Re: Change without war (was something else)
--- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thu, 7 Apr 2005 22:40:04 -0700 (PDT), Gautam Mukunda wrote ... virtually no one thought that inspections were working _before_ the war. No one? No one? What is your definition of working here? Certainly no one saw Saddam stepping down immediately and no one thought he was particularly cooperative, but are those the only measures that inspections are working? Yes. Almost no one I am aware of in a professional capacity thought that the Iraqis had been disarmed. There was not _one_ intelligence service in the world that thought the Iraqis had been successfully disarmed by the inspections. German intelligence thought they were farther along in weapons development than we did, and the Germans _opposed_ the war. Different in a way that matters? India was being run by a group of elites who mistreated and took advantage of the majority of people. Those people were British, rather than locals, but how does that make the situation significantly different from Iraq? Why couldn't the same justifications for the Iraq war have applied to India? Yes, extremely different in a way that matters. The British had an option in India. They could _give up and go home_. They were, in the end, okay with that. Exactly how was Saddam Hussein supposed to do that? South Africa reformed under F.W. De Klerk. Are you saying that it was led by De Klerk? Seems to me that without Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, De Klerk wouldn't have budged. Are you saying that this was an example of an oppressive leadership leading itself out of power? No, I'm saying it's an example of an oppressive leadership that was willing to give up power. De Klerk was. If P.W. Botha had stayed in power, Mandela would have stayed in jail. The white South African government had the military capacity to remain in power. What it lacked was the ruthlessness to do so. Saddam Hussein does not lack for ruthlessness. Neither of these regimes had much in common with Saddam Hussein's. What are you saying? That the British in India were much nicer than Saddam, and apartheid was nicer than Saddam, thus war was the only answer in Iraq because he was a nastier guy? Are you open to the idea that these changes came about without war because of the nature of the leaders of the peaceful revolutions? If the Brits were nastier, do you think Gandhi would have failed? They got pretty nasty, didn't they? Same for the white minority in South Africa. Yes, because I know something about the revolutions in India and South Africa. If you think Gandhi's tactics would have worked against, say, the Japanese, Germans, French, or Belgians, you're just deluding yourself. There's no way in hell. Gandhi could have laid down in front of all the railroad tracks he wanted, and the Germans would have just kept them right on running. If the Brits were nastier, _Gandhi_ would have failed, yes. Nehru might have led a violent revolution that would eventually have succeeded, at horrifying cost. But the British were facing thousands of Indians for every one of their people from thousands of miles away. Saddam Hussein was at home, with a massive army and secret police apparatus and non-trivial support from large segments of the population. Hitler wasn't overthrown by peaceful methods, and Hussein's control over Iraqi society probably exceeded Hitler's over German society. It seems that you look at the oppressors and say they're too powerful to take down without war, while I'm looking at the liberators and saying they're too powerful to be resisted. No empire has ever survived and they're usually brought down by their own arrogance, despite superior military strength. No, I'm saying that I'm looking at history, while you're just making statements unsupported by fact. Your last sentence is either true but trivial (if you're talking about timespans of centuries) or simply wrong. No empire has ever survived? Well, nothing lasts _forever_. But the British empire lasted for two centuries, the Roman empire for considerably longer. The Ottoman Empire for centuries. The Spanish ruled Latin America and most of South America from the 1500s into the 1800s. The Chinese empire and the current Chinese state are roughly coterminous, as are the Czarist empire and the modern Russian state. Empires last a _long_ time. I don't really expect to be alive two centuries from now, so waiting that long for Ba'athist Iraq to fall doesn't seem like a cost-free option. Are you saying that you hear me using make-believe arguments? Yes, absolutely. Like in Korea? What is the historical parallel for such a police action? Can you provide _one_ example of such a thing ever occurring? Congo, Cyprus, Lebanon, Haiti, Yougoslavia, Cambodia, Mozambique, and even Somalia... with varying degrees of success, of course. Cambodia - you mean where
Re: The Other Christianity (was Re: Babble theory, and comments)
On Fri, 8 Apr 2005 20:45:22 -0700, Warren Ockrassa wrote There's a big difference between a young woman and a virgin. More with some than with others... Sound of Dave getting slapped. Dave ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Other Christianity (was Re: Babble theory, and comments)
--- Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Apr 7, 2005, at 3:01 PM, Gautam Mukunda wrote: Substantial long-term support for the internal opposition to Hussein would have been a third say: neither going to war nor leaving him in power. At the very least, we would have avoided being seen and opposed as occupiers, and at the best, we might have been credited with having uplifted the Iraqis. Dave What internal opposition? I don't know what the figure for Iraq was, but I can tell you that in East Germany (a far less violent state, in day-to-day affairs, than Saddam's Iraq) _one-third of the population_ was informing for the Stasi. Every person of any significance in Saddam's Iraq was regularly approached by secret police operatives trying to get them to agree to oppose the regime. Saddam Hussein ran a totalitarian regime modeled on Stalin's Russia. If you posed any threat to the regime, you were monitored, imprisoned, or (most often) just killed. We saw in 1991 what happened to people who tried to revolt against Saddam. What do you think are the odds that anyone in Iraq was going to try that again? Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Other Christianity (was Re: Babble theory, and comments)
--- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thu, 7 Apr 2005 22:28:38 -0700 (PDT), Gautam Mukunda wrote What you are talking about is a slow and uncertain process. Compared to what? The speedy and certain process underway in Iraq??? Nick Relative to the two hundred year fall of Rome? Well, yes, definitely. Just because Nick Arnett wants something to be true, it isn't necessarily so. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Other Christianity (was Re: Babble theory, and comments)
At 02:18 AM Saturday 4/9/2005, Dave Land wrote: On Fri, 8 Apr 2005 20:45:22 -0700, Warren Ockrassa wrote There's a big difference between a young woman and a virgin. More with some than with others... Sound of Dave getting slapped. Dave I was tempted to respond but managed to resist . . . --Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Change without war (was something else)
On Sat, 9 Apr 2005 00:10:57 -0700 (PDT), Gautam Mukunda wrote Yes. Almost no one I am aware of in a professional capacity thought that the Iraqis had been disarmed. There was not _one_ intelligence service in the world that thought the Iraqis had been successfully disarmed by the inspections. German intelligence thought they were farther along in weapons development than we did, and the Germans _opposed_ the war. I was talking about him immediately stepping down or cooperating with the inspections. I find it hard to have a conversation when the subject changes so abruptly. Yes, extremely different in a way that matters. The British had an option in India. They could _give up and go home_. They were, in the end, okay with that. Exactly how was Saddam Hussein supposed to do that? I'm feeling rather frustrated to even hear that question. He could also have given up, of course. What's different, that his home is in the same country? So what? A tyrant is a tyrant whether it is a nation or an individual, whether it was born locally or invaded from abroad. No, I'm saying it's an example of an oppressive leadership that was willing to give up power. De Klerk was. If P.W. Botha had stayed in power, Mandela would have stayed in jail. The white South African government had the military capacity to remain in power. What it lacked was the ruthlessness to do so. Saddam Hussein does not lack for ruthlessness. Yes, the leadership changed. Without war. That's the point! Yes, because I know something about the revolutions in India and South Africa. If you think Gandhi's tactics would have worked against, say, the Japanese, Germans, French, or Belgians, you're just deluding yourself. There's no way in hell. Gandhi could have laid down in front of all the railroad tracks he wanted, and the Germans would have just kept them right on running. If he were just one man, surely. If the German people were behind him, as so many in India were? The difference is not in the nastiness of the despots, it is in the people who stood against them. There has never been a tyrant who could stand up to the united will of a people, if only because endless murder eventually destroys the empire itself. No, I'm saying that I'm looking at history, while you're just making statements