Re: Someone Must Tell Them
Thing is, some of the points I was going to make have already been made...but I'll definitely follow this thread closely from now on... Damon. Damon Agretto [EMAIL PROTECTED] Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum. http://www.geocities.com/garrand.geo/index.html Now Building: Trumpeter's Marder I auf GW 38(h) Sent from my BlackBerry wireless handheld. Sent from my BlackBerry wireless handheld. -Original Message- From: Doug [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2006 21:37:38 To:Killer Bs Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com Subject: Re: Someone Must Tell Them Damon wrote: I wanted to comment earlier but...eh... Please, please do! Knowing your interest in (and extensive knowledge of) the middle ages, your perspective is valuable to this fascinating discussion. -- Doug both feet, maru ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
Dan said much that was interesting including: From the Roman side, I'm not sure why the final war was that devastating. I haven't read as much as you have about that era, but the decline and fall of the Byzantine empire was more tied to the Byzantine bureaucracy and the internal squabbling (to the point of killing) over fine points of theology. Interestingly, I wouldn't even describe the Empire as Byzantine until after Heraclius. Whereas Justinian's empire in the mid sixth century was manifestly Roman, and Justinian saw himself as the heir of Augustus and Diocletian, Heraclius clearly didn't. The near terminal crisis of the empire during his reign changed the entire character of the empire, and provides what seems to me the most natural break-point between Roman and Byzantine (although, of course, there are many continuities that span the divide). But let me say something about that crisis... For the whole period of the Dominate, from the end of the troubled third century until the final war between Rome and Persia, the military strategy of the Romans was dominated by the Persian frontier. Even during the period of the fall of the western part of the Empire, the bulk of Roman forces were tied up in the east. (Indeed, if not for this the western provinces would almost certainly not have fallen, and if the threat of Persia had receded then the recovery of the west by Justinian's generals Belisarius and Narses would probably have been much more complete.) For much of this period the massive Roman forces and fortifications along the frontier preserved the peace although there were limited wars in the buffer regions. During the century and a half between the fall of the west and the final war, there were relatively small wars during 502-6, 526-32 and 540-57 (a more serious pair of overlapping wars on different fronts during which Antioch fell to the Persians). Then in 602, the apocalypse that the balance of military might between the two powers had postponed for centuries finally broke out. The Romans had been weakened by another bout of civil war, military unrest and the invasion of the Balkans by the Avars. The Persian king Khosrau II took advantage of this weakness and invaded Roman Mesopotamia. In 608, Heraclius, the son of the Exarch of Africa, rebelled against the emperor Phocas, whose rule had been generally disastrous, and took Constantinople in 610. The renewed civil war in the Roman Empire further strengthened the position of the Persians, who invaded Syria, taking Damascus in 613, Jerusalem in 614 and conquering Egypt in 616 (it remained under Persian control for a decade). At the low point for the Romans, the empire in the east was reduced almost to the city of Constantinople itself: the Avars controlled the Balkans and the campfires of the Persians were visible just across the Bosphorus. The imperial government came within a whisker of abandoning the city and moving the capital to the safety of Carthage. I don't think anybody at the time can have expected anything except the imminent dissolution of the Roman Empire. Remarkably, that's not what happened, largely because of Heraclius himself. Unlike most of the later Roman emperors his charisma could inspire immense loyalty and courage in his troops and he turned out to be something of an organisational and military genius. He totally reformed the administrative and military structure of the Empire (and along the way replaced Latin with Greek as the official language of the imperial government). His reorganisation largely endured for eight centuries, which is why I consider him the first Byzantine emperor. Heraclius was also the first emperor to lead his troops in person for over two hundred years, and his campaigns between 621 and 627 were spectacular indeed. A combination of strategic and tactical brilliance and skillful exploitation of weaknesses in the Persian political system brought the Persian empire to its knees, plunging it into a series of crises that fatally weakened it. By the end of the war, the Romans had recovered all the territory they'd lost to Persia, but they were territories ravaged by a quarter of a century of foreign occupation and war. It was only seven years after the end of this last war between Rome and Persia that the armies of Islam erupted from Arabia. By that time Heraclius had fallen into terminal illness, and his generals failed him. Syria fell to the Arabs in 634, the Persian army was defeated in 636, Armenia and Egypt were conquered in 639, Africa in 642, Persia itself in 651... Rich ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
Richard Baker wrote: For the whole period of the Dominate, from the end of the troubled third century until the final war between Rome and Persia, the military strategy of the Romans was dominated by the Persian frontier. Even during the period of the fall of the western part of the Empire, the bulk of Roman forces were tied up in the east. Great message. But we all hear from the Roman's point of view. What was the Persian logic for keeping up a war against Rome? Did they see Rome as the heirs of Alexander and they wanted to take revenge? Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
Alberto said: Great message. Thank you. But we all hear from the Roman's point of view. What was the Persian logic for keeping up a war against Rome? Did they see Rome as the heirs of Alexander and they wanted to take revenge? I'm very aware of my bias towards the Romans in my reading about history and one of my intentions for next year is to read several histories of the Persian empires to compensate. Having said that, I think that it's largely Rome that was to blame for the wars against the Parthians and Sassanids. The motivations for the Romans were mixed: the prestige attached to military conquest, the promise of plunder from the famously wealth East, the almost pathological desire to secure the Republic against threats from its few peers, and later the religious opposition of Christianity and Zoroastrianism (the latter of which was much more tolerant of other religions than the former). The war that started over half a millennium of intermittent conflict between the two powers was engineered purely so that Crassus could have military exploits to rival those of his fellow triumvirs. Marcus Antonius' Parthian expedition had a similar motive. And so it went... I don't think the Parthians wanted revenge for Alexander's conquests. In general they were fairly philhellenic and during their expansion they largely absorbed the Greek administrative system and the Greek elites of the crumbling Seleucid empire. Maybe such a motive was more likely for the Sassanid monarchy, but again I know so little about Persia that I'd hesitate to say. By the way, I can't remember if I've mentioned it here before but you might be interested in reading the first of my (slowly) ongoing series on the period from the crisis of the third century to the Arab conquests, The Pirenne Thesis and the End of Antiquity: http://www.theculture.org/rich/sharpblue/archives/000140.html With a little luck I might find time to finish the second part soon! Rich ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
You know, this thread has been going for so long, and apparently I must have missed a number of emails, so that I have NO idea how the discussion of Roman/Parthian/Persian/Imperial Arab history came about. I wanted to comment earlier but...eh... Damon. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
Damon wrote: I wanted to comment earlier but...eh... Please, please do! Knowing your interest in (and extensive knowledge of) the middle ages, your perspective is valuable to this fascinating discussion. -- Doug both feet, maru ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
At 10:03 PM Thursday 12/21/2006, Damon Agretto wrote: You know, this thread has been going for so long, and apparently I must have missed a number of emails, so that I have NO idea how the discussion of Roman/Parthian/Persian/Imperial Arab history came about. Neither do I. (I wasn't even aware that it had become a requirement for there to be a reason for a discussion to come about . . . ) I wanted to comment earlier but...eh... Please do! -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Someone Must Tell Them
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Richard Baker Sent: Wednesday, November 22, 2006 4:30 PM To: Killer Bs Discussion Subject: Re: Someone Must Tell Them Dan said: I really don't see this. For example, with AQ, the evidence is that they see the lifestyle of the West as decadent and evil, and the dominance of the West to be anathema to the proper order of things. My take is that the radical fringe of Islam is a sort of cargo cult. I think that fundamentally most people everywhere want prosperity and security for themselves and their families, and a sense that they're respected. That's a reasonable starting point. People who run countries or are interested in running countries are also interested in power, though. And, from understanding the sociology of family systems (via lotsa listening to my spouse) I see the desire for control as a fairly widespread human tendency. So, I think that, if I generalized, I'd say people on the whole want security, prestige, wealth, and power. There are some, I agree, who don't seen to want power, but even among those that seem passive, I've known quite a few passive aggressive manipulators. The Islamic world once had all of those things. For the period from, say, AD800 to AD1400, Islam was one of the world's two most powerful civilizations No argument there. The reason for the explosive expansion of the Arab armies was partially the unity given them by Islam, but was mostly the weakness of the Roman and Persian empires in the aftermath of their final apocalyptic war. From the Roman side, I'm not sure why the final war was that devastating. I haven't read as much as you have about that era, but the decline and fall of the Byzantine empire was more tied to the Byzantine bureaucracy and the internal squabbling (to the point of killing) over fine points of theology. Following that expansion, the reason for the prosperity of the Islamic states in the AD800 to AD1400 period wasn't their adherence to strict Islamic laws - in fact most of them were pretty lax about applying such things - but their position straddling the trade routes crossing Asia. I have no problem with that. Unfortunately, the radical Islamists don't see it that way. One of the characteristics of Islam is that the success of Islam-the- religion and the success of Islam-the-states are closely tied together in the minds of many Muslims (certainly more so than the two kinds of success are in the minds of Christians). Attacks on the dar al-Islam are easily seen as attacks on Islam itself, and failures of the dar al-Islam are easily considered the effects of moral failings on the parts of the people. In my opinion, the radical Islamists have built a cargo cult on this basis: they see the recapitulation of the forms of Muslim behaviour from the great days of Islam as the key to regaining prosperity, security and respect. But the shallow aping of forms misses the deep reasons for the success of Islam. This is seen most clearly in the case of the Taliban, whose viewpoint seems to be that the relative poverty and impotence of Afghanistan isn't due to the withering of trade through the region (which once supported some of the most magnificent and rich cities in the world) or other more recent but secondary historical factors but is caused by the people not being strict enough or literal enough in their interpretations of the Koran and application of the Sharia. It's also apparent in the web of international Islamic terrorism, which seeks to regain the greatness of the Islamic world through fantasies of recapitulating the heroic military actions of the first armies of Islam against the infidels. Unfortunately, although these attitudes are clearly idiocy of the first order to most of us, they are pretty seductive to certain groups of people both inside and outside the Islamic world. Equally unfortunately, they are doomed to failure and generally deleterious to the well-being both of Islam and the dar al- Islam. From folks I know who've been in the Mid East, from my limited travels there, and from second hand information (people I know discussing what they've been taught in class and what they've learned at places like the JFK school of government, I've gotten a different picture than you do. The difference has some significant effects on how we view the potential strength of the movement. I think the most critical part of this is understanding the Arab culture as an honor/shame based culture. One's place in society, and, more important, one's family's place in society is critical. There are several examples of this that we can easily see. The first one that comes to mind is honor killing: killing a female family member for bring shame to the family when she is raped. The second is the critical nature of manners and hospitality in Arab cultures. Both my experience
RE: Someone Must Tell Them
