've painted a false dichotomy. There is either COMPLETE CONTROL or FREE EDITORIAL REIGN? Those are our only two options? The field itself, management aside, attracts people of a certain sort. I can't say that I've researched it extensively, because I've seen enough to be skeptical of just about all news reports (yes, all), but I saw some headlines last year where various 'newsrooms' were polled and some 70% and higher reported that they voted with the democrats. I'm sure you could find these studies.

Now, is it YOUR suggestion that conservatives are genetically unable to NOT control information for its advantage, but liberal journalists are?!?!? Conservatives can't keep their bias out, but liberals can? And yet, regardless of how you answer that, you could argue that well of course the liberals have the same predisposition to represent information in a way favorable to 'their side,' and yet they don't.... and why not? Afraid? Chicken? Is it your view that liberal journalists are cowards? How else is it that they are unable to keep their perspective from seeping into coverage????!?!?

I think my bias allows the liberals at least some backbone and integrity, which I'm not sure we could admit by playing things your way.

"An example of this was how the BBC came under fire from all sides during the Iraq war"

Murdoch's big "Fox News," which of course is supposed to be hell-bent conservative, has a personality named Bill O'Reilly. Bill also came under fire from all sides, and continues to. I don't suppose this speaks as well of O'Reilly and Murdoch's Fox News as you seem to think it speaks for the BBC.

"The Labour government (as you may know) launched a pretty devastating attack on the BBC over claims that the evidence for war had been 'sexed-up' by Downing Street,"

Of course I heard about this. Don't you know sex sells?

"Ok. Since you dont share it i can't really comment, but i don't think that your (possibly isolated) personal experience undermines my argument."

Its easier to tell in person. You and I are apparently going to have a showdown in person so we'll have to save it, I guess. However, in its place, let me submit another personal experience that is easier to communicate. My wife watches the morning news before going off to work. Of the three options, she prefers one because it doesn't seem to have as much slant. But it still has slant. So she emailed the station manager and first complimented them on being less slanted and then complained that they were still slanted.

To her surprise, the station manager replied, and agreed. He's the station manager! And what's the problem, then? The problem is that this local station relies on the national network, and the AP in particular. They can't afford to get their own stories. (I found this nifty little website which seems to contain quite a bit of raw material for you to make up your own mind with... heh http://www.thatliberalmedia.com/ browse to the AP).

Now, you are right to point out that there is a lot of subjectivity in this. For one thing, if you were to go up to the average newsroom and take an anonymous poll, I'd be willing to wager that many of the journalists would SELF-identify themselves as being centrists. HA! They THINK they are the center. Now, if you were going to try to objectify your definitions and APPLY those definitions, it becomes pretty clear where they stand. I'm speaking specifically of the national press.

I am aware of a study which tried to dismiss the 'liberal media' sop by interviewing the journalists themselves... ugh.. what do we expect them to say? and others which defined the label and then applied it... with different results.

This is all sidebar, isn't it? Back to the meat:

Quote

"I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators" - Dick Cheney.

""Very good. Now, let's think about this. Liberated from WHOM?""

"Liberated from Saddam Hussein. What's your point?"

Oh, so Saddam Hussein was running around scaring people? On any given night, Mr. Hussein could be found jumping out from underneath childrens' beds? It was Saddam who dragged families off and dumped the men, alive, into meat grinding machines while other members of the family watched. What is that, mom? Its a bird! Its a plane! No, its SuperHussein!

Liberated from who, Dannyboy?

Dannyboy · « **Reply #32 on:** May 18, 2006, 09:01:36 AM »

SntJ.

Very interesting. The 'side bar' as you call it is engulfing the whole thread, but i can't leave it alone just yet.

Of course, you have to admit that you've painted a false dichotomy. There is either COMPLETE CONTROL or FREE EDITORIAL REIGN? Those are our only two options?

Well, half of that dichotomy is yours, because i'm not arguing that there is 'complete control', but still, i admit to my responsibility for the other half.

Ok, so a majority of journalists identify themselves as being 'liberal', or of voting democrat (which is not necessarily the same thing). Does that mean they are? i have to admit my own bias here of course, i am at the polar opposite end of the conservative/liberal spectrum to you, pretty much, so a lot of centrist stuff is going to look pretty conservative to me. However, i guess one of the things i am trying to say here is that with the control and influence that big business exerts on the media, the term 'centrist' is a misleading one, because i suspect it has actually shifted considerably your way.

Now, is it YOUR suggestion that conservatives are genetically unable to NOT control information for its advantage, but liberal journalists are?!?!?

No, it is my suggestion that liberal journalists (who are not necessarily the ones who identify themselves as such) are less likely to be employed by major news outlets because of the trouble that their reporting would cause with the higher management. There is bias on both sides, it is the editorial influence which makes the difference.

Is it your view that liberal journalists are cowards? How else is it that they are unable to keep their perspective from seeping into coverage????!?!?