unsupported by fact. It is a fact that in India and South Africa, peaceful revolutions happened. Are you saying that you hear me using make-believe arguments? Yes, absolutely. How very disrepectful. Cambodia - you mean where Pol Pot killed a third of the population? The Congo, where one of the worst civil wars in history has been fought over the last few decades? Cyprus, which is still bitterly divided? Yugoslavia, where massive ethnic cleansing resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilians displaced, tens of thousands killed, and _two_ wars fought by the United States? Somalia, which was rescued from starvation by American power only to descend into anarchy when we left? These are your examples of _good_ policies? For God's sake, what's a failed policy? In fact, in your list, the only two cases of regime change in which outside forces played a major role are Serbia (two wars by the United States) and Cambodia (an invasion by Vietnam). So _your own examples_ suggest that war is the only way to do it. Because we see in Iraq that many fewer people are being killed and peace is coming about so much faster? Hah. Besides, I'm not arguing that we did things better in the past. I believe that in a world of nuclear weapons and advanced non-nuclear killing technology, terrorists and guerillas, the ways we've been handling these situations are horribly inadequate. There are no easy answers, but I don't even hear anyone in political power talking about making the effort to find new ways to seek peace and justice. Instead, Pax Americana seems to be based on frightening, intimidating and ultimately bombing and shooting our way to peace. As long as anybody in the world is insecure, so are we, which is why a peace based on fear is always an illusion. Hope is not a method, as I beieve I've said before. What is your point? Are you under the impression that I am suggesting that if we all sit around *hoping* really, really hard, doing nothing, conflicts will vanish? Peaceful regime change is a rare bird And what are we doing to make it *less* rare? It seems clear to me that addressing poverty and injustice will have just that effect. Yet even here in our country, one in six children lives in poverty, which is as big a threat to peace as one might find. Nick ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Black holes 'do not exist'
- Original Message - From: Julia Thompson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Friday, April 08, 2005 11:37 PM Subject: Re: Black holes 'do not exist' Robert G. Seeberger wrote: http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050328/pf/050328-8_pf.html Black holes are staples of science fiction and many think astronomers have observed them indirectly. But according to a physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, these awesome breaches in space-time do not and indeed cannot exist. Thank you for posting this. I came across it a couple of days ago It wasn't Amy Harlib by any chance? and meant to post something, so as to ask those better versed in physics what they had to say about it. Anyone? :) HA Those cowards have been asked twice to comment but have retreated to the safety of politics threads. G xponent Dark Star, I See You In The Morning Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Other Christianity (was Re: Babble theory, and comments)
- Original Message - From: Warren Ockrassa [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Friday, April 08, 2005 10:45 PM Subject: Re: The Other Christianity (was Re: Babble theory, and comments) On Apr 8, 2005, at 6:19 PM, Robert Seeberger wrote: Warren Ockrassa wrote: Sigh. Reproduction via union of sperm and egg is sex. It's not meaningful to speak of an asexual pregnancy, and it's impossible for artificial insemination techniques to have existed 2K years ago. Sure, this is readily apparent to *us*, but back then any pregnancy in concert with an intact hymen would be considered miraculous. How much knowledge of a hymen was there ca. 2K years ago, though? I mean, did anyone in Galilee even know they existed? Uh..I would think that knowledge was universal. People back then knew how to tell if a woman was a virgin and would test the question if there was any question before a marriage. I think it's a real stretch, BTW, to say that a woman who's experienced penetrative anal intercourse is a virgin. But what would those ancient people think? Would they necessarily know if such a thing occured? What difference would that make? AAs any stage magician knows, people can be fooled into thinking that unusual things have occured when the truth is rather prosaic. Ostensibly if the author in Isaiah had said virgin, he would have meant virgin -- or else scripture can't validly be applied to modern life, since other terms would surely have drifted as much. Besides that, of course, the word virgin wasn't used. There's a big difference between a young woman and a virgin. True, but that is a separate question. I think were are discussing multiple things in these threads. 1 Oral tradition and political influences have changed the original story and wording of scripture. 2 People can see the miraculous in mundane events when suggested to do so. There might be more in there that I'm not recalling offhand. xponent Reality Lies Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Black holes 'do not exist'
- Original Message - From: Robert Seeberger [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Saturday, April 09, 2005 9:54 AM Subject: Re: Black holes 'do not exist' - Original Message - From: Julia Thompson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Friday, April 08, 2005 11:37 PM Subject: Re: Black holes 'do not exist' Robert G. Seeberger wrote: http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050328/pf/050328-8_pf.html Black holes are staples of science fiction and many think astronomers have observed them indirectly. But according to a physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, these awesome breaches in space-time do not and indeed cannot exist. Thank you for posting this. I came across it a couple of days ago It wasn't Amy Harlib by any chance? and meant to post something, so as to ask those better versed in physics what they had to say about it. Anyone? :) HA Those cowards have been asked twice to comment but have retreated to the safety of politics threads. G Well, the reasonable information on the statement is quite limited, but I'm guessing that this is a theory that will not be validated in the future. Some things in nature are misleading. We do have a theory of relativistic QM, and it is functioning quite well. We have not reconciled our theory of gravity (general relativity) and QM, and that is an area that a number of theorists are working in. Scientific American had an earlier article on this. While, alas, they count as a professional physics publication no more than Nature, they did give perspectives of a non-proponent: quote For now, these ideas are barely more than scribbles on the back of an envelope, and critics have myriad complaints about their plausibility. For example, how exactly would matter or spacetime change state during the collapse of a star? Physicist Scott A. Hughes of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology says, I don't see how something like a massive star--an object made out of normal fluid, with fairly simple density and pressure relations--can make a transition into something with as bizarre a structure as a gravastar. Mainstream theories of quantum gravity are far better developed. String theory, for one, appears to explain away the paradoxes of black holes without abandoning either event horizons or relativity. end quote So, the odds are against this being validated. But, if we do see gravity waves, we could look for unique types of gravity waves predicted by this theory. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: New Pope?
At 09:09 PM 4/2/2005 -0800, Dou wrote: I hope they pick some one more open minded and progressive to succeed him. Out of curiosity, why do you equate open-minded with agrees with [you]? I think there is plenty of evidence that John Paul II was *very* open-minded, he just also happened to reach different conclusions with his open mind than you have. John D. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: New Pope?
At 11:09 PM 4/3/2005 -0500, Doug wrote: Pffft. Developing implies some sort of progress. We're backsliding. Out of curiosity, how is that possible if you don't believe in truth? I'm not asking a rhetorical question. I've never figured out how, on one hand, better and worse are simply defined in terms of a given culture, and on the other some things are better or worse. If you want to talk about evolution, then, by definition, what survives is evolutionarily favored. And of course, the startling conclusion from Doug's remarks is that the alternative to backsliding is a one-Party hegemony of the Democrats. JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Flags at half staff for the Pope.....
At 07:46 PM 4/4/2005 -0400,Gary Nunn wrote: I'm not Catholic, nor do I have no strong feelings against the church or the Pope, but I think that President Bush ordering the flags to half staff is blurring that line between Church and State. I'd also add that it is worth noting that among the many and various delegations to the Pope's Funeral was the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Now *that's* blurring the line between Church and State! ;-) John D. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Flags at half staff for the Pope.....