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ronn!Blankenship Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2006 7:51 PM To: 'Killer Bs Discussion' Subject: RE: Someone Must Tell Them Given that, one can see the desire to not just fight defensively. The fact that GWB is so unbelievable incompetent that he could probably coach the New England Patriots into a loss vs. the Little Sisters of the Poor has clouded the question somewhatmaking the next step of the US to be more towards isolationism (one of the natural US tendencies). The incompetence of Bush does not mean that treating attacks of this nature as simply a matter for the police is a good strategy. I have a very non-sanguine prediction for the future, but I'll leave that for the next post. Dan M. Waiting with bated breath. I hope your bait breath hasn't ruined your love life over the past few weeks, but I've been thinking about how to express this prediction. I don't think it's a certainty, but it's a real possibility, especially if certain tendencies are followed. There are some assumptions behind it; assumptions that I think that some on the list will differ with. I see these differences in terms of Robert Kagen's discussion of the differences between the US and Europe, with some non-Europeans on the list having views that correspond more closely to the European view. For the past 60 years, the US has been the essential military counterweight to forces that it sees as against its, and many other countries interests. For the first 45 or so years, this was seen in terms of the Cold War. Since then, it has been seen against numerous smaller foes, from Gulf War I, to the Balkans, to North Korea, to Gulf War II. During the last 40 or so years of that time, I have been politically aware. I recall throughout the time that there was a questioning of both the need for such a counter and questioning of how the US countered Communism. In hindsight, I think that the criticism that we were too willing to write blank checks to any anti-Communist was valid. However, I think that the general idea of containment was a good one, and that the European critics of fighting the Cold War (diplomacy and trade was all that was needed)were mistaken. After the Cold War, there was hope that the US could scale down its defense spending and work as part of a broad alliance instead of standing out in front as the main protagonist. That wasn't practical in Gulf War I, since only the US had the military capacity to effectively fight Hussein's army. It was militarily, but not politically practical in the Balkans, where Clinton waited for Europe to take an effective lead before pushing them to follow America's plan. Indeed, the single most striking feature of the Dutchbat report to me was the section where they criticized the US for the mistake of trying to work with the rest of NATO on a more equal basis instead of presenting and pushing hard for a US plan. After 9-11, NATO agreed to go into Afghanistan. It was consistent with earlier military interventions that were agreed upon by NATO, the US furnished the overwhelming majority of the forces, Britain provided a much smaller, but still very useful force, and the other nations provided mostly symbolic assistance. I heard from a reliable source that the US military thought that, with the exception of the British forces, the NATO forces would be more of a hindrance than a help, but the political decision was (and I think correctly) to accept the help and say thank you for it. Then came Bush's Iraq mistake. My guess is that, no matter what we do from here on out, that it will end disastrously. By that, I mean, at the very least, the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad, the massive loss of civilian life (100k in a year, and a strengthened and emboldened Iran. The more negative end of this would be a large scale genocide (250k killed), with neighboring countries dragged into the war. This sets the stage for my negative prediction. At this point, the sentiment that there's no sense in us getting involved in such nonsense again will become prevalent in the US. By this, I'm not referring to, merely resolving to not jump into wars of choice like Bush didbut a clear signal that the US is becoming significantly more isolationist. In other words, if Gulf War I or the Balkans were to repeat and someone needed to intervene to prevent things getting worse, the US sentiment would be, it's someone else's turn to send their sons and daughters. But, even if the world agreed that such intervention was a very good idea (e.g. Gulf War I where even Syria went along with the war), the US would decide it wasn't the world's cop. Gulf War I only passed the Congress by a few votes...and that was 15 years after 'Nam ended. I think that, in light of the even stronger anti-American sentiment that is prevailing now, and the clear damage to American interests caused
RE: Someone Must Tell Them
JDG asked: The survey, of 2,011 international travelers in 16 countries, was conducted by RT Strategies, a Virginia-based polling firm, for the Discover America Partnership, a group launched in September with multimillion-dollar backing from a range of companies that include the InterContinental Hotels Group, Anheuser Busch and Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. What is the reputation of RT Strategies? Given the client list, I'd assume that the company has a good reputation in the market and knows what it is doing. OK, and what countries exactly rated higher than the United States on this List? The closes rivals in terms of being unfriendly to travelers were the Mid East and the Indian Subcontinent, in that order. Ritu ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them
JDG wrote: --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Ritu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Similarly, I find the notion of bombing a people into democracy and gratitude stupid. And I really honestly do not believe that Bush's failure of imagination and my recognition of the same makes me responsible for Saddam's crimes, or the hypothetical continuation thereof. And I find the notion of winning gratitude while standing idly by as a megalamoniac dictator terrorizes the population, starts futile wars with his neighbors, and leaves his country impoversihed while completely enriching himself to be even stupider. See, I can mock your position as easily as you can mock mine *g* Would have worked better had that really been my position. :) But I don't think I've ever said anything that can be construed to mean that one can stand by idly while others are being tortured/killed and earn gratitude that way. So hold on to these lines and trot them out when I do make such a silly proposition. :) Now if there had been a serious attempt to find a different, less destructive way to get rid of Saddam before the invasion and the tarring of every opposer as a supporter of Saddam you might have had a point. But there wasn't, and therefore you don't. You wouldn't be referring to the generally-supposed policy of France, Russia, and China, among others, to work towards the lifting of sanctions on Saddam Hussein's Iraq, would you? No I wasn't refering to that at all. If you re-read my lines above, you'd see that I was talking of alternate ways to remove Saddam, and not on the totally different subject of removal of sanctions. On the other hand, the policy of sanctions, No-Fly-Zones, diplomatic isolation, etc. was given something on the order of 10+ years to work. And, to refresh my memory, which one of these policies was aimed at *removing* Saddam instead of containing him, and neutralising the threat posed by him? If a American Republicans/conservatives were proposing sticking with a policy that had failed for 10+ years, I wonder what your reaction would have been... *shrug* Depends on the issue, the costs and who'd be paying them, how strongly I feel about a subject, and a host of other factors. You'd have to propose a hypothetical situation to find out how I'd react. But one thing I can say for sure, I would react the same way whether the notion was proposed by a Democrat or a Republican. I respond to the idea, not to the proposer. :) Ritu ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them
Doug wrote: AQ wants to prolong the violence because they are aware that Americans have a limited amount of patience; that by prolonging the violence they will force us to leave. I'll disagree with you here. I do not think that AQ wants the US to withdraw. Not right now at any rate. A couple of captured AQ documents clearly indicate that AQ is hoping that the US stays in Iraq for a long time to come. The American presence in Iraq is accomplishing what OBL had hoped the Afghanistan war would do - act as a motivator and radicalise the Muslim youth, and provide a target for the new recruits to practice on. Some analysts and intelligence institutions have already pointed toward a trend wherein jihadis get their 'training' in Iraq and then move to Afghanistan. Also, it is a drain on your economy and OBL is on record about wanting that. He has said as much in a letter about Iraq. Another cache of letters, caught when Zwahiri was killed, showed that AQ is also worried that it doesn't have enough representation in Iraq [estimates about AQ involvement put them at about 5-10% of the Iraqi insurgents/whatever the current term might be]. So if the US withdraws, AQ is not sure that they have enough of a toe-hold to stay on in Iraq. None of this means, of course, that they wouldn't crow to high heaven and proclaim victory the minute a departure is announced. Ritu ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them
Finally! I have been reading excerpts but it took me almost the entire day to work my way down to this message. JDG wrote: Ritu, it seems that you, Nick, and even Dan missed the point here. The proposition was made here that the US is responsible for all the deaths currently occuring in Iraq. While this was a reasonable proposition when the deaths in Iraq were occuring largely as a result of US military action, or else as a result of an anti-US insurgency in Iraq, that no longer seems to be the case. As the events of the past week have painfully demonstrated, the predominant form of violence in Iraq is of an inter-sectarian kind as the various Iraqi factions jockey for position in the post-Saddam order. Well, actually it is more than that. That sentence well describes what was happening earlier. Now we have a civil war. And that is infinitely bloodier than any jockeying-for-position. And as for the blame, John, well, consider this: In 1947, India was partitioned. We asked for the partition, we agreed to it, and it was carried out. But a lot still blame the British for the Partition, and insist that they could have done more, not only to prevent it but also to ensure that it was less violent. Because they were the ones with the power, and they were the ones who could have done it. Now Iraqis didn't ask for the invasion. They didn't ask for an occupation. And they certainly didn't ask for a bungled occupation where no attempts were ever made to see if the secular nature of the Iraqi state could survive Saddam's downfall. They also didn't ask for a govt so enfeebled by a lack of decent police and army that it cannot maintain order within its own borders. All these things were decided by the Coalition. So I am not sure why you think that the responsibility for enabling this sectarian madness shouldn't fall on the Coalition too. In my mind, if one is to blame the US for these deaths, then the alternative would be to support the prolonged the perpetuation of Saddam Hussein or similar ad infinitum as a means of holding the country together. Yes, I know you think that way. But I don't and I have never advocated that Saddam should have carried on just so Iraq doesn't break up. It is not an 'either-or' situation, John. You don't need a genocidal maniac as a dictator to keep a country together. A strong efficient govt does the trick. Alternatively, I suppose you could explain why you think that there would have been less sectarian violence in Iraq if the regime of Saddam Hussein (or similar) had only collapsed *without* 150,000+ US troops on the ground trying to help keep the peace... Right after you explain why you assume I think that. :) Ritu ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ritu Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2006 3:37 AM To: 'Killer Bs Discussion' Subject: RE: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them On the other hand, the policy of sanctions, No-Fly-Zones, diplomatic isolation, etc. was given something on the order of 10+ years to work. And, to refresh my memory, which one of these policies was aimed at *removing* Saddam instead of containing him, and neutralising the threat posed by him? Sanctions and diplomatic isolation are, typically, the strongest non-military techniques the world has to push for regime change. This is what was attempted with Cuba, South Africa, and North Korea, for example. It is true that, in cases where the US has a great deal of influence (say the Philippines), regime change can be afforded by using influence (in that case the US convinced members of the Philippines military to stand down when Marcos wanted them to stop a regime change via elections). But, I think it is safe to say that outside countries had little leverage with the leadership in Iraq. The best chance for regime change came right after Gulf War I. Hussein had been humiliated; his army had totally collapsed against the US. The US supported uprisings within the country, which were stamped down quickly, efficiently, and mercilessly. What we didn't take into account was the fact that the Republican Guard had been held out of the fighting, was intact, and still strongly loyal. The US and Britain then instituted no-fly zones, in an effort to reduce Hussein's ability to attack the Shiites and the Kurds. AFAIK, it was an unprecedented limitation of the sovereign power within a country, outside of a war of course. As a result of this, the Kurds were able to hold their own in the North, and run that part of Iraq as a semi-autonomous region. I know that regime change was a goal of Bush Sr. and Clinton, but not considered an attainable one, short of invasion. Thus, they focused on the lesser goal of containment, after the attempt at regime change failed. One might argue for a targeted assignation, but that's problematic in three ways. First, while we tend to focus on the leader himself, eliminating that one person doesn't eliminate the dictatorship. The best we could reasonable hope for is that a less talented dictator takes over. Our hopes for a quick regime change in N. Korea were based on Kim Jr. not having the chops of Kim Sr. In all likelihood, he doesn't, but he's in power 12 years later. So, if we magically got rid of Hussein, the next in line (say his brother or Chemical Ali) would not represent a regime change. Second, during both Gulf Wars, we did include command and control as legitimate bombing targets. Neither time did we get Hussein. Even after we control Iraq, it took quite a while to find him. Third, these techniques have been declared illegal in the US, mostly for reasons of self interest. We did try them with Castro, to no avail. Since the Kennedy assignation, we saw that the use of this technique as a means of could risk starting big wars that no-one wants. In particular, no one wanted the USSR to think it's the USA if the chairman of the communist party were to be killed. Given the problems we have with asymmetric war now, I don't think Western governments want to put this on the table. AQ and Bin Laden are different, of course, because they are not a government. And, the US and Britain actually bombed military targets when Hussein stonewalled inspections. The next step after bombing is a military campaign involving boots on the ground. Indeed, I could argue that Iraq between the Gulf Wars could be used as an example of trying everything short of invasion, with no success. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them
On 11/27/06, jdiebremse [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If Iraqis are killing Iraqis at a stunning rate today, and they are, it is because the Coalition enabled such a situation to arise. So, for quite a lot of us, all the Iraqi deaths post 2003 are on the Coalition's head. Okay... Ritu, did you really mean to say that the Coalition (not the US, John) is totally responsible for all of the Iraqis killing Iraqis these days? Surely that is only partial responsibility? Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them