Hell no, check out any alternative media website (which lacks the corporate control aspect) and you'll see plenty of liberal media bias. i don't see much of it in mainstream news however, because the editorial emphasis is directed at not biting the hand that feeds it.

Murdoch's big "Fox News," which of course is supposed to be hell-bent conservative, has a personality named Bill O'Reilly. Bill also came under fire from all sides, and continues to. I don't suppose this speaks as well of O'Reilly and Murdoch's Fox News as you seem to think it speaks for the BBC.

i'm not sure that it speaks either well or badly of the BBC (which i have a certain nostalgic fondness for, but tend not to watch these days), but what you say only illustrates the point again - 'liberal' and 'conservative' are relative values. The way we could precisely quantify a media outlet's bias would be to balance the number of times they question the statements of government spokesmen vs the number of times they blindly accept them. This would be one way anyway.

i suspect that by that measure Fox News would be shown to be far further down the conservative spectrum than the BBC - more widely regarded as being liberal, but still demonstrably slanted towards the authority line. That's what i mean about a mid-line shift.

Don't you know sex sells?

i did hear that. So do many other things (depending on the exact audience), including God, rampant patriotism and mindless zenophobia. Ah, Fox...

You and I are apparently going to have a showdown in person so we'll have to save it, I guess.

Hurrah!

For one thing, if you were to go up to the average newsroom and take an anonymous poll, I'd be willing to wager that many of the journalists would SELF-identify themselves as being centrists. HA! They THINK they are the center. Now, if you were going to try to objectify your definitions and APPLY those definitions, it becomes pretty clear where they stand. I'm speaking specifically of the national press.

It's not quite clear to me what you mean here, but i suspect it's the mirror opposite of my position that although they may think they're centrists they are actually slanted in the main towards the conservative view by the vested interests of the big businesses which pay their salary. We may (again) have to agree to disagree here.

Oh, so Saddam Hussein was running around scaring people? On any given night, Mr. Hussein could be found jumping out from underneath childrens' beds? It was Saddam who dragged families off and dumped the men, alive, into meat grinding machines while other members of the family watched. What is that, mom? Its a bird! Its a plane! No, its SuperHussein!

Liberated from who, Dannyboy?

Funny man. i take you to mean that the main perpetrators of Saddam's crimes were ordinary Iraqis who are now at the root of the insurgency. We could argue about that without any great effect, because however much influence foreign fighters and previously anti-Saddam Iraqis are having on the process we could never conclusively demonstrate it either way.

What interests me is how this relates to the point, which was that there was a genuine feeling from the Coalition governments that we would be welcome, and we aint. Now in some ways, that relates to the conduct of our troops in Iraq, but i doubt that is a major factor. What do you think?

Anthony Horvath · « **Reply #33 on:** May 18, 2006, 10:32:39 AM »

"We may (again) have to agree to disagree here."

I can live with that. I didn't see much in your post that requires further comment. If its really important that we nail it down scientifically, we can in a different thread. But I was thinking of our conversation last night while listening to NPR. (National Public Radio). They think they are fair and balanced and 'centrist.' For some reason though... in a country where the majority of the population voted for Bush... all of their guests are critical of Bush and all of their callers heap it on too. I mean ALL. They can't get even a SINGLE pro-Busher in a country where Rush Limbaugh has 20 million listeners all on his own? Anyway, I had a good chuckle in light of our conversation.

""Liberated from who, Dannyboy?""

"i take you to mean that the main perpetrators of Saddam's crimes were ordinary Iraqis who are now at the root of the insurgency"

lol, no. In fact, its quite the opposite. We call them Baathists!

I wonder why you would think that the ordinary Iraqis needed to be liberated from themselves....

"What interests me is how this relates to the point, which was that there was a genuine feeling from the Coalition governments that we would be welcome, and we aint."

Yes, I was interested in how it relates to the point, too. We were welcomed as liberators... FROM THE BAATHISTS. That hasn't changed. So, you went out and got a great quote, and insofar as it is from a meaningful person, it only indicates that there was a feeling we'd be welcomed as liberators from Hussein and the BAATHISTS.

I mean, gosh, Dannyboy, you didn't think the Baathists would welcome us, did you?

Do you think these were among those Cheney was referencing?

Now, I never thought or expected that those who had formerly been in power would simply go away gracefully into the night. Obviously one hopes for such things, but you certainly can't plan on it, and I know I didn't. As a student of history, its clear you can't plan on such things. In fact, one of the major factors contributing to this problem was the unexpected full fledged collapse of the Iraqi army and the immediate burrowing of these Baathists.

Please don't tell me that you think our respective militaries should be expected to have battle plans filed for how to handle wars where the other side completely gives up in three weeks.

Now, its clear to me that the IRAQI people involved in the insurgency Sunni minority worried about what will happen when the tables are turned in a democracy where the Shia are the majority, or are former Baathists in particular. Add to that the foreigners coming in, and that seems to be a fair overview of who the insurgents are.