At 08:30 PM 4/4/2005 -0500, John Horn wrote: Did a similar order go out when JohnPaul I passed in 1978? Or for his immediate predecessor? I haven't found an answer to that, but it is worth noting that the US did not have official diplomatic relations with The Holy See at that time, so protocol would have been a bit different. JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Change without war (was something else)
--- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sat, 9 Apr 2005 00:10:57 -0700 (PDT), Gautam Mukunda wrote I was talking about him immediately stepping down or cooperating with the inspections. I find it hard to have a conversation when the subject changes so abruptly. Then _stop changing it_ to confuse the issue. I'm feeling rather frustrated to even hear that question. He could also have given up, of course. What's different, that his home is in the same country? So what? A tyrant is a tyrant whether it is a nation or an individual, whether it was born locally or invaded from abroad. Yeah, I'm sure Saddam really thought and said, on his list of options, I think I'll just go home and garden in Tikrit. Yes, the leadership changed. Without war. That's the point! Nick,. do you know _anything at all_ about South Africa? I mean, like how the governments were chosen? I'll give you a hint - F.W. De Klerk was the _elected_ President of South Africa. You think that might have made a difference? If he were just one man, surely. If the German people were behind him, as so many in India were? The difference is not in the nastiness of the despots, it is in the people who stood against them. There has never been a tyrant who could stand up to the united will of a people, if only because endless murder eventually destroys the empire itself. You just keep saying things like this, but, you know, that doesn't make it less absurd. During the Indian Mutiny, the British fired insurgents out of cannons and there were celebratory cartoons in the British press. After the Amritsar massacre, the officer who commanded it was thanked by the Parliament and given an enormous sum of money by subscription from the public. And this was the _British_, not the Germans or Belgians. Public support for violent methods isn't really much of an issue in a lot of governments. In the case of Iraq, it's not even relevant. You think Saddam Hussein took opinion polls before he used chemical weapons on the Kurds? What the hell are you talking about? The purpose of the methods of oppression in a totalitarian state is to make sure that the united will of the people can't exercise itself, because any leader who might do it gets eliminated. It is a fact that in India and South Africa, peaceful revolutions happened. It is a fact that George Bush was peacefully elected a few months ago, but that doesn't make the situation comparable to Iraq. Are you saying that you hear me using make-believe arguments? Yes, absolutely. How very disrepectful. Nick, if you were any more patronising, arrogant, disrespectful, or rude, I'd just have put you back in my killfile, so why don't you lose the holier-than-thou pose? Cambodia - you mean where Pol Pot killed a third of the population? The Congo, where one of the worst civil wars in history has been fought over the last few decades? Cyprus, which is still bitterly divided? Yugoslavia, where massive ethnic cleansing resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilians displaced, tens of thousands killed, and _two_ wars fought by the United States? Somalia, which was rescued from starvation by American power only to descend into anarchy when we left? These are your examples of _good_ policies? For God's sake, what's a failed policy? In fact, in your list, the only two cases of regime change in which outside forces played a major role are Serbia (two wars by the United States) and Cambodia (an invasion by Vietnam). So _your own examples_ suggest that war is the only way to do it. Because we see in Iraq that many fewer people are being killed and peace is coming about so much faster? Hah. I don't know. In Cambodia Pol Pot killed two million people. This doesn't _look_ much like Iraq. Peace certainly appears to be coming faster than it would have under Saddam. OTOH, you talk as if Saddam's Iraq was something like Victorian England, so maybe that explains your attitude. As long as anybody in the world is insecure, so are we, which is why a peace based on fear is always an illusion. What a wonderfully empty statement. Hope is not a method, as I beieve I've said before. What is your point? Are you under the impression that I am suggesting that if we all sit around *hoping* really, really hard, doing nothing, conflicts will vanish? Actually, I'm under the impression that you suggest we sit around and talk about how much better we are than the people who are doing something, because we want a more intelligent dialogue while they, the nasty evil people, are making decisions and getting things done. Peaceful regime change is a rare bird And what are we doing to make it *less* rare? It seems clear to me that addressing poverty and injustice will have just that effect. Yet even here in our country, one in six children lives in poverty, which is as big
Re: Change without war (was something else)
- Original Message - From: Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Saturday, April 09, 2005 11:19 AM Subject: Re: Change without war (was something else) --- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sat, 9 Apr 2005 00:10:57 -0700 (PDT), Gautam Mukunda wrote I was talking about him immediately stepping down or cooperating with the inspections. I find it hard to have a conversation when the subject changes so abruptly. Then _stop changing it_ to confuse the issue. I'm feeling rather frustrated to even hear that question. He could also have given up, of course. What's different, that his home is in the same country? So what? A tyrant is a tyrant whether it is a nation or an individual, whether it was born locally or invaded from abroad. Yeah, I'm sure Saddam really thought and said, on his list of options, I think I'll just go home and garden in Tikrit. Yes, the leadership changed. Without war. That's the point! Nick,. do you know _anything at all_ about South Africa? I mean, like how the governments were chosen? I'll give you a hint - F.W. De Klerk was the _elected_ President of South Africa. You think that might have made a difference? If he were just one man, surely. If the German people were behind him, as so many in India were? The difference is not in the nastiness of the despots, it is in the people who stood against them. There has never been a tyrant who could stand up to the united will of a people, if only because endless murder eventually destroys the empire itself. You just keep saying things like this, but, you know, that doesn't make it less absurd. During the Indian Mutiny, the British fired insurgents out of cannons and there were celebratory cartoons in the British press. After the Amritsar massacre, the officer who commanded it was thanked by the Parliament and given an enormous sum of money by subscription from the public. And this was the _British_, not the Germans or Belgians. Public support for violent methods isn't really much of an issue in a lot of governments. I have a question for you. It appears to me that there were changes in British public support for violent methods between 1919 and 1949. If there were not, why not run over Ghandi? From what I understand from Neli, there were also changes over time in South Africa. Genocide on a massive scale was undertaken with public (white) approval early in the century. But, bounds on the repression began to appear by mid-century. And, in the end, the white government agreed to full democracy. In a sense, one could use India and South Africa as indications that, when confronting elected governments where public opionion matters, multi-decade passive resistance campaigns can be sucessful...especially if a reasonable out is given to those in power. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Other Christianity (was Re: Babble theory, and comments)
- Original Message - From: Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Friday, April 08, 2005 7:59 PM Subject: Re: The Other Christianity (was Re: Babble theory, and comments) I didn't see analysis of what would happen without war from the religeous figures opposed to the war. That sounds pretty reasonable to me because we shouldn't expect, for example, an exemplary moral theologian to have any special insights into the likelyhood of the fall of any government. On the other hand, widespead agreement among accademics and policy makes who differ greatly on other issues, seems to me to be our best shot at understanding consequences. I fail to see any reason to choose between the two in decision-making, which is why I offered no special weight to academics. So, in your opinion, someone who has a cursuary knowledge of history and international relation's opinion about the likelyhood of future outcomes has as much weight as the best respected people in international relations? When we discuss whether or not Hussein would soon fall from power, we are not discussing ethics, we are discussing facts that can and will be discovered. While history and international relations are not science, I do think that a detailed analysis of hisory provides a better understanding than a cursorary analysis. A consensus of the best of those who do such analysis is the best guess we can come up with. Well, we've been discussing this for over two years: I saw three choices at the time: continuing containmnet, the war, and withdrawing the sactions and the no fly zones. Changing the containment slightly might have improved it slightly, but I didn't see anyone on the list or anywhere else lay out a program for regiem change that did not involve war. Let me quote selectively from Julia's quote of the first step quote As urged by Human Rights Watch and others, the U.N. Security Council should establish an international tribunal to indict Saddam and his top officials for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Indicting Saddam would send a clear signal to the world that he has no future. It would set into motion both internal and external forces that might remove him from power. It would make it clear that no solution to this conflict will include Saddam or his supporters staying in power. end quote There was a six-point plan from the churches, which Tony Blair took very seriously, Maybe as a way of finding support for actually doing something, but I cannot imagine that he would think that an indictment would work magic. Let me consider just the first step. With the French being paid of by Hussein, as Julia points out, achieving this would be very problematic. Further, the second paragraph is unbelieveably vague. Why would a dictator who was firmly in control of massive forces have no future because a body without power behind it pronounced him guilty? How would the indictment be different than security council resolutions? Second, let's look at the forces that are to be involved. What internationl force, short of attacking with superior military power, could compel Hussein? What internal forces would exist? The only force that I could think of was the Kurdsand I don't think them marching on Bagdad is a realistic scenario. With Iraq as a police state, it would be very hard for someone who wanted to resist to know if a hint of a resistance movement came from a true member of the movement or someone paid by Hussein. This is, in a sense, a weakened version of the plan of Bush I. By defeating him soundly in Kuwait, with the army surrendering en mass, they accomplished two things. 1) The struck a strong blow to his image as a powerful sucessful leader. 2) They devistated his armies. Given this, they expected him to fall. But, he did not. Now, this plan is, in essence, to write him a very very stern note, with nothing to back it up. What happens if he ignores the indictment? All he has to do is say the Hague is controled by the Zionest conspiricy and he is a stronger champion of Arab causes. Korea is about the worst example to pick, since it looked far more like an undeclared war than a police action. Certainly it was *called* a police action, but that doesn't mean it was conducted like one. OK, but your point was that there was no just war theology that allowed premeptive wars. Aquinas was a theologian. I think Kant's work pretty well eliminates the litter bug nuking issue. Then what is a police action? You must have a defintion I haven't seen. OK, let me clarify this. You would be opposed to using unilateral military force to stop genocide on moral grounds, right? Even if we found that the killing in Sudan was intensifying and that the Arabs were planning a final solution, we would be oblidged to refrain from military action. Not military action, war. Are you saying that it would be a moral course