Nick Arnett asked: Okay... Ritu, did you really mean to say that the Coalition (not the US, John) is totally responsible for all of the Iraqis killing Iraqis these days? Nope. The Coalition, as I mentioned in the mail John quoted, is responsible for enabling the situation to arise. This kind of chaos was by no means the inevitable result and better administration could have warded off a lot of the problems which currently feed off each other. Surely that is only partial responsibility? Yep. Most of the responsibility for the individual acts of violence is shared by those who pull the trigger or plant the IEDs, or decorate a car with explosives, etc. etc. But the fact that such a large number of idiots find it so easy to perpetrate such a large number of crimes daily is very much the responsibility of those who overturned the previous order without knowing how to replace it with a functioning state. The preparation was woeful, the execution appalling, and it needn't have been this way. Ritu ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ritu Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2006 3:37 AM To: 'Killer Bs Discussion' Subject: RE: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them JDG wrote: --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Ritu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Similarly, I find the notion of bombing a people into democracy and gratitude stupid. And I really honestly do not believe that Bush's failure of imagination and my recognition of the same makes me responsible for Saddam's crimes, or the hypothetical continuation thereof. And I find the notion of winning gratitude while standing idly by as a megalamoniac dictator terrorizes the population, starts futile wars with his neighbors, and leaves his country impoversihed while completely enriching himself to be even stupider. See, I can mock your position as easily as you can mock mine *g* Would have worked better had that really been my position. :) But I don't think I've ever said anything that can be construed to mean that one can stand by idly while others are being tortured/killed and earn gratitude that way. So hold on to these lines and trot them out when I do make such a silly proposition. :) But, JDG never said anything that can reasonably be construed to match your characterization given above. So, I think a reasonable reading of this was that both of you can make quick, easy, cartoons of the more complex, nuanced position of the other, but why bother. My understanding of your position was that there were some things that had some reasonable chance to result in regime change that should have been tried before war. I've been racking my brain, thinking of what has been proposed, and cannot come up with anything that was proposed pre-war that was either innovative or had a reasonable basis for plausibility. I'm kinda curious, what were these other possibilities? Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Afghanistan Re: Someone Must Tell Them
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Charlie Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Much of the world simply isn't able to provide soldiers as most 1st world countries have been cutting back to basically a defence force, and there have been enough friendly fire incidents in joint task forces in the past to make military forces wary of combining troops. Many other countries provided soldiers, ships and aircraft, including a substantial contingent from the constantly maligned France: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 2001_war_in_Afghanistan#Nature_of_the_coalition Yep. I note ISAF still has troops from 34 countries. Unfortunately, there is every indication that the force is too small to accomplish the job - there remains too few troops, and of the troops that are there, too few of them are willing to work in the toughest/most violent areas. Don't get me wrong, I am very happy for the contributions that have been provided - but unfortunately, given the nature of the task facing Western Civilization, far more is required, and even the US is not fully stepping up to the plate in that regard, let alone the rest of the world ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Ritu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: JDG asked: The survey, of 2,011 international travelers in 16 countries, was conducted by RT Strategies, a Virginia-based polling firm, for the Discover America Partnership, a group launched in September with multimillion-dollar backing from a range of companies that include the InterContinental Hotels Group, Anheuser Busch and Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. What is the reputation of RT Strategies? Given the client list, I'd assume that the company has a good reputation in the market and knows what it is doing. OK, and what countries exactly rated higher than the United States on this List? The closes rivals in terms of being unfriendly to travelers were the Mid East and the Indian Subcontinent, in that order. Well, neither The Middle East nor the Indian Subcontinent is a country.Does The Middle East refer to Israel? Jordan? and Turkey? or how 'bouts Syria? Iraq? or Iran? JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them
Ritu wrote: I'll disagree with you here. I do not think that AQ wants the US to withdraw. Not right now at any rate. A couple of captured AQ documents clearly indicate that AQ is hoping that the US stays in Iraq for a long time to come. The American presence in Iraq is accomplishing what OBL had hoped the Afghanistan war would do - act as a motivator and radicalise the Muslim youth, and provide a target for the new recruits to practice on. Some analysts and intelligence institutions have already pointed toward a trend wherein jihadis get their 'training' in Iraq and then move to Afghanistan. Also, it is a drain on your economy and OBL is on record about wanting that. He has said as much in a letter about Iraq. Another cache of letters, caught when Zwahiri was killed, showed that AQ is also worried that it doesn't have enough representation in Iraq [estimates about AQ involvement put them at about 5-10% of the Iraqi insurgents/whatever the current term might be]. So if the US withdraws, AQ is not sure that they have enough of a toe-hold to stay on in Iraq. None of this means, of course, that they wouldn't crow to high heaven and proclaim victory the minute a departure is announced. I'll agree with the above with the caveat that anyone that knows the U.S. at all knows that the public has little patience for failure. The machinations of the Bush administration which, while it is abysmal at nation building, is rather proficient at deception and manipulation of the public (a la Rove), have prolonged the acceptance of the conflict somewhat. Now that public opinion has turned sharply against the war, it's only a matter of time before we leave. There is one other reason AQ doesn't want us to leave; they're Sunnis and aren't particularly interested in another Shi'a state in the region. -- Doug ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them
At 08:39 AM Tuesday 11/28/2006, Dan Minette wrote: -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ritu Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2006 3:37 AM To: 'Killer Bs Discussion' Subject: RE: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them On the other hand, the policy of sanctions, No-Fly-Zones, diplomatic isolation, etc. was given something on the order of 10+ years to work. And, to refresh my memory, which one of these policies was aimed at *removing* Saddam instead of containing him, and neutralising the threat posed by him? Sanctions and diplomatic isolation are, typically, the strongest non-military techniques the world has to push for regime change. This is what was attempted with Cuba, South Africa, and North Korea, for example. It is true that, in cases where the US has a great deal of influence (say the Philippines), regime change can be afforded by using influence (in that case the US convinced members of the Philippines military to stand down when Marcos wanted them to stop a regime change via elections). But, I think it is safe to say that outside countries had little leverage with the leadership in Iraq. The best chance for regime change came right after Gulf War I. Hussein had been humiliated; his army had totally collapsed against the US. The US supported uprisings within the country, which were stamped down quickly, efficiently, and mercilessly. What we didn't take into account was the fact that the Republican Guard had been held out of the fighting, was intact, and still strongly loyal. The US and Britain then instituted no-fly zones, in an effort to reduce Hussein's ability to attack the Shiites and the Kurds. AFAIK, it was an unprecedented limitation of the sovereign power within a country, outside of a war of course. As a result of this, the Kurds were able to hold their own in the North, and run that part of Iraq as a semi-autonomous region. I know that regime change was a goal of Bush Sr. and Clinton, but not considered an attainable one, short of invasion. Thus, they focused on the lesser goal of containment, after the attempt at regime change failed. One might argue for a targeted assignation, We send him a[nother] mistress? but that's problematic in three ways. First, while we tend to focus on the leader himself, eliminating that one person doesn't eliminate the dictatorship. The best we could reasonable hope for is that a less talented dictator takes over. Our hopes for a quick regime change in N. Korea were based on Kim Jr. not having the chops of Kim Sr. In all likelihood, he doesn't, but he's in power 12 years later. So, if we magically got rid of Hussein, the next in line (say his brother or Chemical Ali) would not represent a regime change. Second, during both Gulf Wars, we did include command and control as legitimate bombing targets. Neither time did we get Hussein. Even after we control Iraq, it took quite a while to find him. Third, these techniques have been declared illegal in the US, mostly for reasons of self interest. We did try them with Castro, to no avail. Since the Kennedy assignation, Marilyn? Or another one? we saw that the use of this technique as a means of could risk starting big wars that no-one wants. In particular, no one wanted the USSR to think it's the USA if the chairman of the communist party were to be killed. Given the problems we have with asymmetric war now, I don't think Western governments want to put this on the table. AQ and Bin Laden are different, of course, because they are not a government. And, the US and Britain actually bombed military targets when Hussein stonewalled inspections. The next step after bombing is a military campaign involving boots on the ground. Indeed, I could argue that Iraq between the Gulf Wars could be used as an example of trying everything short of invasion, with no success. Dan M. Aren't Spell Checkers Fun Maru -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them
At 10:24 AM Tuesday 11/28/2006, Ritu wrote: Nick Arnett asked: Okay... Ritu, did you really mean to say that the Coalition (not the US, John) is totally responsible for all of the Iraqis killing Iraqis these days? Nope. The Coalition, as I mentioned in the mail John quoted, is responsible for enabling the situation to arise. This kind of chaos was by no means the inevitable result and better administration could have warded off a lot of the problems which currently feed off each other. Surely that is only partial responsibility? Yep. Most of the responsibility for the individual acts of violence is shared by those who pull the trigger or plant the IEDs, Sorry to have nothing to contribute tonight but nitpicks, but someone on TV yesterday mumbled that term so badly that at first it sounded like IUDs . . . Both Associated With Bangs Maru -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Afghanistan Re: Someone Must Tell Them
On 29/11/2006, at 3:54 PM, jdiebremse wrote: Unfortunately, there is every indication that the force is too small to accomplish the job - there remains too few troops, and of the troops that are there, too few of them are willing to work in the toughest/ most violent areas. Yes, precisely. Upsetting. It needed to be done properly, and it wasn't because of the Iraq distraction. Don't get me wrong, I am very happy for the contributions that have been provided - but unfortunately, given the nature of the task facing Western Civilization, far more is required, and even the US is not fully stepping up to the plate in that regard, let alone the rest of the world I'm not even sure what the task facing Western Civilization means. You're talking another language. Charlie ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Ritu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And that's because the policy of the rest of the world was to support the reign of terror of Saddam Hussein ad infinitum Only if you share Bush's Manichean world-view. I don't. But we have covered this ground earlier, before the invasion. Ritu, it seems that you, Nick, and even Dan missed the point here. The proposition was made here that the US is responsible for all the deaths currently occuring in Iraq. While this was a reasonable proposition when the deaths in Iraq were occuring largely as a result of US military action, or else as a result of an anti-US insurgency in Iraq, that no longer seems to be the case. As the events of the past week have painfully demonstrated, the predominant form of violence in Iraq is of an inter-sectarian kind as the various Iraqi factions jockey for position in the post-Saddam order. In my mind, if one is to blame the US for these deaths, then the alternative would be to support the prolonged the perpetuation of Saddam Hussein or similar ad infinitum as a means of holding the country together.Alternatively, I suppose you could explain why you think that there would have been less sectarian violence in Iraq if the regime of Saddam Hussein (or similar) had only collapsed *without* 150,000+ US troops on the ground trying to help keep the peace... JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them
On 11/26/06, Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If need be, I can make a general case that our decision making process is better informed when we do study pact actions and results in such a manner than when we don't. Indeed, arguing against such a case would reject a great deal of how we learn through empirical observations. I'm quite sure that's not needed, since it is common sense that one can prophet from the past. Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them