The above are the ones the Iraqis DID welcome liberation from. As I recall, Heretic can corroborate this for us based on his experience in Iraq.

On the other side are the nationalistic Iraqis who we might think are just torqued to have outsiders present, in principle, and not necessarily from Islamic principle. These would be the Anti-Sodomites.. excuse me Anti-Saddamites... like Al Sadr. However, the evidence seems to suggest to me that these people are in fact joining into the political process. Sadr certainly has, and he commanded quite a large faction and still does. Sadr came aboard a long time ago. More than a year, at least.

Any insurgency consisting of this this more 'noble' Iraqi can only reasonably be seen as a very small minority within the larger insurgency, if in fact, it exists at all. Suicide bombers would be operating almost certainly from the Islamic (ie, foreign terrorist Al Qaeda type) principle that Iraq is a MUSLIM country, as opposed to a nationalist interested in Iraq's sovereignty. I am unaware of any evidence that simple sovereignty concerns are generating SUICIDE BOMBERS.

That means that we are left with an insurgency that no one in their right mind would have ever expected to have 'welcomed' us as 'liberators.'

Certainly, I never did, and many conservatives I know never did (you'll note that Maj chimed in similarly), which leaves the question remaining... why would anyone EVER have thought that?

The charge seems to be invented, to me.

Dannyboy · « **Reply #34 on:** May 22, 2006, 07:11:33 AM »

Johnny,

i don't find much to disagree with in your post - the exact ratio of angry disenfranchised baathists to Iraqis with a genuine beef with the occupying powers (such as a friend or relative killed by cluster bombing civilian areas) in the insurgency is not something we can profitably debate as no studies, that i'm aware of, exist to support either position. However, i still struggling to find your point relevant to what i said (many moons ago now) about the Coallition governments giving the impression that we would be welcome.

"i take you to mean that the main perpetrators of Saddam's crimes were ordinary Iraqis who are now at the root of the insurgency"

lol, no. In fact, its quite the opposite. We call them Baathists!

I wonder why you would think that the ordinary Iraqis needed to be liberated from themselves....

This is a diversion. You are retrospectively adding qualifications to statements made several years ago and acting like it's just obvious that that is what they really meant. The issue is what impression was given at the time, and whether or not Messrs Cheney, Bush and Blair thought that three years on we'd still be fighting to maintain any semblence of order in newly 'liberated' Iraq, the point is that they didn't say so.

I mean, gosh, Dannyboy, you didn't think the Baathists would welcome us, did you? Do you think these were among those Cheney was referencing?

Since he made none of the qualifications that you are attributing to him, then i have to assume that they were, and anyone watching him at the time would have been justified in thinking the same. He didn't say 'We will be welcomed as liberators,..except by Baathists, Militant Islamists, Sunni Muslims, Nationalists and people whose relatives we accidentally blow up on our way to Baghdad'.

The point that i was making (so long ago now) was that we were led to believe, as part of the pre-war propaganda by our governments, that Invading and occupying Iraq would be a 'Cake-walk' (Ken Adelman said that, incidentally). Cheney said we'd be gretted as liberators - just that, no further qualifications or 'ifs' or 'buts'. Wolfowitz suggested the same thing. This is what they had to do, of course, to sell the war - apart from all the scare-tactic stuff about what a great threat a massively impoverished and fundamentally disarmed Third World country was to the world's greatest superpower, and the wilfully mendatious morally-hollow cr*p about links to Al-Qaeda. Selling the death and mutilation of hundreds of thousands of people is a dirty business, and if all the horror stories and appeals to misguided vengence don't quite lift the approval ratings high enough then where's the harm in suggesting that it'll be easy? A piece of cake.

They're still doing it now. Listen to Blair or Bush on Iraq and you'd get the impression that it wasn't on the verge of collapsing into sectarian violence. Gotta keep it upbeat.

i just love this one: "The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they

cimics · « **Reply #35 on:** May 22, 2006, 07:57:50 AM »

Quote

As a student of history, its clear you can't plan on such things. In fact, one of the major factors contributing to this problem was the unexpected full fledged collapse of the Iraqi army and the immediate burrowing of these Baathists.

Please don't tell me that you think our respective militaries should be expected to have battle plans filed for how to handle wars where the other side completely gives up in three weeks.

But wasn't that actually Rumsfeld's battle plan? From what I have read, the smallness of the fighting force and the lack of logistical support was doable precisely because the enemy cut-and-run (AND our soldiers were very inventive in the face of this inadequate support).

So, if the battle plan was built on the enemy cutting and running, then why didn't Rumsfeld anticipate that the Baathists would go underground? With the army collapsing all around them (which Rumsfeld's strategy assumed), what else would one expect them to do?

Author Topic: The Struggle (Read 4909 times)