Re: The Other Christianity (was Re: Babble theory, and comments)
- Original Message - From: Warren Ockrassa [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Friday, April 08, 2005 11:14 PM Subject: Re: The Other Christianity (was Re: Babble theory, and comments) On Apr 8, 2005, at 4:17 PM, Dave Land wrote: I wonder if we couldn't have more effective discussions here if we said things like I couldn't find a compelling justification the invasion instead of the invasion was unjustified. The former asserts one's own observation, not subject to contradiction (ha!), while the other asserts an opinion as though it were truth, subject to lengthy and quarrelsome debates. Well, why though? Isn't everything we state that is less than 100% provable an opinion? Isn't it valid to read in the phrase In my opinion... before any declaration, at least of values or judgments? Obviously that wouldn't work for things like math ... [In my opinion] 2 + 2 = 4. But isn't it self-apparent that when I say the Iraq war is unjustifiable, I am issuing my own opinion on the topic? But, the words actually do mean different things. Let me make two statements I consider true about Iraq and one that I consider false. true The actions of Hussein against his own people were unjustifiable George Bush's decision to invade Iraq was mistaken end true false Invading Iraq was an unjustifyable action end false Let me reword what I just wrote. I do not believe that that a reasonable, ethical person could support Hussein's actions against his own people. I do think a reasonable ethical person could have supported the war in Iraq, but I believe such a person was mistaken. So, before the war, Gautam and I each thought the other was honestly mistaken, but still reasonable people of good will. I was trained to use these nuances in discussion to convey my meaning more clearly. It's worthwhile in physics debates, because it allows the differentiation between crackpot theories and theories that one considers problematic and theories that one can see the basis for but one's intuition opposes. Finally, I have difficulty with the idea of just three states: Yes, No, and Uncertain. There is a great deal of difference between a 0.1% chance and a 99.9% chance, although both are uncertain. Language that reflects the degree of confidence helps foster rational discussions which can foster a greater understanding by the participants. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Black holes 'do not exist'
- Original Message - From: Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Saturday, April 09, 2005 10:08 AM Subject: Re: Black holes 'do not exist' - Original Message - From: Robert Seeberger [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Saturday, April 09, 2005 9:54 AM Subject: Re: Black holes 'do not exist' - Original Message - From: Julia Thompson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Friday, April 08, 2005 11:37 PM Subject: Re: Black holes 'do not exist' Robert G. Seeberger wrote: http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050328/pf/050328-8_pf.html Black holes are staples of science fiction and many think astronomers have observed them indirectly. But according to a physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, these awesome breaches in space-time do not and indeed cannot exist. Thank you for posting this. I came across it a couple of days ago It wasn't Amy Harlib by any chance? and meant to post something, so as to ask those better versed in physics what they had to say about it. Anyone? :) HA Those cowards have been asked twice to comment but have retreated to the safety of politics threads. G Well, the reasonable information on the statement is quite limited, but I'm guessing that this is a theory that will not be validated in the future. Some things in nature are misleading. We do have a theory of relativistic QM, and it is functioning quite well. We have not reconciled our theory of gravity (general relativity) and QM, and that is an area that a number of theorists are working in. Scientific American had an earlier article on this. While, alas, they count as a professional physics publication no more than Nature, they did give perspectives of a non-proponent: quote For now, these ideas are barely more than scribbles on the back of an envelope, and critics have myriad complaints about their plausibility. For example, how exactly would matter or spacetime change state during the collapse of a star? Physicist Scott A. Hughes of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology says, I don't see how something like a massive star--an object made out of normal fluid, with fairly simple density and pressure relations--can make a transition into something with as bizarre a structure as a gravastar. Mainstream theories of quantum gravity are far better developed. String theory, for one, appears to explain away the paradoxes of black holes without abandoning either event horizons or relativity. end quote So, the odds are against this being validated. But, if we do see gravity waves, we could look for unique types of gravity waves predicted by this theory. It didn't seem to me that Event horizons were so much abandoned as redefined and re-explained. The important question for me is still how time is regarded in QM and GR. If the author of the paper is making an incorrect statement, why would it be reported in Nature without qualification? If time is regarded differently in QM and GR, then what is the current thinking on this discrepancy? I have a hard time imagining that time operates differently on macro, meso, or quantum scales. (Yes, that is strictly a lack of knowledge on my part and I know it, but I am intensely curious as to whether this is a question that is being explored actively or if it is a problem that some hope will disappear as other lines of research progress.) It seems to me that something this basic cannot simply be glossed over without introducing questions about the validity of a good deal of work done on GR and QM to date. I also have a hard time believing it is being glossed over. I would expect this to be something physicists agonize over. xponent Questions Upon Questions Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Change without war (was something else)
On Sat, 9 Apr 2005 09:19:48 -0700 (PDT), Gautam Mukunda wrote Nick,. do you know _anything at all_ about South Africa? I mean, like how the governments were chosen? I'll give you a hint - F.W. De Klerk was the _elected_ President of South Africa. You think that might have made a difference? And how did that come to pass? Because the white minority *led* the nation to end apartheid? Or was it the leadership of Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu and the countless crowds who refused to go along with it any longer? Are you giving credit for the end to apartheid to the white minority just for going along with it??? Are you saying that the British are responsible for an independent India and Pakistan? That shortchanges Gandhi rather dramatically and is contrary to what most of the world saw there, including me. Must the credit for peaceful change rest in those in positions of power? Will you concede that ordinary people can and do bring about change? Or that supporting their efforts, rather than replacing their leaders with ours, a more lasting peace can result? Look how Iraq came to exist -- how much peace has western intervention in the Mideast brought so far? At what point do we stop putting our faith in humanity's ability to bring about peaceful change and launch an attack? I'm having trouble figuring out in what situations you *don't* think war is the answer, although I am certain that you must not think it always is. You just keep saying things like this, but, you know, that doesn't make it less absurd. During the Indian Mutiny, the British fired insurgents out of cannons and there were celebratory cartoons in the British press. After the Amritsar massacre, the officer who commanded it was thanked by the Parliament and given an enormous sum of money by subscription from the public. And this was the _British_, not the Germans or Belgians. Public support for violent methods isn't really much of an issue in a lot of governments. You're arguing my point! *Despite* British atrocities, India won its independence without a war. Why did the British decide to pull out? Was it their good-hearted nature? Was it because of fear of violence? Or did it have nothing to do with anything they did? Did they not resist until they recognized that resistance was futile? It is a fact that George Bush was peacefully elected a few months ago, but that doesn't make the situation comparable to Iraq. It seems to me that one could certainly look at the language of Pax Americana and so forth and believe that we have had a peaceful overthrow of our democracy. But democracy has been described as institutionalized revolution, so the meaning is blurry, at best. I don't know. In Cambodia Pol Pot killed two million people. This doesn't _look_ much like Iraq. As long as anybody in the world is insecure, so are we, which is why a peace based on fear is always an illusion. What a wonderfully empty statement. I'm sorry you don't understand. Actually, I'm under the impression that you suggest we sit around and talk about how much better we are than the people who are doing something, because we want a more intelligent dialogue while they, the nasty evil people, are making decisions and getting things done. Ah, well, there's the ad hominem. Yes, we _definitely_ had the ability to address poverty and injustice in an Iraq ruled by Saddam. Really, what the hell are you talking about? Poverty and injustice are the product of a lot of things, and one of the most important of those things is bad government. To fix them, you have to _change_ the bad government. I did my best, in this last election. But the choices weren't very good, so I'm hoping for a real third option to emerge, so that we can have a government that is committed to the American values of equality and justice, concern for the poorest. And yeah, I know you were talking about some other government, but we can't give away what we don't have. Peace and justice start here, right here in my heart, where the battle for good and evil rages. If you think it's important to change a government quickly, and not wait 150 years (because all empires fall The empire I was talking about is the Pax Americana stuff. Do you mean to characterize Iraq under Saddam as an empire??? exceptional circumstances. Under your standard, as Dan pointed out, we could not have intervened in Rwanda, for example. Stop twisting in the wind and admit that. Admit it? What, am I in the principal's office after getting caught at something? I don't need your permission slip to know my values and opinions. Basic intellectual honesty requires you to admit that there are costs and benefits for both sides. Just pretending otherwise is the essence of disrespect. While it is true that you can see things about me that I cannot, isn't it just a bit... what's that word you always use? ...