On 11/27/06, jdiebremse [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The proposition was made here that the US is responsible for all the deaths currently occuring in Iraq. Cite, please. I don't recall anybody making any such argument. Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of jdiebremse Sent: Monday, November 27, 2006 8:34 AM To: Killer Bs Discussion Subject: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Ritu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And that's because the policy of the rest of the world was to support the reign of terror of Saddam Hussein ad infinitum Only if you share Bush's Manichean world-view. I don't. But we have covered this ground earlier, before the invasion. Ritu, it seems that you, Nick, and even Dan missed the point here. The proposition was made here that the US is responsible for all the deaths currently occuring in Iraq. While this was a reasonable proposition when the deaths in Iraq were occuring largely as a result of US military action, or else as a result of an anti-US insurgency in Iraq, that no longer seems to be the case. As the events of the past week have painfully demonstrated, the predominant form of violence in Iraq is of an inter-sectarian kind as the various Iraqi factions jockey for position in the post-Saddam order. I think that it is reasonable to assume that the overwhelming majority of the recent violence is sectarian. And, it's also reasonable to think that if the Bathist party fell (Hussein's death alone would not have been sufficient if the strongest of his relatives/lieutenants took power afterwards), that there would be some violent score settling. But, from what I've read, there were many factors involved in Iraq sectarianism. For example, even at this late date, there are still mixed Sunni/Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad where Shiites look out for Sunni neighbors as best they can. There have been a number of inter-sect marriages. Unfortunately, the way we've handled things, we have fostered the development of multiple militia. Chaos reigns. As things continue to slip, I expect the civil war to become extremely nasty. By extremely nasty, I mean noticeably worse than what we had seen in the Balkans. In my mind, if one is to blame the US for these deaths, then the alternative would be to support the prolonged the perpetuation of Saddam Hussein or similar ad infinitum as a means of holding the country together. Alternatively, I suppose you could explain why you think that there would have been less sectarian violence in Iraq if the regime of Saddam Hussein (or similar) had only collapsed *without* 150,000+ US troops on the ground trying to help keep the peace... I think I understand your point. Collapses of minority sect totalitarian rule can often be the source of tremendous chaos. Civil wars often result. In Iraq, some of the factors that would lead to a civil war were present. But, I think that our presence allowed various militias to form up under the banner of anti-Americanism as well as tribal loyalties. Then, by keeping a lid on things with our troops, we allowed this mess to simmer for 3+ years. We also tied our own hands concerning a sharp intervention to prevent Shiite genocide against Sunni. If we hadn't occupied the country for almost 4 years already, we would have had options...as would other countries. When Bush Sr. pushed for the fall of Hussein after Gulf War I, the projected levels of violence after an overthrow were nowhere near what the level of violence is now. I think there is significant historical evidence to show that Bush. Sr.'s team was far less likely to underestimate problems than Bush Jr.'s. My projection for Iraq is dismal. I think the best we can hope for is a swift and decisive Shiite victory in a civil war, and the death tool in the aftermath to be kept in the tens of thousands...as ethnic cleansing takes place. The reasonable worst case scenario is now a horror. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them
JDG wrote: Ritu, it seems that you, Nick, and even Dan missed the point here. The proposition was made here that the US is responsible for all the deaths currently occurring in Iraq. While this was a reasonable proposition when the deaths in Iraq were occurring largely as a result of US military action, or else as a result of an anti-US insurgency in Iraq, that no longer seems to be the case. As the events of the past week have painfully demonstrated, the predominant form of violence in Iraq is of an inter-sectarian kind as the various Iraqi factions jockey for position in the post-Saddam order. The sectarian violence now occurring in Iraq was sparked when the Al-Askari Mosque (the Golden Mosque) was destroyed last February by Al Qaida. Why did Al Qaida do it? To prolong the violence in Iraq. Why did they want to prolong the violence? Because of the presence of the U.S. in Iraq. Would the Sunni/Shi'a have occurred anyway? There's no way to know, but it's significant that before that bombing, violence between sects was minimal. In my mind, if one is to blame the US for these deaths, then the alternative would be to support the prolonged the perpetuation of Saddam Hussein or similar ad infinitum as a means of holding the country together. So since we aren't invading North Korea, we support the perpetuation of Jong? Come on John, what kind of whacked out logic is that? Alternatively, I suppose you could explain why you think that there would have been less sectarian violence in Iraq if the regime of Saddam Hussein (or similar) had only collapsed *without* 150,000+ US troops on the ground trying to help keep the peace... Yes, I believe that that is quite possible and even probable. -- Doug ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them
On 27 Nov 2006 at 8:45, Doug wrote: The sectarian violence now occurring in Iraq was sparked when the Al-Askari Mosque (the Golden Mosque) was destroyed last February by Al Qaida. Why did Al Qaida do it? To prolong the violence in Iraq. Why did they want to prolong the violence? Because of the presence of the U.S. in Iraq. And that is what I call absolute and total nonsense. Your causative chain of thought is founded on the basis that, somehow, Al Qaida's hostility to America is BECAUSE of Iraq. ... Do you REALLY need cites on previous actions they took? No. What's clear is they planned and carried out a major attack. If it had not been there, then it would probably of been in America. (And if not, Europe). Iraq is simply another battle front for what they see as a war against America. Would the Sunni/Shi'a have occurred anyway? There's no way to know, but it's significant that before that bombing, violence between sects was minimal. Absolutely, yes. It was a powerkeg allways waiting to go off, that was only the spark. Why? Because of the strong central government that America tried to set up. Which remains, to me, nonsensical. AndrewC Dawn Falcon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them
Andrew wrote: I wrote: The sectarian violence now occurring in Iraq was sparked when the Al-Askari Mosque (the Golden Mosque) was destroyed last February by Al Qaida. Why did Al Qaida do it? To prolong the violence in Iraq. Why did they want to prolong the violence? Because of the presence of the U.S. in Iraq. And that is what I call absolute and total nonsense. Your causative chain of thought is founded on the basis that, somehow, Al Qaida's hostility to America is BECAUSE of Iraq. How do you arrive at that conclusion? AQ wants to prolong the violence because they are aware that Americans have a limited amount of patience; that by prolonging the violence they will force us to leave. And in fact they have pretty much done that because public opinion has turned against the war and it’s only a matter of time before we begin to withdraw. So we're going to loose, and Iran will step into the void we leave in Iraq, put down the Sunni resistance, and form a dangerous anti-American, anti-Israeli alliance. And short of reinstating the draft and widening the war (which will never happen under the current political climate) - essentially initiating WWIII, there is very little we can do about it. -- Doug ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
Richard Baker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snippage (And let me add - wow, on your summary.) My take is that the radical fringe of Islam is a sort of cargo cult. This made me think of J. Diamond's New Guinean frind's question, wich relates to this: This is seen most clearly in the case of the Taliban, whose viewpoint seems to be that the relative poverty and impotence of Afghanistan isn't due to the withering of trade through the region (which once supported some of the most magnificent and rich cities in the world) or other more recent but secondary historical factors but is caused by the people not being strict enough or literal enough in their interpretations of the Koran and application of the Sharia. It's also apparent in the web of international Islamic terrorism, which seeks to regain the greatness of the Islamic world through fantasies of recapitulating the heroic military actions of the first armies of Islam against the infidels. Unfortunately, although these attitudes are clearly idiocy of the first order to most of us, they are pretty seductive to certain groups of people both inside and outside the Islamic world. Equally unfortunately, they are doomed to failure and generally deleterious to the well-being both of Islam and the dar al-Islam. I am currently reading Sarah Chayes' _The Punishment of Virtue_, about her experience as first an NPR reporter on Afghanistan post-9/11, and then as a foreigner living there, trying to jump-start local businesses (well, that latter is what she talked about to a group of Denver women; I haven't gotten halfway through the book yet). It's clear that she was/is heavily invested in the success of an Afghan nation; her outlook was somewhat bleak at the end of the talk (I was not there in person, but parts of it were broadcast on our local PBS station). The WashPost review is excerpted at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Punishment-Virtue-Inside-Afghanistan-Taliban/dp/1594200963 ...Her instrument of choice in recounting this story is the microscope, not the telescope. This is not a sweeping history. Instead, she sticks to what she sees and hears from her perch living among Afghans in Kandahar, the deeply traditional city and former Taliban stronghold that is at the heart of the country's past, present and future. But what a perch it is. Unlike many Westerners in Afghanistan, Chayes throws herself into the culture, learning Pashto, living with a family of 21 and wearing down the already rutted roads as she drives herself around town. She also confronts mysterious death threats and ends up sleeping with a Kalashnikov rifle propped beside her bed. Chayes first enters Kandahar in the days after the Taliban's fall. She does so as a journalist, having volunteered to leave her cushy job as an NPR correspondent in Paris because the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks inspired her to do more than filing a seemingly endless series of food stories. Though Chayes had covered war before, in the Balkans, she saw her assignment to Afghanistan as something bigger -- a chance to do her part in mediating between the West and Islam even as others spoke ominously of an unavoidable clash of civilizations. What she found was a story infinitely more complex than the standard fare of American troops vs. Taliban and al-Qaeda terrorists. Early on, she discovers that the United States had handed over control of Kandahar to a local thug named Gul Agha Shirzai. Shirzai had been governor before -- during a period so anarchic and bloody that city residents actually welcomed the takeover by the puritanical Taliban. Now, he was governor again, despite the wishes of President Hamid Karzai, who had also been handpicked by the United States. The Taliban have scarcely fallen, Chayes writes, and already U.S. policy seems at cross-purposes with itself. But her NPR editors aren't interested in that story. They want Mullah Omar sightseeing (as she calls descriptions of the country's self-proclaimed emir's tacky lair) and other tales from the Taliban's awful reign. So Chayes quits journalism but not Afghanistan. She stays in Kandahar as field director for Afghans for Civil Society, a nonprofit group set up by Karzai's brother Qayum. Her first project is rebuilding a small village on Kandahar's outskirts where U.S. bombing had pulverized a third of the houses. Through her efforts, she glimpses the dysfunction of the American-led reconstruction. U.S. officials endlessly rotate in and out of the country, never staying long enough to learn their way around. Plans are made and then scrapped. Rules are unbreakable, except when they're broken. Chayes writes that the inefficiencies become even more acute after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, when Afghanistan's reconstruction falls even further down the priority list... It is a bit of a grind to read, but is a valuable voice from the ground there; our library had a copy. Debbi Missed Opportunities
Re: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them
At 08:58 AM Monday 11/27/2006, Nick Arnett wrote: I'm quite sure that's not needed, since it is common sense that one can prophet from the past. Aargh. -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them
On 27 Nov 2006 at 12:42, Doug wrote: Andrew wrote: I wrote: The sectarian violence now occurring in Iraq was sparked when the Al-Askari Mosque (the Golden Mosque) was destroyed last February by Al Qaida. Why did Al Qaida do it? To prolong the violence in Iraq. Why did they want to prolong the violence? Because of the presence of the U.S. in Iraq. And that is what I call absolute and total nonsense. Your causative chain of thought is founded on the basis that, somehow, Al Qaida's hostility to America is BECAUSE of Iraq. How do you arrive at that conclusion? No, re-read what I typed. It's not a conclusion, it's pointing out that the causative chain of though I was replying to stated that. AQ wants to prolong the violence because they are aware that Americans have a limited amount of patience; that by prolonging the Huh? No, again, you're somehow focusing on AQ hates Americans in Iraw. They PLAIN HATE AMERICANS. They're prolonging the violence by attacking Americans because it hurts American interests and Americans. Iraq happens to be the current best place for them to do that. So we're going to loose, and Iran will step into the void we leave in Iraq, put down the Sunni resistance, and form a dangerous anti-American, anti-Israeli alliance. Dangerous to who? American interests, sure. As for anti-Isralie, Saddam wasn't precsely pro-Isralie in the first place. AndrewC Dawn Falcon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Energy Independence Re: Someone Must Tell Them
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So, either your proposing tripling the price of oil in this country, or you are proposing a policy with about as much near-term relevance for energy independence as drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. I remember near term energy independence being a policy of Nixon and Ford and Carter. :-) It's not really achievable. So, it seems reasonable to decrease our dependency now, by raising fuel taxes by, say, $0.50 gal per year for the next 10 years, or some similar means. Adding $5 to the price of each gallon of gas over the next 10 years? Its totally impractical, of course, and would probably seriously increase poverty in the United States and dramatically lower our standard of living even if it were possible, but that is about what it would take. Many people are noticing the increased use of alternative energy, and are incorrectly concluding that we are closer to energy independence than ever. Unfortunately, I don't think that is the case. For example, to consider why eight years ago, the nominal national average price of a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline was $1, and today it is $2.23, and just four months ago it was $2.98. For the most part, the price of gas has double/tripled because there is more demand for gasoline than supply at the cost of production, and therfore in a free market, those demanding the gasoline bid up the price until enough people drop out and the market clears. Those dropping out of the market are turning to alternative fuels and/or choosing to not engage in consumption (e.g., forgoing a trip.) Thus, I would venture that most of the increased use of alternative energies (and alternative energy remains a tiny slice of overall consumption), is simply serving to reduce the demand for fossil fuels. This reduced demand would then feed primarily into lower prices, with little effect on overall consumption. As another example, there is the famous quote from a former Secretary-General of OPEC that the stone age didn't end because the world ran out of stone, and the oil age will end long before the world runs out of oil.When the oil age does end, however, I'd be willing to bet that the very last barrels of oil will probably come out of Saudi Arabia - since that's where the cheapest oil in the world comes from. Thus, any