Peaceful change
On Sat, 9 Apr 2005 12:13:52 -0500, Dan Minette wrote So, in your opinion, someone who has a cursuary knowledge of history and international relation's opinion about the likelyhood of future outcomes has as much weight as the best respected people in international relations? I would hardly describe a coalition of global church leaders as having cursory knowledge of history and international relations, so no, that's not my opinion. Not at all. Furthermore, any decision made solely by a group of elites is suspect, in my opinion. When we discuss whether or not Hussein would soon fall from power, we are not discussing ethics, we are discussing facts that can and will be discovered. Yes, and in context, it is inseparable from the question of what to do about a despot, which has a moral dimension. Maybe as a way of finding support for actually doing something, but I cannot imagine that he would think that an indictment would work magic. It would have been magic to remove Saddam from power without a war??? Further, the second paragraph is unbelieveably vague. Why would a dictator who was firmly in control of massive forces have no future because a body without power behind it pronounced him guilty? How would the indictment be different than security council resolutions? How about if we don't take one point of a six-point plan out of context? For as long as it would take to ensure that, after we left, the genocide wouldn't just pick up where it left off...yes, we'd be responsible to do thatonce we came in. Without conquering the armies, how does one stop the genocide? Well, then, we clearly disagree about what is right to do in such a situation. You would replace the government with your own people, right? I don't think that is ethical or effective when the country in question poses no threat to us. To do nothing is wrong, but to try to control the whole thing is wrong, too. campaign and a realistic threat of occupation, they would have relented. That worked in the Balkins. But, the police action failed. We had to resort to war to stop the genocide. Perhaps memory fails me. Upon whom did we declare war in the Balkans? Which country did we occupy? Aren't we far more likely to deceive ourselves in ways that maintain our personal safety, wealth and power? Doesn't that make a presumption against war appropriate? If one is to generalize, I'd say people deceive themselves by telling themselves that what they want to be true is true. This does, often, manifest itself as you said. But, it doesn't always. Of course it doesn't always, that's why I said more likely. On a more personal level people drive drunk, endangering the safety of themselves and others, and tell themselves that they can handle it. Bad example, since that's a case of a person exercising self-deception in order to have the power of an automobile available. The executive who ignores reality does so in order to retain power. The fact that these things catch up with people doesn't mean that the purpose of self-deception is to cause an accident or destroy a company. Nick ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Change without war (was something else)
--- Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have a question for you. It appears to me that there were changes in British public support for violent methods between 1919 and 1949. If there were not, why not run over Ghandi? From what I understand from Neli, there were also changes over time in South Africa. Genocide on a massive scale was undertaken with public (white) approval early in the century. But, bounds on the repression began to appear by mid-century. And, in the end, the white government agreed to full democracy. In a sense, one could use India and South Africa as indications that, when confronting elected governments where public opionion matters, multi-decade passive resistance campaigns can be sucessful...especially if a reasonable out is given to those in power. Dan M. The short answer? Yes. I absolutely agree with everything you've written above. Democracies - even democracies that are elected by only a small fraction the public (as in South Africa) are (in my opinion) remarkably susceptible to public pressure and moral suasion. When you talk to De Klerk and other South African leaders, for example, they'll tell you that one of the principal reasons for their actions was they just felt the world was changing, and it was time to adapt to it. Britain was a decent democracy. Churchill was a horrible racist, but he was also a man of the 19th century. Few of his contemporaries shared his racial views, and in the face of determined Indian pressure, enormous American pressure (the, sadly, almost entirely forgotten role of the US in decolonization was extremely important), and the unwillingness of the mid-20th century British public to either use supremely violent measures or maintain the colony after the catastrophes of the Second World War, they were going to leave. The South African elites were actually a lot like the 1930s-1940s era British in a lot of their opinions, I think - I know the case less well, but everything I know of it reads that way to me. _But they were both democratic states_ (that is, Britain and South Africa). South Africa only amongst the whites, but democratic in the sense that their leaders were products of elections, not coups, bureaucracies, or what have you. South Africa was (eventually, and far too slowly) susceptible to nonviolent pressure from outside and inside. The ANC's occasional forays into violent attacks against civilians were probably counterproductive and delayed the end of apartheid. The British were not, in the end, willing to use enormous violence to maintain their hold on power. It's notable that Nehru spent decades in jail, sent their time after time on unjust, and often entirely specious, charges. But he wasn't killed or tortured, as he surely would have been by the French, Belgians, Germans, Japanese... Dictatorships, by contrast are (so far as I can see it) incredibly _resistant_ to public pressure. Why wouldn't they be? They don't listen to their public at home, why would they care about the World Court? There are many differences between Iraq and the Raj, and fewer, but still many, differences between Apartheid South Africa and Iraq. But the most important one is that De Klerk and Attlee were both elected leaders. Saddam Hussein took power by assasinating his predecessor. That's a big difference. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Change without war (was something else)
--- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sat, 9 Apr 2005 09:19:48 -0700 (PDT), Gautam Mukunda wrote And how did that come to pass? Because the white minority *led* the nation to end apartheid? Or was it the leadership of Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu and the countless crowds who refused to go along with it any longer? Are you giving credit for the end to apartheid to the white minority just for going along with it??? Well, gee, Nick, there were other options. My point is that the world is complex and situations dependent on many different factors. I really don't think that's too hard a point to grasp. Gandhi's tactics worked against the British in the 20th century. Obviously I give credit to Mandela. But the countless crowds who went along with it? They could, you know, _have been shot_ by the armed forces. Somebody decided _not to do that_. Are you saying that the British are responsible for an independent India and Pakistan? That shortchanges Gandhi rather dramatically and is contrary to what most of the world saw there, including me. No. I'm saying that it was British decency that allowed it to be accomplished non-violently. You see, not all governments are the same. Some see peaceful protesters and think - we need to listen to what they have to say. And others see peaceful protesters and think - time to bring out the machine guns. If you're dealing with the first type (Britain) you'll get some useful results with peaceful protests. If you're dealing with the second, the results will be less welcoming. Tianamen Square might suggest something to you, for example, and the Communist Chinese government's grip on Chinese society in no way approaches that of Saddam. Must the credit for peaceful change rest in those in positions of power? Will you concede that ordinary people can and do bring about change? Or that supporting their efforts, rather than replacing their leaders with ours, a more lasting peace can result? Look how Iraq came to exist -- how much peace has western intervention in the Mideast brought so far? Will you concede that your incredibly simplistic model of the world might not reflect reality instead? That Saddam Hussein Clement Attlee, for example, and that the tactics that work against one man might not work against the other? Also, in case you noticed, our leaders in Iraq right now were elected by the Iraqi people. That's kind of an inconvenient fact mixed in with your diatribes, isn't it? Is any leader who is the product of an election ours if it took American force to make that election possible? If so, does that make Gerhard Schroeder and Jacques Chirac ours as well, since _their_ elections were the product of American (and British, Canadian, Australian...) arms? I somehow don't think that Hitler would have left France if FDR had asked him really nicely to do so, come to think of it. At what point do we stop putting our faith in humanity's ability to bring about peaceful change and launch an attack? I'm having trouble figuring out in what situations you *don't* think war is the answer, although I am certain that you must not think it always is. I've addressed this _extensively_ on list. Dan has even quoted me on several occasions. As far as I can tell, the only situation in which you think we should go to war is if we were directly attacked - which, I point out, excludes the First World War, the European Theatre of the Second World War, Korea, and Desert Storm, among many others. You're arguing my point! *Despite* British atrocities, India won its independence without a war. Why did the British decide to pull out? Was it their good-hearted nature? Was it because of fear of violence? Or did it have nothing to do with anything they did? Did they not resist until they recognized that resistance was futile? Nick, _when did the Indian mutiny happen_? Do you have any idea? I mean, really, you're just kidding at this point, right? First, the Indian mutiny was very much a war. Unfortunately, the Indians lost. The British didn't leave for _90 years_ after that. The reason we talk about Amritsar was because it was an _isolated event_. Read a little bit about how the Belgians acted in the Congo some time - and they were a democracy! Or, for that matter, how Hitler acted in Poland. Different governments act differently. It takes different tactics to defeat them. Stalin would not have given up power because of peaceful protesters inside Russia - he would have just had them shot without blinking an eye. Stalin F.W. De Klerk. It seems to me that one could certainly look at the language of Pax Americana and so forth and believe that we have had a peaceful overthrow of our democracy. Luckily for me, democracy, and the country as a whole, democracy is not defined as Nick Arnett getting what he wants. As long as anybody in the world is insecure, so are we, which
Societal Evolution Re: New Pope?
At 09:51 PM 4/5/2005 -0700, Doug wrote: Oh, and if you looked at the individual data points would evolution go directly from good to better to best? What is good in the context of evolution? Isn't the answer to the above: by definition, yes? O.k., maybe you could point to a few exceptions, like say the non-avian dinosaurs, but for the most part, I think that the above answer fits John D. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: New Pope?