drive for energy independence is even less likely to cause the US to withdraw from the Middle East because as the price of oil is bid down through lack of demand, the first production to be displaced would likely be high-cost US production, and the very last bits oil production to be displaced will be all that cheap, sweet, Middle Eastern crude. And unfortunately, alternative energy sources are a very, very, long ways from being able to compete with the costs of Middle Eastern oil production on a free market. JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Charlie Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There's no question that we are walking right up to the line, and a decently strong case that we are crossing that line, but I'm not sure that any previous generation has hestitated to walk right up to the line and occasionally cross it in times of threat either. So people were wrong before, and that justifies being wrong now? And you wonder why we're looking on in horror from elsewhere in the world. You are jumping into the middle of the conversation and drawing completely the wrong conclusions. At no point have I argued that torture was justified, nor have I even so much as argued that the Bush Administration's policies in regards to treatment of prisoners was justified. The subject of conversation was someone making the case that Americans were reacting to the current threat in a way that was more panicked, more fear-stricken, and less noble than the way Americans had reacted to threats in the past. I'm simply pointing out that that is a very tough case to make given some of America's reactions to past threats. JDG - Who has never imagined that he could take so much grief for criticizing the United States on this List ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Ritu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: but I'd be curious to see the methodology first. It probably was just an ill-designed survey Well, I'll give you what information I have and you can see if you can hunt down the methodology. This is what the articles say: The survey, of 2,011 international travelers in 16 countries, was conducted by RT Strategies, a Virginia-based polling firm, for the Discover America Partnership, a group launched in September with multimillion-dollar backing from a range of companies that include the InterContinental Hotels Group, Anheuser Busch and Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. What is the reputation of RT Strategies? Given the client list, I'd assume that the company has a good reputation in the market and knows what it is doing. OK, and what countries exactly rated higher than the United States on this List? JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Ritu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Similarly, I find the notion of bombing a people into democracy and gratitude stupid. And I really honestly do not believe that Bush's failure of imagination and my recognition of the same makes me responsible for Saddam's crimes, or the hypothetical continuation thereof. And I find the notion of winning gratitude while standing idly by as a megalamoniac dictator terrorizes the population, starts futile wars with his neighbors, and leaves his country impoversihed while completely enriching himself to be even stupider. See, I can mock your position as easily as you can mock mine Now if there had been a serious attempt to find a different, less destructive way to get rid of Saddam before the invasion and the tarring of every opposer as a supporter of Saddam you might have had a point. But there wasn't, and therefore you don't. You wouldn't be referring to the generally-supposed policy of France, Russia, and China, among others, to work towards the lifting of sanctions on Saddam Hussein's Iraq, would you? Oh nevermind On the other hand, the policy of sanctions, No-Fly-Zones, diplomatic isolation, etc. was given something on the order of 10+ years to work. If a American Republicans/conservatives were proposing sticking with a policy that had failed for 10+ years, I wonder what your reaction would have been... JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Afghanistan Re: Someone Must Tell Them
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Charlie Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The world was with you on Afghanistan. You should have finished the job properly. Sorry, Charlie, but the world was *not* with us on Afghanistan.Oh sure, they were there in word - but the world was painfully short of the support that really matters boots on the ground. There's a NATO summit going on right abouts now, and I can only hope that one of the agenda items is why the world's greatest military alliance is running into so much trouble in Afghanistan. JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The proposition was made here that the US is responsible for all the deaths currently occuring in Iraq. Cite, please. I don't recall anybody making any such argument. Nick Ok 11/22 at 12:37am according to Yahoo! --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Ritu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And nobody knows how many Iraqis have been killed by the non-American, non-Iraqi actors either. But what I do know is that the distinction made by you is not being made by the majority of the world. If Iraqis are killing Iraqis at a stunning rate today, and they are, it is because the Coalition enabled such a situation to arise. So, for quite a lot of us, all the Iraqi deaths post 2003 are on the Coalition's head. JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them
Andrew wrote: Huh? No, again, you're somehow focusing on AQ hates Americans in Iraw. They PLAIN HATE AMERICANS. They're prolonging the violence by attacking Americans because it hurts American interests and Americans. Iraq happens to be the current best place for them to do that. Why do they hate Americans? Primarily due to American hegemony in the Middle East and American support for Israel. If we were just some country on the other side of the world with cultural differences they wouldn't care one way or the other about us. Our pressence in Iraq incites their hatred. People there that would otherwise not be interested in how much AQ hates us are swayed by our pressence there. Look at it this way, Andrew. Think of someone you really don't get along with, but you don't see very often. Now think how you would feel if that person pitched a tent in your yard. How would you feel? That's what we're dealing with in Iraq. Dangerous to who? American interests, sure. As for anti-Isralie, Saddam wasn't precsely pro-Isralie in the first place. An alliance between Iraq and Iran is potentially much worse than what we have dealt with in the past. Mix in an anti American bias and potential support from countrys like Russia, France and China - places that care little for the security of Israel and you begin to see how dire the situation can become. -- Doug ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Afghanistan Re: Someone Must Tell Them
On 28/11/2006, at 2:52 PM, jdiebremse wrote: --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Charlie Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The world was with you on Afghanistan. You should have finished the job properly. Sorry, Charlie, but the world was *not* with us on Afghanistan.Oh sure, they were there in word - but the world was painfully short of the support that really matters boots on the ground. Much of the world simply isn't able to provide soldiers as most 1st world countries have been cutting back to basically a defence force, and there have been enough friendly fire incidents in joint task forces in the past to make military forces wary of combining troops. And the US didn't need extra troops. Providing soldiers is not the only way to support an ally (and Britain did provide soldiers anyway). The US response to 11/9 by going after the theocracy that provided succour to the terrorist groups made sense. Approval is often support enough. The US then squandered that good will. There's a NATO summit going on right abouts now, and I can only hope that one of the agenda items is why the world's greatest military alliance is running into so much trouble in Afghanistan. Because it didn't do the job properly, and got sidetracked by the desperate need of Bush and Cheney to take Saddam out, and then making a complete screw-up of it by not listening to the military on how to go about it. Overwhelming force, and a full rebuilding program in Afghanistan followed by a peacekeeping force. Then turn to Iraq, and do the job properly. Instead the administration screwed up the area to the immediate East and West of *another* region they're focussed on... Charlie ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Afghanistan Re: Someone Must Tell Them
Charlie said: Much of the world simply isn't able to provide soldiers as most 1st world countries have been cutting back to basically a defence force, and there have been enough friendly fire incidents in joint task forces in the past to make military forces wary of combining troops. And the US didn't need extra troops. Providing soldiers is not the only way to support an ally (and Britain did provide soldiers anyway). Many other countries provided soldiers, ships and aircraft, including a substantial contingent from the constantly maligned France: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 2001_war_in_Afghanistan#Nature_of_the_coalition Rich ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Afghanistan Re: Someone Must Tell Them
On 28/11/2006, at 6:29 PM, Richard Baker wrote: Charlie said: Much of the world simply isn't able to provide soldiers as most 1st world countries have been cutting back to basically a defence force, and there have been enough friendly fire incidents in joint task forces in the past to make military forces wary of combining troops. And the US didn't need extra troops. Providing soldiers is not the only way to support an ally (and Britain did provide soldiers anyway). Many other countries provided soldiers, ships and aircraft, including a substantial contingent from the constantly maligned France: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 2001_war_in_Afghanistan#Nature_of_the_coalition Yep. I note ISAF still has troops from 34 countries. Charlie ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
- Original Message - From: Ronn!Blankenship [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Sunday, November 26, 2006 12:30 AM Subject: Re: Someone Must Tell Them At 06:09 PM Saturday 11/25/2006, Robert Seeberger wrote: - Original Message - From: Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Killer Bs Discussion' brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Saturday, November 25, 2006 4:07 PM Subject: RE: Someone Must Tell Them -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dan Minette Sent: Saturday, November 25, 2006 4:00 PM To: 'Killer Bs Discussion' Subject: RE: Someone Must Tell Them I remember near term energy independence being a policy of Nixon and Ford and Carter. :-) It's not really achievable. So, it seems reasonable to decrease our dependency now, by raising fuel taxes by, say, $0.50 gal per year for the next 10 years, or some similar means. I should have restated my often repeated argument on this list that we need investments in basic science that could someday provide reasonably priced alternative energy (e.g. solar or fusion or reprocessed nuclear fuel with drastically reduced utility for bombs.) These investments are, by nature, very long term but there's no time like the present to start. The basic engineering on PBR is already done. Wouldn't that be a reasonable investment? I suppose it depends on what the acronym means. Peanut Butter on Rye? Pebble Bed Reactor As I understand it, the design is supposed to be the safest Nuclear Reactor yet created. Nuclear fuel is encased in carbide ceramic shells and can't be used to breed plutonium and can't create a meltdown. It may possibly be overhyped, but does sound promising. xponent Thats Why The Third World Hates It, No Bombs Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them
Dan Minette wrote: Only if you share Bush's Manichean world-view. I don't. But we have covered this ground earlier, before the invasion. We have, and I think there is a reasonable view that might address some of what you and some of what JDG argues for. Which probably means that neither of y'all will like it. Because, of course, JDG and I are the epitome of unreasonableness... *g* I believe that we have responsibility for our actions and for our inactions. But, the type of responsibility we have varies with how directly we are the agents of the results of our actions/inactions. Agreed. Turning back to the question we argued before the 2nd Iraq war, those like me who argued against going in needed to accept the consequences of Hussein remaining in power as a result of the path we favored being taken. By the same token, those who favored invasion need to accept the consequences of that invasion. Now this is where you too fall prey to Bush's Manichean world view. The object was [for argument's sake] the removal of a dictator. Bush's plan was invasion and re-building. And *no other alternatives* were ever explored. You either had to buy Bush's vision or be declared a supporter of Saddam's regime of torture. Frankly, I find that nonsensical and do not buy the argument. Let's say I read a newspaper report about a man taking his one month old baby for a walk by the river. He sees a small kid drowning. He jumps in with the baby, can't save the boy, and all three die. I read the story and remark, 'Oh, that's stupid.' Now that does not automatically make me a supporter of drowning, or of the notion that small kids should drown. All it means is that I think the dad should have lay the baby down somewhere before jumping in to effect a rescue, that it is stupid to jump in with at least one arm already occupied. Similarly, I find the notion of bombing a people into democracy and gratitude stupid. And I really honestly do not believe that Bush's failure of imagination and my recognition of the same makes me responsible for Saddam's crimes, or the hypothetical continuation thereof. So, I'd argue that those who argue for invading Iraq must accept the consequences of that action being taken in the exact same sense that those of us who opposed going in needed to accept the consequences of the continued rule of Hussein. Argue all you want, I'm not buying it. :) Now if there had been a serious attempt to find a different, less destructive way to get rid of Saddam before the invasion and the tarring of every opposer as a supporter of Saddam you might have had a point. But there wasn't, and therefore you don't. Neither side needed to want the bad consequences of their chosen path...they just needed to accept the responsibility inherent in choosing those consequences instead of others. Yes, and what we are seeing here is an attempt to avoid responsibility for the choice made by saying 'your choice was bad too!' The fact is that no other choice was explored or offered. 'Your agreement or accusations of being a supporter of a genocidal murderer' is not a valid choice. Not when the proposed plan is ridiculous. In doing so, the other alternatives were all worse would be a valid argument. Yes, but to say that other alternatives would have had to be explored. Ritu ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
Ronn!Blankenship wrote: At 06:09 PM Saturday 11/25/2006, Robert Seeberger wrote: - Original Message - From: Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Killer Bs Discussion' brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Saturday, November 25, 2006 4:07 PM Subject: RE: Someone Must Tell Them -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dan Minette Sent: Saturday, November 25, 2006 4:00 PM To: 'Killer Bs Discussion' Subject: RE: Someone Must Tell Them I remember near term energy independence being a policy of Nixon and Ford and Carter. :-) It's not really achievable. So, it seems reasonable to decrease our dependency now, by raising fuel taxes by, say, $0.50 gal per year for the next 10 years, or some similar means. I should have restated my often repeated argument on this list that we need investments in basic science that could someday provide reasonably priced alternative energy (e.g. solar or fusion or reprocessed nuclear fuel with drastically reduced utility for bombs.) These investments are, by nature, very long term but there's no time like the present to start. The basic engineering on PBR is already done. Wouldn't that be a reasonable investment? I suppose it depends on what the acronym means. Peanut Butter on Rye? -- Ronn! :) I think peanut butter would be better on sourdough, personally. Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Someone Must Tell Them
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Robert Seeberger Sent: Saturday, November 25, 2006 6:10 PM To: Killer Bs Discussion Subject: Re: Someone Must Tell Them - Original Message - From: Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Killer Bs Discussion' brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Saturday, November 25, 2006 4:07 PM Subject: RE: Someone Must Tell Them The basic engineering on PBR is already done. Wouldn't that be a reasonable investment? It is one of several possibilities for safe nuclear reactors that do not produce accessible plutonium. I didn't mention these types of reactors because they are a medium term possibilityand didn't fit in the structure of what I was saying. But, since _you_ brought it up :-), I'll address this. Expanding nuclear power that is hard to use in weapons production is a good idea. My understanding is that there already are reactors that do not produce spent fuel that is straightforwardly convertible to weapons grade material. This idea seems like a reasonable one, and I'm definitely for upgrading reactor technology. Unfortunately, it isn't a breeder reactor, creating more nuclear fuel. These are harder to keep from producing bomb grade material because they need to produce useful non-bomb grade material in order to meet their function. It would help the disposal problem, of course, because of recycling. One suggestion for these breeder reactors would be to have them in highly controlled environments in politically stable countries which already have H-bomb tipped ICBMs and would not be tempted. But, a technology that would be intrinsically safe would be an upgrade. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
At 09:12 AM Sunday 11/26/2006, Julia Thompson wrote: Ronn!Blankenship wrote: At 06:09 PM Saturday 11/25/2006, Robert Seeberger wrote: - Original Message - From: Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Killer Bs Discussion' brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Saturday, November 25, 2006 4:07 PM Subject: RE: Someone Must Tell Them -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dan Minette Sent: Saturday, November 25, 2006 4:00 PM To: 'Killer Bs Discussion' Subject: RE: Someone Must Tell Them I remember near term energy independence being a policy of Nixon and Ford and Carter. :-) It's not really achievable. So, it seems reasonable to decrease our dependency now, by raising fuel taxes by, say, $0.50 gal per year for the next 10 years, or some similar means. I should have restated my often repeated argument on this list that we need investments in basic science that could someday provide reasonably priced alternative energy (e.g. solar or fusion or reprocessed nuclear fuel with drastically reduced utility for bombs.) These investments are, by nature, very long term but there's no time like the present to start. The basic engineering on PBR is already done. Wouldn't that be a reasonable investment? I suppose it depends on what the acronym means. Peanut Butter on Rye? -- Ronn! :) I think peanut butter would be better on sourdough, personally. Julia But the only way it would fit the acronym would be if it were rancid . . . -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ritu Sent: Sunday, November 26, 2006 6:07 AM To: 'Killer Bs Discussion' Subject: RE: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them Dan Minette wrote: Only if you share Bush's Manichean world-view. I don't. But we have covered this ground earlier, before the invasion. We have, and I think there is a reasonable view that might address some of what you and some of what JDG argues for. Which probably means that neither of y'all will like it. Because, of course, JDG and I are the epitome of unreasonableness... *g* I believe that we have responsibility for our actions and for our inactions. But, the type of responsibility we have varies with how directly we are the agents of the results of our actions/inactions. Agreed. Turning back to the question we argued before the 2nd Iraq war, those like me who argued against going in needed to accept the consequences of Hussein remaining in power as a result of the path we favored being taken. By the same token, those who favored invasion need to accept the consequences of that invasion. Now this is where you too fall prey to Bush's Manichean world view. The object was [for argument's sake] the removal of a dictator. Bush's plan was invasion and re-building. And *no other alternatives* were ever explored. I'm not sure why you made the last statement. I'm sure you have at least passing familiarity with the previous 10+ years since the end of the first Gulf War. A number of different alternatives were tried during that time. The first alternative, of Bush I, was to rely on the implosion of Hussein's army in the face of the Americans to provide a spark for an internal revolution. The idea was that after that army surrendered en mass, its capacity would be reduced, along with Hussein's status. The US encouraged the Shiites to revolt, and they were brutally put down by the Republican Guard. After that, the US and Britain enforced no-fly zones in the north and south to limit the carnage. That proved very successful in the north, where the Kurds were able to hold their own. The peace treaty allowed for inspections and sanctions. They had some success during the '90s. But, in late '97 and '98, Hussein stopped/limited inspections at gun point, declaring vast areas presidential palaces and off limits to any inspections. At that point, the US decided to bomb the suspected sites and the inspectors withdrew. During the late '90s and early '00, the sanctions leaked more and more. The oil for food program of the UN was rife with corruption. France and Russia, which had lucrative contracts with Hussein, were pushing to end sanctions entirely. It's amazing to me that the French Ambassador to the UN admitted that Hussein paid him $100,000 for consulting work before/during the time he was arguing to end sanctions. At the same time, the people of Iraq were suffering because the money wasn't going to them. You either had to buy Bush's vision or be declared a supporter of Saddam's regime of torture. Frankly, I find that nonsensical and do not buy the argument. But, that's not what I said. Remember _I_ was opposed to Gulf War II. Honestly, I'm not so far gone that I would stoop to an ad honimen attacks on myself. :-) But, at the time and now I agreed that, by supporting containment, I would accept the moral consequences of allowing Hussein to remain in power because I honestly felt it was the lesser evil. There's a difference between that and supporting Hussein. Let's say I read a newspaper report about a man taking his one month old baby for a walk by the river. He sees a small kid drowning. He jumps in with the baby, can't save the boy, and all three die. I read the story and remark, 'Oh, that's stupid.' Now that does not automatically make me a supporter of drowning, or of the notion that small kids should drown. All it means is that I think the dad should have lay the baby down somewhere before jumping in to effect a rescue, that it is stupid to jump in with at least one arm already occupied. I understand that. I see that this argument has an obvious easy outlay the baby down first, stupid. But, there isn't always an easy out. A more realistic true life story would be stopping a parent from going back into a burning building to find their childknowing that this may eliminate the only chance the child has to livebut also knowing that the odds were strong that all that would happen is that both would die. Someone who did that would have to accept the consequences of their actionsthey eliminated the chance of that child living. But, someone who didn't stop the parent would also have to accept the consequences of their inaction...if the parent never came out alive. I think part of being human is the fact that we must make moral choices based on incomplete information. We don't know
Re: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them
On 11/26/06, Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ... a critical part of this is accepting the consequences of one's own preferred path, as well as the consequences of the path one opposes. Unfortunately, that's based in fantasy because God only knows what would have happened if another course had been taken. Those who argue that things would have been worse if... etc., are arguing from imagination, not experience. Even experience is tainted by our inability to be objective; fantasy far more so. The knowledge that we'll never know what could have been is one source from which I'm able to draw some compassion for the leaders who got us into this mess. I cannot be certain that there was a better way. My opinion is that there was, but that can never be more than just an opinion. We will never know. Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Nick Arnett Sent: Sunday, November 26, 2006 1:49 PM To: Killer Bs Discussion Subject: Re: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them On 11/26/06, Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ... a critical part of this is accepting the consequences of one's own preferred path, as well as the consequences of the path one opposes. Unfortunately, that's based in fantasy because God only knows what would have happened if another course had been taken. Those who argue that things would have been worse if... etc., are arguing from imagination, not experience. Even experience is tainted by our inability to be objective; fantasy far more so. Indeed, nothing is known with certainty. We don't know that, if Lincoln didn't defend the Union, that the slaveholders wouldn't have all decided on January 14th, 1862 to free the slaves and to ask to be readmitted to the union as states which gave full civil rights to all. But, I certainly would have betted against it. We don't know that, if the US invaded China during the Korean war, that China wouldn't have immediately given up. But, the odds were long. What we do know is probability. Given the previous twelve years of history, given other historical precedents, one would have to consider it improbable that Hussein's government would fall within a few years. Just as right now, it is very likely that the genocide in the Sudan will continue and worsen without outside intervention. We don't know this, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't gauge the most likely outcome of inaction as well as action. The knowledge that we'll never know what could have been is one source from which I'm able to draw some compassion for the leaders who got us into this mess. I cannot be certain that there was a better way. My opinion is that there was, but that can never be more than just an opinion. We will never know. There is something between certain knowledge and just opinion: there is likelihood. I'm familiar with the history of attempts to nail down certain knowledge...and they have not proven fruitful in the past. We place our bets, and take our chances. History isn't a science, but there are patterns and probabilities and general rules that can be developed. There seems to be evidence of the existence in talent in leadership; some leaders are better than others. Part of the study of history involves the analysis of the decision making process. This study typically includes both the information available to the decision maker at the time, and the information available to us now. One cannot make an assessment of the actions without determining the likelihood of outcomes for other choices. And, without such analysis, it becomes harder to use historical decisions and their aftermaths to inform the decisions one has to make oneself. If need be, I can make a general case that our decision making process is better informed when we do study pact actions and results in such a manner than when we don't. Indeed, arguing against such a case would reject a great deal of how we learn through empirical observations. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Ritu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This strikes me as classic generational arrogance - the old saw that *our generation* dealt with threats much more sensibly than the young'uns out there. Only if you are viewing it from a purely American perspective and are under the impression that Rich is an old American... Not at all Rich could be a teenager from Switzerland for all I care...I wasn't making an ad hominem attack against his age, I responding to the substance of his comments. And the substance of his comments were that previous American generations dealt with their problems better/nobler/more courageously, etc. than the current generation. To quote Dr. Brin, Feh. JDG - We Didn't Start the Fire, Maru ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], pencimen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So, if I understand you correctly, your favored strategy in dealing with Al Qaeda would be to: -Withdraw immediately from Iraq I'd give it six months, withdrawing gradually. And would you still blame us for the number of people that would continue to die? -Cease all aid to Israel, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the Persian Gulf States No. I would continue aid where it is needed (does S.A. really get aid? Why?) especially in Iraq where we're responsible for the destruction of their infrastructure and the chaos that reigns there. Take a look at the recent list of Al Qaeda attacks - there's a start. I don't think that we're writing checks to the Saudi government, but I do believe that we provide military assistance. This assistance obviously goes back to the first Gulf War, and is related to the fact that it is Saudi supplies of oil that are keeping the world price at the 60-or-so dollar level that they are at right now. -Discontinue all pushes for UN oversight of Iran's nuclear program I don't believe it is possible to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons and that we should deal with that inevitability. What are we going to do to stop them, John? Sanctions? Yea, that'll work. We have to work with the assumption that governments we don't like are going to arm themselves with these things and find a way to deal with that threat. Sounds like managed decline to me -Impose a tariff on oil imports such that the price of oil consumption exceeds to price of renewable energies produced in the US I would raise energy taxes and use the revenue to fund alternatives. I don't propose tripling the prices overnight. For one thing, people wouldn't stand for it, but we're going to have to find alternatives eventually, why not start now? Why continue to fund the fundies and the terrorists? Well, the threat of terrorism is present today. So, either your proposing tripling the price of oil in this country, or you are proposing a policy with about as much near-term relevance for energy independence as drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In this case, it appears that you are proposing a policy that might bear fruit in decades, and engging in partisan bashing of the people who have an electoral responsibility to also look at policy options that are effective for the present. Do I have your policy correct? No. More like a caricature of my policy. What's yours stay the course? Ah, the classic partisan buzz phrase. Anyhow, I'd discuss my policy, but I haven't been elected President of the United States, so why should I?;-) JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Charlie Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: When it becomes plain that the whole idea of terror is to scare someone, then a look at our *rhetorical* reactions shows that we are not stiffening our spines and holding our jaws up sufficiently. And what happens when the whole idea of terror is to kill as many people as possible? But it isn't. The whole idea of terror is to get you to take away your own freedoms by fear. It's not about killing as many as possible, it's about killing spectacularly and violently and most importantly, randomly. You nicely snipped the second question, Charlie. But it sounds to me like you are answering Lack of Will. JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Someone Must Tell Them