At 06:08 PM 4/7/2005 -0400, Damon wrote: Oddly enough, no, I don't think so. Historians who focus on the military stuff understand military affairs better and understand that wars are not _just_ decided by who has the bigger economy. Those who don't look at military stuff tend, in my opinion (Damon, for example, may disagree) to vastly underrate the role of contingency in military outcomes. Perfect example: France vs. Germany 1940. You might be able to make the same argument of Athens vs. Sparta... I believe that USA vs. England in 1775 and again in 1812 would both qualify as well? JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Democracy in Iraq Re: The Other Christianity (was Re: Babble theory, and comments)
At 04:17 PM 4/7/2005 -0700, Nick wrote: On Thu, 7 Apr 2005 15:01:52 -0700 (PDT), Gautam Mukunda wrote It means that there wasn't a third option between going to war to remove Hussein and leaving him in power. It didn't exist. No one proposed one that was even vaguely plausible. You could choose one or the other. Really? No other options? Then what of all those that opposed the war, including almost every major religious organization across the globe? Was the Pope trying to stop democracy in Iraq? The World Council of Churches, the Conference of European Churches, the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, the Middle East Council of Churches, the churches of Norway, Finland and Denmark, Greece, the United Methodist Church, my own Lutheran church and on and on and on -- were they all trying to stop democracy in Iraq when they opposed this war and proposed other options. I think that the answer to that is unequivocally yes, in effect. The policies advocated by the above would have resulted in Iraq's most recent democratic elections not happening. That is not to say that they all had the conscious intent of opposing democracy in Iraq, but that is the logical consequence of their positions, and so is one that should properly be defended by the holders of those positions. JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
A Third Way in Iraq Re: The Other Christianity (was Re: Babble theory, and comments)
At 04:53 PM 4/7/2005 -0700, Dave Land wrote: It means that there wasn't a third option between going to war to remove Hussein and leaving him in power. It didn't exist. No one proposed one that was even vaguely plausible. You could choose one or the other. Substantial long-term support for the internal opposition to Hussein would have been a third way: neither going to war nor leaving him in power. At the very least, we would have avoided being seen and opposed as occupiers, and at the best, we might have been credited with having uplifted the Iraqis. We tried that for 12 years. That same policy, of course, has worked very effectively for the last 40+ years in Cuba as well. JDG - Next, Maru. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Change without war (was something else)
Doug Pensinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote Beyond that, I'd bet another Doug Nickle that Bush insiders had a good idea that if there were any WMDs in Iraq they were few and far between because they were directing the inspectors where to go and what to look for ... (I read the comment that I'd bet another Doug Nickle as suggesting that you weakly believe the proposition.) You may be presuming too high a level of competence or honesty, even for a weakly held notion. Please remember my posting of Sat, 31 May 2003: ... today's BBC news, 2003 May 31 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/world/americas/2951440.stm says the following: The Pentagon has a list of around 900 sites which may provide clues to Saddam Hussein's alleged chemical and biological arsenal. So far, around 200 locations have been searched, said Pentagon officials on Friday. ... Most likely most of those 700 locations will be empty or clueless. ... But suppose one of those sites contained enough weaponized anthrax to fill a Johnson Baby powder container like those that that many grown up travelers carry? What if someone who is unfriendly to the US and has the right contacts gets hold of it before a US Army team comes by? It may be that none of those 700 uninvestigated sites have or had anything dangerous in them. But the question is what proof can you offer *now* that no one hostile to the US has visited any of those sites in the past 6 weeks, and taken something small? As I said in another message, ... There are three possible explanations: * the Administration knew that Saddam Hussein was bluffing ... This possibility suggests that Bush lied. It also suggests that the Bush Administration was incompetent at lying, since it would make more sense for it to act surprised when later inspectors found little. * the Administration recognized that its prime hold on the US comes from fear ... By giving looters a chance, it increased the risk that terrorists will gain powerful weapons. ... This possibility requires great cynicism. * the Administration was simply incompetent, and did not send enough soldiers to check out sites before looters came. This possibility requires believing that politicians who increased their party's vote in an off-year election could not apply that same talent to managing a politically important part of their years in office. My postings have not been answered, except by Gautam Mukunda and John D. Giorgis. Gautam Mukunda said ... the US has more urgent/important things to do ... which suggests that he figured (probabilitistically speaking) that Bush adminstration knew that Saddam Hussein was bluffing, that Saddam did not possess dangerous weapons, and that therefore the Bush adminstration was lying about what is generally considered a national rather than a partisan issue, and was incompetent in its follow through. Either that or Gautam figured that a radiological, nuclear, chemical, or biological attack was unlikely even if possible, but acceptable if it occurred. In response to a message by [EMAIL PROTECTED] saying, A) What could possibly be more important than finding the weapons of mass destruction that were the entire justification for the invasion in the first place? John D. Giorgis said, Off the top of my head: -Toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein -Restoring Civic Order -Preventing Mass Civilian Casulaties to which I responded by saying, ... my understanding is that you are saying that for Americans as a whole, restoring civic order in Bagdad is more important than preventing an anthrax or radiological bomb attack against Washington, DC. -- Robert J. Chassell [EMAIL PROTECTED] GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8 http://www.rattlesnake.com http://www.teak.cc ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Other Christianity (was Re: Babble theory, and comments)
Nick Arnett wrote Korea is about the worst example to pick, since it looked far more like an undeclared war than a police action. If I remember my history rightly, senior members of the US government thought that the initial part of the Korean war was a feint. They thought that WWIII would actually involve the invasion of Western Europe. Among other influences on the US government, they understood that Stalin had said that his troops did not get as far as Tzar Alexander's (whose troops got to Paris after Napoleon was defeated). Incidentally, Izzy Stone suggested that North Korea invaded the South in response to US manipulations of one commodity or another, manipulations that were on their way to bankrupting North Korea. However, this does not contradict the notion that senior members of the US government thought that the initial part of the Korean war was a feint. (I do not know whether this commodity's price manipulation occurred. At that time, commodities' prices were very volatile. If I remember a graph I saw years and years ago, it was not until after the Korean war that commodities' prices became somewhat more stable.) -- Robert J. Chassell [EMAIL PROTECTED] GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8 http://www.rattlesnake.com http://www.teak.cc ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Change without war (was something else)
* Gautam Mukunda ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Dictatorships, by contrast are (so far as I can see it) incredibly _resistant_ to public pressure. Why wouldn't they be? They don't listen to their public at home, why would they care about the World Court? There are many differences between Iraq and the Raj, and fewer, but still many, differences between Apartheid South Africa and Iraq. But the most important one is that De Klerk and Attlee were both elected leaders. Saddam Hussein took power by assasinating his predecessor. That's a big difference. A slightly different question: Which is more resistant to transformation to the other, a democracy or a dictatorship? Or are they about the same? -- Erik Reuter http://www.erikreuter.net/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: New Pope?
I believe that USA vs. England in 1775 and again in 1812 would both qualify as well? Perhaps. There's more mitigating circumstances, though. In 1775, while the US was independently pursuing war for a time, in the end the French alliance was important. In 1812 the British had much (MUCH) bigger fish to fry... Damon. Damon Agretto [EMAIL PROTECTED] Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum. http://www.geocities.com/garrand.geo/index.html Now Building: UM's PzKpfw 38(t) Ausf. C -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.9.5 - Release Date: 4/7/2005 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Change without war (was something else)
At 01:55 PM 4/8/2005 -0700, Nick wrote: In the Persian Gulf region, the presence of American forces, along with British and French units, has become a semipermanent fact of life. Though the immediate mission of those forces is to enforce the no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq, they represent the long-term commitment of the United States and its major allies to a region of vital importance. Indeed, the United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein. That certainly fits with what I've heard from returnees from Iraq -- we're not rebuilding Iraq, we're building U.S. bases. So, do you think that, unlike in the cases of France, Spain, the Philipines, Saudi Arabia, and Okinawa, if the Iraqi government were to ask the US to leave, that the US would not do so? JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Other Christianity (was Re: Babble theory, and comments)
At 06:41 AM 4/8/2005 -0700, Nick Arnett wrote: What you are talking about is a slow and uncertain process. Compared to what? The speedy and certain process underway in Iraq??? I would say compared to North Korea, where the sorts of policies you advocate resulted in the DPRK constructing nuclear weapons right under our noses, and now we have a *real* problem on our hands there. Just imagine how history might have been different if Saddam Hussein had simply waited two or three more years or so, and asserted his claim to Kuwait *after* acquiring nuclear weapons - and then began to talk about securing the Muslim Holy Land as leader of the Arab people. I think that the above was part of the core for the Iraq case - it isn't just what Iraq was capable of doing today. It was also the fact that once Iraq *does* manage to buy, build, or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons (from say, oh I don't know... North Korea!) , that at that moment in time it will be TOO LATE to do anything at all about it - or at least that do anything about Iraq at such a point without taking enormous risks. Moreover, there is also mixed in here the simple fact that in a post-9/11 world, that the collapse of a nuclear-armed totalitarian state carries *enormous* risks for the United States - and that puts the US in all kinds of binds. JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Change without war (was something else)
A slightly different question: Which is more resistant to transformation to the other, a democracy or a dictatorship? Or are they about the same? -- Erik Reuter http://www.erikreuter.net/ Interestingly enough, there's a fair bit of work on this topic. Above a certain point of wealth (~$6,000 per capita income in 1986 dollars, I believe) the correlation is perfect - no democracy has become a dictatorship since the Second World War. The wealthiest country to slip back is either Chile or Argentina, I don't remember which. There's a pretty clear function linking wealth and democracy - the wealthier a country is, the higher its chances of remaining a democracy. Over the last few decades, democracies have been considerably more resilient than dictatorships - although states have moved both ways, overwhelmingly more have moved dictatorship to democracy than democracy to dictatorship. On the whole, democracy appears to be surprisingly resilient in general. Two good articles on this topic, which may be available online, are: Larry Diamond's Universal Democracy? in Policy Review, June/July 2003 Michael D. Ward and Kristian S. Gleditsch, Democratizing for Peace, in American Political Science Review, 92, March 1998 Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Black holes 'do not exist'
Robert Seeberger wrote: - Original Message - From: Julia Thompson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Friday, April 08, 2005 11:37 PM Subject: Re: Black holes 'do not exist' Robert G. Seeberger wrote: http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050328/pf/050328-8_pf.html Black holes are staples of science fiction and many think astronomers have observed them indirectly. But according to a physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, these awesome breaches in space-time do not and indeed cannot exist. Thank you for posting this. I came across it a couple of days ago It wasn't Amy Harlib by any chance? No, some blog or another I read, can't remember which one. (Mostly I read blogs of friends) I don't think Amy Harlib is one of the friends whose blog I read; if she is, I don't know her by that name. :) Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Peaceful change
- Original Message - From: Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Saturday, April 09, 2005 3:01 PM Subject: Peaceful change On Sat, 9 Apr 2005 12:13:52 -0500, Dan Minette wrote So, in your opinion, someone who has a cursuary knowledge of history and international relation's opinion about the likelyhood of future outcomes has as much weight as the best respected people in international relations? I would hardly describe a coalition of global church leaders as having cursory knowledge of history and international relations, so no, that's not my opinion. Not at all. I know church leaders personally. In the US, there is no requirement to study history or international relations before enterming seminary. In Presbyterian seminary, there are two classes in church history. My wife has taken them, and I know what their requirements are. I looked at the list, and one of them is the stated clerk of the Presbyterian General Assembly. Knowledge of history as it is applied to international relations is not a job requirement of that position. Furthermore, any decision made solely by a group of elites is suspect, in my opinion. Do you _really_ want to stand by that general statement? When we discuss whether or not Hussein would soon fall from power, we are not discussing ethics, we are discussing facts that can and will be discovered. Yes, and in context, it is inseparable from the question of what to do about a despot, which has a moral dimension. Actually, the considerations needs to be sequential. First one does the best job one can evaluating the probabilities of various outcomes and then combines ones best understanding of the results with one's ethics to determine action. The former can and should be an exercise in reason and observation. The latter requires more. Maybe as a way of finding support for actually doing something, but I cannot imagine that he would think that an indictment would work magic. It would have been magic to remove Saddam from power without a war??? I didn't mean that literally, but in the colloquial sense. Further, the second paragraph is unbelieveably vague. Why would a dictator who was firmly in control of massive forces have no future because a body without power behind it pronounced him guilty? How would the indictment be different than security council resolutions? How about if we don't take one point of a six-point plan out of context? Well, I was trying to focus on the one point that directly adressed the question we were debating. If you would wish to show how other parts have a liklyhood of being techniques for removing Hussein, I'd be interested in hearing it. For as long as it would take to ensure that, after we left, the genocide wouldn't just pick up where it left off...yes, we'd be responsible to do thatonce we came in. Without conquering the armies, how does one stop the genocide? Well, then, we clearly disagree about what is right to do in such a situation. You would replace the government with your own people, right? I don't think that is ethical or effective when the country in question poses no threat to us. To do nothing is wrong, but to try to control the whole thing is wrong, too. No, I'd temporary rule the country until an effective representative government was developed...like we did in Europe and Japan after WWII. It's akin to where we are in Iraq now. We would have to control the country to stop the genocide. Then, campaign and a realistic threat of occupation, they would have relented. That worked in the Balkins. But, the police action failed. We had to resort to war to stop the genocide. Perhaps memory fails me. Upon whom did we declare war in the Balkans? Which country did we occupy? We subjected Serbia to extensive bombing. We told Serbia that an American invasion was the next step if they didn't capitulate immediately. They thought the threat was credible, so they capitulated. Sometimes the threat of force does work. But, it is only effective if the threat is considered credible. One has to be willing to follow through, as Clinton was, otherwise it's an empty gesture. Aren't we far more likely to deceive ourselves in ways that maintain our personal safety, wealth and power? Doesn't that make a presumption against war appropriate? If one is to generalize, I'd say people deceive themselves by telling themselves that what they want to be true is true. This does, often, manifest itself as you said. But, it doesn't always. Of course it doesn't always, that's why I said more likely. On a more personal level people drive drunk, endangering the safety of themselves and others, and tell themselves that they can handle it. Bad example, since that's a case of a person exercising self-deception in order to have the power of an automobile available. Most of the time, as I
Re: The Other Christianity (was Re: Babble theory, and comments)
At 10:19 PM 4/7/2005 -0700, Nick wrote: I think declarations that our only choice was invasion ignores the success of the inspections; not only those just prior to that event but the earlier ones that we now know ended all of Hussein's WMD programs. That is a rather good point that I'm embarrassed to have ommitted. Yes, now we know that the inspections *were* working! You have an interesting definition of working. In my mind, the purpose of inspections is to assure the rest of the world that Iraq did not retain any WMD stockpiles or programs. This assurance was impossible to make under the inspections. Allow me to emphasize, at NO POINT did Iraq ever comply with UN inspections. For example, consider UNSC Resolution 687 (1991), where the Security Council invoked its binding authority under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. 8. Decides that Iraq shall unconditionally accept the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless, under international supervision of... all chemical and weapons and all stocks of agents and all related subsystems and components and all research, development, support, and manufacturing facilities related thereto;. Note that this resolution requires these things to be destroyed, removed, or rendered harmless under international supervision. This was to ensure that Iraq could never use the suspicion that it had chemical or biological weapons to again threaten its neighbors.Iraq NEVER complied with this provision. Moreover, the inspections that did occur were NEVER *unconditional.* Saddam Hussein always insisted upon placing conditions on the movement and access of inspectors, so as to give the definite impression that he was hiding something. So, again, if one looks at the rationale for inspections - to provide assurances to the world that Iraq really did no longer have WMD weapons or programs, then it is impossible to say that the inspections were working, because no such assurances were ever produced. JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Christian Justification for War L3! Re: The Other Christianity (was Re: Babble theory, and comments)