JDG wrote: And the substance of his comments were that previous American generations dealt with their problems better/nobler/more courageously, etc. than the current generation. Actually I saw no generational comparison. The earliest date we can put on any reference of his in that mail is 1991, and 15 years do not denote a generational change. I thought he was pointing out that the US has faced far greater threats with more equanimity, and not even all that long ago. Nothing about earlier generations being more stoic than the current one. Ritu ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Ritu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And nobody knows how many Iraqis have been killed by the non-American, non-Iraqi actors either. But what I do know is that the distinction made by you is not being made by the majority of the world. If Iraqis are killing Iraqis at a stunning rate today, and they are, it is because the Coalition enabled such a situation to arise. So, for quite a lot of us, all the Iraqi deaths post 2003 are on the Coalition's head. And that's because the policy of the rest of the world was to support the reign of terror of Saddam Hussein ad infinitum JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them
JDG wrote: And that's because the policy of the rest of the world was to support the reign of terror of Saddam Hussein ad infinitum Only if you share Bush's Manichean world-view. I don't. But we have covered this ground earlier, before the invasion. Ritu ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], pencimen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sorry, but does anyone remember the red scare, McCarthyism, the missile gap, air raid drills in schools, backyard nuclear shelters, the Sputnik gap, We Will Bury You, the domino theory, managed decline, etc.? Yet throughout that period human rights advanced, transparency improved and the power of the executive declined. Which period is that?The red scare goes back before World War II, and I don't know anyone who would argue that the power of the executive declined under FDR.I also have a hard time arguing that the power of the executive declined under Kennedy/LBJ for that matter. As for human rights, how about Japanese internment, the Tuskegee Experiment, etc. And I might point out that while some Muslim clerics may have been unfairly denied boarding onto a flight yesterday, we haven't exactly evicted all Muslims from their homes and sent them to concentration camps either. Yes, but it is *our* generation that is driven almost insane. It is our generation that has sanctioned torture, a practice we would have attributed to insanity in the past. I for one am deeply ashamed. This is where language can be imprecise. Torture can mean a number of things, such as cutting off digits. We're not sanctioning that.We are sanctioning certain practices, which many reasonable people consider to be torture - but which does not seem to be universally recognized as torture. But again, doesn't our generation look back on Japanese internment and attribute *that* to insanity? Don't many people in our generation also look back on the fire-bombing of Dresden, Sherman's March to the Sea, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, chlorine gas use in World War I, and even the whole Spanish-American War and attribute *those* to insanity as well? There's no question that we are walking right up to the line, and a decently strong case that we are crossing that line, but I'm not sure that any previous generation has hestitated to walk right up to the line and occasionally cross it in times of threat either. JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Charlie Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Charlie Bell charlie@ wrote: And so there are some f*ckers out there who have been responsible for acts of terror causing the deaths of a few hundred people worldwide on top of the WTC attacks. I was going to write a long, impassioned response here, and then I realized - you guys really don't believe that one can measure a threat based upon the number of people that that threat succeeds in killing. Actually, I do. And compared to just about any other cause of death you can think of, terrorism is way way down the list. Like I've said, the response is disproportionate to the risk. So, using this logic, because death from a bombing on an air craft is a statistically super-unlikely event, you would no doubt recommend removing *all* metal detectors and screeenings from airports, because the costs of these measures do not outweight the costs of the deaths prevented. JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Ritu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And compared to just about any other cause of death you can think of, terrorism is way way down the list. This reminds me of an article I read this morning - international travellers were polled and it turns out that most consider US to be the 'most unfriendly country', worse than even the ME and the subcontinent [which was a bit of a surprise]. The article I read ended with a line to the effect that people were more worried about US immigration than about terrorism or crime. :) I was about to write that this was yet another reason why the US is becoming more and more inclined to not count so-called world opinion as being worth much more than a hill of beans but I'd be curious to see the methodology first.It probably was just an ill-designed survey JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Richard Baker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This strikes me as classic generational arrogance - the old saw that *our generation* dealt with threats much more sensibly than the young'uns out there. I like to delude myself that I'm in the same generation as you, so it's not generational arrogance on my part. Since I became an official adult in 1992, the major crises have the wars in the Balkans, the genocides in Rwanda and Sudan, the terrorist attacks of 11/9, and the continued proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons (you may add to this list as you wish; certainly some natural disasters belong on there too). The responses to all of these seem to me to be inadequate to disastrous. Of course, the rest of the world had a great opportunity to demonstrate that they had changed their policy for dealing with genocidal regimes when it came to dealing with Saddam Hussein's Iraq, and sadly, significant portions of the rest of the world badly flunked that test. JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ritu Sent: Saturday, November 25, 2006 10:07 AM To: 'Killer Bs Discussion' Subject: RE: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them Only if you share Bush's Manichean world-view. I don't. But we have covered this ground earlier, before the invasion. We have, and I think there is a reasonable view that might address some of what you and some of what JDG argues for. Which probably means that neither of y'all will like it. I believe that we have responsibility for our actions and for our inactions. But, the type of responsibility we have varies with how directly we are the agents of the results of our actions/inactions. For example, the responsibility the United States has for the action of its soldiers is greater than the responsibility it has for the actions of the militia that are torturing and killing wantonly in Iraq. It would not be reasonable to argue that the US soldiers torture and kill Iraqi's less than Hussein's men as a defense for the morality of US actions in Iraq. It would, however, be reasonable to argue that, while there is wanton murder by some, the levels are lower than what they were before. To use a separate example, crimes committed by members of the police are not an acceptable tool of law enforcement. But, at the same time, the crime rate in a city need not be zero for us to consider the new police strategy to be a success because crime rates have been lowered by it. Turning back to the question we argued before the 2nd Iraq war, those like me who argued against going in needed to accept the consequences of Hussein remaining in power as a result of the path we favored being taken. By the same token, those who favored invasion need to accept the consequences of that invasion. Now, I'll admit that a reasonable person could have thought Bush would have handled things better than he did, but I do think that my initial prediction that we'd win the initial conflict and bungle managing the peace afterwards (with a civil war as a real risk) turned out to be generally accurate. So, I'd argue that those who argue for invading Iraq must accept the consequences of that action being taken in the exact same sense that those of us who opposed going in needed to accept the consequences of the continued rule of Hussein. Neither side needed to want the bad consequences of their chosen path...they just needed to accept the responsibility inherent in choosing those consequences instead of others. In doing so, the other alternatives were all worse would be a valid argument. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them
On 11/25/06, jdiebremse [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So, for quite a lot of us, all the Iraqi deaths post 2003 are on the Coalition's head. And that's because the policy of the rest of the world was to support the reign of terror of Saddam Hussein ad infinitum Very, very bad logic. Those who failed to remove Saddam (the rest of the world) for years and years weren't supporters. Otherwise, you and I can be counted among his former supporters (and good luck getting on an airplane). I allow you to state almost any idea you care to, but that doesn't mean I'm supporting them. Do you dare argue that we are not responsible for the present situation in Iraq, with all the death and destruction that has resulted? Not completely responsible, certainly, but surely you aren't trying to evade any responsibility? If people who failed to remove Saddam from power were his supporters, then surely those who who made war on him are supporters of the deaths of tens of thousands in the resulting conflict. Even when the law and morality create an obligation to act, failure to do so doesn't equate to support or responsibility for the ill that is taking place, does it? Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
- Original Message - From: jdiebremse [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Saturday, November 25, 2006 10:15 AM Subject: Re: Someone Must Tell Them This is where language can be imprecise. Torture can mean a number of things, such as cutting off digits. We're not sanctioning that. We are sanctioning certain practices, which many reasonable people consider to be torture - but which does not seem to be universally recognized as torture. I think the best general definition of torture I can think of is : The things we don't want done to our people xponent By Convention Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them
- Original Message - From: Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Killer Bs Discussion' brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Saturday, November 25, 2006 10:42 AM Subject: RE: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them It would, however, be reasonable to argue that, while there is wanton murder by some, the levels are lower than what they were before. IIRC the death rate in Iraq is double pre-war levels, mostly due to the insurgency. Or were you pointing to something else and I missed your meaning? xponent Numbers Game Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Robert Seeberger Sent: Saturday, November 25, 2006 1:54 PM To: Killer Bs Discussion Subject: Re: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them - Original Message - From: Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Killer Bs Discussion' brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Saturday, November 25, 2006 10:42 AM Subject: RE: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them It would, however, be reasonable to argue that, while there is wanton murder by some, the levels are lower than what they were before. IIRC the death rate in Iraq is double pre-war levels, mostly due to the insurgency. Or were you pointing to something else and I missed your meaning? I probably wasn't clear. I was putting forth categories of arguementation, not talking about the actual facts in Iraq. For example, someone who expected a competently run post-invasion period could argue that we should expect life to be better after Hussein than under him. If it were run competently, and death rates were no higher than they were in the last half of 2003, then that would be, IMHO a persuasive argument. Now, it is clear that the US damaged its own interests through the Iraq invasion and it's aftermath, and its probable that Iraq will be worse off after Hussein than under Hussein. So, I was not arguing for the proposition that things are better off than under Hussein. Rather, I was arguing that better or worse than Hussein was a valid measuring stick. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Someone Must Tell Them