At 05:23 PM 4/6/2005 -0700,Nick wrote: Are you saying that war is the only way to get rid of an evil dictator? Or war was the only way to get rid of this one? Am I mistaken in believing that in almost every other case, our policy has been not to go to war for that reason? Is removing an evil dictator justification for this war? For what it's worth, there is no major religion that accepts such a justification. There are two great religious traditions with regard to war -- pacifism and just war theology. The latter never allows for a pre-emptive war. Virtually every major religious body in the world (the one notable exception being the Southern Baptist Association) urged us not to undertake it, before it began, which means before we even knew for sure that Iraq was no threat to us. Very aggressive inspections by an international force more like police than military, indicting the leader in a world court and other pressure could be brought to bear in such situations. Well-developed policies and plans for such intervention, backed by international agreement, would go a very long way toward peace. And so would many things that I have a direct part in -- consumption of oil and other scarce resouces, more diverse voices in the media, a more intelligent national discussion of issues and values... Nick Nick, You ask if removing an evil dictator is justification for war. I answer *yes* to that question, and further believe that yes it was the only way to get rid of this one. We spent 12 years trying all sorts of sanctions, air strikes, no-fly-zones, and funding for opposition groups, all to no avail in Iraq.As an amateur geologist, I surely agree that nothing lasts forever, but the experience in places like Cuba, the DPRK, and now Zimbabwe all suggest that this could be a very, very, long time in coming. Thus, I believe that the evils perpetuated by the Iraqi regime for ia reasonably long lifespan into the future under the status quo must be considered in evaluating the justness of the Iraq War. Anyhow, you go on to suggest that there are two great religious traditions with regard to war - pacifism and just war theology.I think that your statement is a little Christian-centric, perhaps intentionally on your part. But even within the Christian milieu, I think that one of the reasons for the lack of a more robust tradition regarding war is the fact that Christian theology has not quite caught up with a post-Holocaust, cum-United Nations, post-Clinton Doctrine, single hyperpower world. I would point out that the Catholic Catechism phrases this criteria regarding just war, as merely that the war must be waged against an aggressor, and that 'the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain.' (As an aside, the other criteria for just war in the Catholic Catechism are the exhaustion of other means (12 years in this case), serious prospect of success (not really a question in this case), and the use of arms must not produce greater evils (i.e. you can't justify a war to stop the execution of one innocent man, since war would result in the death of other innocents.)I know that you are not a Catholic, so I will respond to your definition of a just war first, but I want to make sure that you are aware of the different frame of reference from which I will be operating. In the past, war was essentially a geo-strategic event. Countries conducted wars to expand their power or influence at the expense of other countries. After the horrors of the Holocaust, it became suddenly at least conceivable that it could be desirable to conduct a war for moral reasons, rather than for strategic reasons. The creation of the United Nations following World War II crystalized a concept of international peace and security that was in the collective interest of nations. These ideas were more-or-less put on hold during The Cold War, however, until Bill Clinton formally made it a policy that the US would, when it could, make war on another country principally on humanitarian grounds and in defence of universal human rights. In a world with a single hyperpower, it now becomes ever more conceivable that the US could use the extraordinary imbalance of power in its favor on behalf of human rights where it does not have an immediate strategic interest. Anyhow, in my interpretation, the only update to just war theology required for the modern world, would be to consider a regime like Saddam Hussein's as being an aggressor based upon its crimes against humanity, its past history, and the reasonable consideration of its future actions, particularly with its hands on WMD's.But more on this later Under your interpretation just war theology requires imminent self-defence (or perhaps even *immediate* self-defense) as a pre-condition for just war.This logic, however, would preclude a country intervening against a
Bears in Space?
Haven't had time to do any research on this, but thought it was worth mentioning before a week goes by and I forget. One of the people I am working with this weekend has a son working on bear research. One of the things they are starting to look at is that mama bears do not lose bone mass (and I think he said muscle mass) during hibernation- just fat. Now finding out how *that* happens might help with bone mass problems in long term space projects. Dee ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: New Pope?
JDG wrote: Out of curiosity, why do you equate open-minded with agrees with [you]? Out of curiosity is it possible for you to carry on a debate without heaving insults? I think there is plenty of evidence that John Paul II was *very* open-minded, he just also happened to reach different conclusions with his open mind than you have. Well then why don't you post some evidence instead of heaving insults. Perhaps I'm wrong, but from what I understand the Pope stifled debate on the subject of women in the clergy. -- Doug ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: New Pope?
JDG wrote: And of course, the startling conclusion from Doug's remarks is that the alternative to backsliding is a one-Party hegemony of the Democrats. More insults. Is that how they teach debate at Case Western or is it just a bad habit you picked up on the internet? -- Doug ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Societal Evolution Re: New Pope?
On Sat, 09 Apr 2005 12:18:22 -0400, JDG [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 09:51 PM 4/5/2005 -0700, Doug wrote: Oh, and if you looked at the individual data points would evolution go directly from good to better to best? What is good in the context of evolution? Poor wording on my part. Measure of success increased linearly, maybe? Isn't the answer to the above: by definition, yes? O.k., maybe you could point to a few exceptions, like say the non-avian dinosaurs, but for the most part, I think that the above answer fits Evolutionary dead ends are very common in the human fossil record. In fact, there are people who would claim that we probably don't know any direct ancestors to Homo sapiens in that record. But if the pattern of human evolution has been one of the production of new species and the selective extinction most species in the fossil record, then clearly many, many species that we know as fossils were evolutionary dead ends in the sense that they didn't give rise to descendent species. Ian Tattersall, Curator in the Department of Anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York -- Doug ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: New Pope?
At 07:35 PM 4/9/2005 -0700, Doug wrote: Out of curiosity, why do you equate open-minded with agrees with [you]? Out of curiosity is it possible for you to carry on a debate without heaving insults? I'm sorry, but I'm not sure that I detect the insult here. Are there issues where you disagree with the Pope where you consider him to be open-minded? Alternatively, are there issues where the Pope agrees with you where you consider him to be closed-minded? I think there is plenty of evidence that John Paul II was *very* open-minded, he just also happened to reach different conclusions with his open mind than you have. Well then why don't you post some evidence instead of heaving insults. Perhaps I'm wrong, but from what I understand the Pope stifled debate on the subject of women in the clergy. And if he did so after open-mindedly considering all sides of the issue, would you still consider him to be closed-minded on the subject for issuing a final decision? John D. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: New Pope?
At 07:37 PM 4/9/2005 -0700, Doug wrote: And of course, the startling conclusion from Doug's remarks is that the alternative to backsliding is a one-Party hegemony of the Democrats. More insults. Is that how they teach debate at Case Western or is it just a bad habit you picked up on the internet? Uh. right. JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Societal Evolution Re: New Pope?
At 07:51 PM 4/9/2005 -0700, Doug wrote: Oh, and if you looked at the individual data points would evolution go directly from good to better to best? What is good in the context of evolution? Poor wording on my part. Measure of success increased linearly, maybe? Isn't the answer to the above: by definition, yes? O.k., maybe you could point to a few exceptions, like say the non-avian dinosaurs, but for the most part, I think that the above answer fits Evolutionary dead ends are very common in the human fossil record. In fact, there are people who would claim that we probably don't know any direct ancestors to Homo sapiens in that record. But if the pattern of human evolution has been one of the production of new species and the selective extinction most species in the fossil record, then clearly many, many species that we know as fossils were evolutionary dead ends in the sense that they didn't give rise to descendent species. Ian Tattersall, Curator in the Department of Anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York But on the other hand, those species would never have risen in the first place had they not been evolutionary successful. The fact that other species came along later that were even more successful in no way implies that these species weren't successful in their own right John D. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Other Christianity (was Re: Babble theory, and comments)
On Sat, 09 Apr 2005 18:04:35 -0400, JDG wrote Just imagine how history might have been different if Saddam Hussein had simply waited two or three more years or so, and asserted his claim to Kuwait *after* acquiring nuclear weapons - and then began to talk about securing the Muslim Holy Land as leader of the Arab people What nuclear weapons? He wasn't building any. Nick ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Other Christianity (was Re: Babble theory, and comments)
On Sat, 09 Apr 2005 18:21:58 -0400, JDG wrote Note that this resolution requires these things to be destroyed, removed, or rendered harmless under international supervision. This was to ensure that Iraq could never use the suspicion that it had chemical or biological weapons to again threaten its neighbors. Iraq NEVER complied with this provision. Then where are the chemical and biological weapons? As I understand things, we've stopped even looking for them. Either they didn't exist, Iraq did destroy them, or they are incredibly well hidden. So, again, if one looks at the rationale for inspections - to provide assurances to the world that Iraq really did no longer have WMD weapons or programs, then it is impossible to say that the inspections were working, because no such assurances were ever produced. I have zero sympathy for Saddam and his buddies, but how can we fault them for failing to produce something that didn't exist? Nick ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Peaceful change
On Sat, 9 Apr 2005 18:40:38 -0500, Dan Minette wrote I know church leaders personally. In the US, there is no requirement to study history or international relations before enterming seminary. Or politics. So, in essence, the debate is on how powerful we are. Not from here. It's about how we use our power. Nick ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