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of jdiebremse Sent: Saturday, November 25, 2006 9:57 AM To: Killer Bs Discussion Subject: Re: Someone Must Tell Them --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], pencimen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So, if I understand you correctly, your favored strategy in dealing with Al Qaeda would be to: -Withdraw immediately from Iraq I'd give it six months, withdrawing gradually. And would you still blame us for the number of people that would continue to die? I do think Powell's statement you break it, you bought it is reasonable. I fear that, in choosing the future actions of the United States in Iraq, our choices are actions that will result in very bad outcomes and actions that will result in even worse outcomes. I don't think that we're writing checks to the Saudi government, but I do believe that we provide military assistance. This assistance obviously goes back to the first Gulf War, and is related to the fact that it is Saudi supplies of oil that are keeping the world price at the 60-or-so dollar level that they are at right now. I understand what we are doing in Saudi Arabia is working with a government that is not a good government, but isn't hostile to the West. It isn't nearly as bad as the next government would be, for the world in general and for the citizens, if those who wish to overthrow the government (AQ and fellow travelers) get control of the government. The real argument for this is that, even for the sole superpower in the world, there are a limited number of options available. Sounds like managed decline to me It sounds a lot more like managed containment to me. There are not many good alternatives. Take N. Korea. Clinton chose to accept the fact that N. Korea had already taken enough plutonium to build 1-2 bombs (probably before he took office), and still pay N. Korea to drastically slow the processing of more plutonium. The alternatives were to pay nothing, and watch the capacity grow. This was Bush's option. Now it's true that if China decided that an imploding N. Korea was the least bad alternative for it...we might get some real pressure on N. Korea. But, until it is in the best interest of the Chinese government to do so, they will not use their leverage to stop N. Korea. So, we can talk another 10 years, but nothing will happen until N. Korea implodes, or something really bad happens. The third alternative has always been military force. The US is the only country that can project significant force globally, and it could have knocked out the N. Korea nuclear program when Clinton had his choice. But, N. Korea would have been able to do a great deal of damage in a second Korean War before losing. How much is a matter of debate and very dependant on the condition of all the artillery aimed as Seoul. But, many estimates are in the multiple hundreds of thousands of deaths. In Iran, we face similar, yet different choices. We will not have effective sanctions because such sanctions are not in the enlightened self interests of Russia or China, both of which have strong economic interests there. We could target just Iran's nuclear facilities, but from what I've read, the military thinks that they are too scattered and hidden to do more than delay the acquisition of a bomb. While delays are worthwhile, I don't think it's worth the increased incentives to get and use such a bomb that would result. A full scale invasion could, after a year of searching, reset the clock on Iran's capacity, but it would take an occupation force to ensure that it wouldn't restart. -Impose a tariff on oil imports such that the price of oil consumption exceeds to price of renewable energies produced in the US I would raise energy taxes and use the revenue to fund alternatives. I don't propose tripling the prices overnight. For one thing, people wouldn't stand for it, but we're going to have to find alternatives eventually, why not start now? Why continue to fund the fundies and the terrorists? Well, the threat of terrorism is present today. Sure, but the present level of threat isn't what's worrisome...its how things may extend into the future. I think we have enough time to take prudent actions instead of high risk/high payoff short term gambles like the Iraq war was. Especially since we lost that gamble, and are worse off than in 2002. So, either your proposing tripling the price of oil in this country, or you are proposing a policy with about as much near-term relevance for energy independence as drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. I remember near term energy independence being a policy of Nixon and Ford and Carter. :-) It's not really achievable. So, it seems reasonable to decrease our dependency now, by raising fuel taxes by, say, $0.50 gal per year for the next 10 years, or some similar means
RE: Someone Must Tell Them
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dan Minette Sent: Saturday, November 25, 2006 4:00 PM To: 'Killer Bs Discussion' Subject: RE: Someone Must Tell Them I remember near term energy independence being a policy of Nixon and Ford and Carter. :-) It's not really achievable. So, it seems reasonable to decrease our dependency now, by raising fuel taxes by, say, $0.50 gal per year for the next 10 years, or some similar means. I should have restated my often repeated argument on this list that we need investments in basic science that could someday provide reasonably priced alternative energy (e.g. solar or fusion or reprocessed nuclear fuel with drastically reduced utility for bombs.) These investments are, by nature, very long term but there's no time like the present to start. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
On 26/11/2006, at 2:56 AM, jdiebremse wrote: I don't think that we're writing checks to the Saudi government, but I do believe that we provide military assistance. This assistance obviously goes back to the first Gulf War, and is related to the fact that it is Saudi supplies of oil that are keeping the world price at the 60-or-so dollar level that they are at right now. The US has had military bases in Saudi since the end of WW2, and it's that presence on holy sand that has been used by bin Laden and others to stir up hate. Charlie ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
On 26/11/2006, at 2:58 AM, jdiebremse wrote: --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Charlie Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: When it becomes plain that the whole idea of terror is to scare someone, then a look at our *rhetorical* reactions shows that we are not stiffening our spines and holding our jaws up sufficiently. And what happens when the whole idea of terror is to kill as many people as possible? But it isn't. The whole idea of terror is to get you to take away your own freedoms by fear. It's not about killing as many as possible, it's about killing spectacularly and violently and most importantly, randomly. You nicely snipped the second question, Charlie. Because my answer to the first negated the second. Your premise is wrong. Charlie. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
On 26/11/2006, at 3:15 AM, jdiebremse wrote: This is where language can be imprecise. Torture can mean a number of things, such as cutting off digits. We're not sanctioning that.We are sanctioning certain practices, which many reasonable people consider to be torture - but which does not seem to be universally recognized as torture. Like Waterboarding. Which the US sought prosecutions for the use of as torture during wars in the last century, but is now sanctioning. There's no question that we are walking right up to the line, and a decently strong case that we are crossing that line, but I'm not sure that any previous generation has hestitated to walk right up to the line and occasionally cross it in times of threat either. So people were wrong before, and that justifies being wrong now? And you wonder why we're looking on in horror from elsewhere in the world. Charlie. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
On 26/11/2006, at 3:19 AM, jdiebremse wrote: --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Charlie Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Charlie Bell charlie@ wrote: And so there are some f*ckers out there who have been responsible for acts of terror causing the deaths of a few hundred people worldwide on top of the WTC attacks. I was going to write a long, impassioned response here, and then I realized - you guys really don't believe that one can measure a threat based upon the number of people that that threat succeeds in killing. Actually, I do. And compared to just about any other cause of death you can think of, terrorism is way way down the list. Like I've said, the response is disproportionate to the risk. So, using this logic, because death from a bombing on an air craft is a statistically super-unlikely event, you would no doubt recommend removing *all* metal detectors and screeenings from airports, because the costs of these measures do not outweight the costs of the deaths prevented. Bag screening is in place for a number of reasons, as are metal detectors. An overall deterrent to people (not just terrorists) bringing dangerous items on planes is a good thing for everyone, and it gives the *impression* that we're totally safe. But you know that. The security on planes is still a joke, really. Ceramic razors. Glass bottles in the cabin. And you know that too. (Or maybe you don't. Maybe you have no idea how easy it is to make weapons.) What I was referring to, as you well know, is that the invasion of Iraq was a disproportionate response (and a complete fuck-up) to the attacks of 11th September 2001. The world was with you on Afghanistan. You should have finished the job properly. Charlie ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
On 11/25/06, Charlie Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So, using this logic, because death from a bombing on an air craft is a statistically super-unlikely event, you would no doubt recommend removing *all* metal detectors and screeenings from airports, because the costs of these measures do not outweight the costs of the deaths prevented. Bag screening is in place for a number of reasons, as are metal detectors. An overall deterrent to people (not just terrorists) bringing dangerous items on planes is a good thing for everyone, and it gives the *impression* that we're totally safe. But you know that. Hardly the point... the idea that we remove security measures from airports because hijacking is rare is as stupid as stopping, polio vaccinations because polio is rare. It'll stop being rare. What matters is the likelihood of the event *after* the change takes place, not before. Security has made flying safer than it was back when hijackings were all too common. Whether or not the increased measures since 9/11 have made a difference is fairly hard to know. Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
On 26/11/2006, at 10:31 AM, Nick Arnett wrote: On 11/25/06, Charlie Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So, using this logic, because death from a bombing on an air craft is a statistically super-unlikely event, you would no doubt recommend removing *all* metal detectors and screeenings from airports, because the costs of these measures do not outweight the costs of the deaths prevented. Bag screening is in place for a number of reasons, as are metal detectors. An overall deterrent to people (not just terrorists) bringing dangerous items on planes is a good thing for everyone, and it gives the *impression* that we're totally safe. But you know that. Hardly the point... the idea that we remove security measures from airports because hijacking is rare is as stupid as stopping, polio vaccinations because polio is rare. Which is what I said when I said An overall deterrent to people (not just terrorists) bringing dangerous items on planes is a good thing for everyone, and it gives the *impression* that we're totally safe. It's not going to stop the really determined, but it's a sensible precaution (to follow your analogy, it won't stop ebola but it'll stop polio...). Looks like John's straw man sidetracks work again, then. Charlie. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them
- Original Message - From: Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Killer Bs Discussion' brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Saturday, November 25, 2006 3:15 PM Subject: RE: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Robert Seeberger Sent: Saturday, November 25, 2006 1:54 PM To: Killer Bs Discussion Subject: Re: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them - Original Message - From: Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Killer Bs Discussion' brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Saturday, November 25, 2006 10:42 AM Subject: RE: Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them It would, however, be reasonable to argue that, while there is wanton murder by some, the levels are lower than what they were before. IIRC the death rate in Iraq is double pre-war levels, mostly due to the insurgency. Or were you pointing to something else and I missed your meaning? I probably wasn't clear. I was putting forth categories of arguementation, not talking about the actual facts in Iraq. For example, someone who expected a competently run post-invasion period could argue that we should expect life to be better after Hussein than under him. If it were run competently, and death rates were no higher than they were in the last half of 2003, then that would be, IMHO a persuasive argument. Now, it is clear that the US damaged its own interests through the Iraq invasion and it's aftermath, and its probable that Iraq will be worse off after Hussein than under Hussein. So, I was not arguing for the proposition that things are better off than under Hussein. Rather, I was arguing that better or worse than Hussein was a valid measuring stick. That explains things thenG Heck I've made such arguments. xponent Anti-Gravitas Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
- Original Message - From: Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Killer Bs Discussion' brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Saturday, November 25, 2006 4:07 PM Subject: RE: Someone Must Tell Them -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dan Minette Sent: Saturday, November 25, 2006 4:00 PM To: 'Killer Bs Discussion' Subject: RE: Someone Must Tell Them I remember near term energy independence being a policy of Nixon and Ford and Carter. :-) It's not really achievable. So, it seems reasonable to decrease our dependency now, by raising fuel taxes by, say, $0.50 gal per year for the next 10 years, or some similar means. I should have restated my often repeated argument on this list that we need investments in basic science that could someday provide reasonably priced alternative energy (e.g. solar or fusion or reprocessed nuclear fuel with drastically reduced utility for bombs.) These investments are, by nature, very long term but there's no time like the present to start. The basic engineering on PBR is already done. Wouldn't that be a reasonable investment? xponent Downside? Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Someone Must Tell Them
JDG wrote: I was about to write that this was yet another reason why the US is becoming more and more inclined to not count so-called world opinion as being worth much more than a hill of beans I know *just* what you mean. I mean, all you guys have done is pass the Military Commissions Act, and there have a been a few delays and body searches, and a few incidents like Arar's case, and people are actually beginning to notice and react. The sheer effrontery... but I'd be curious to see the methodology first.It probably was just an ill-designed survey Well, I'll give you what information I have and you can see if you can hunt down the methodology. This is what the articles say: The survey, of 2,011 international travelers in 16 countries, was conducted by RT Strategies, a Virginia-based polling firm, for the Discover America Partnership, a group launched in September with multimillion-dollar backing from a range of companies that include the InterContinental Hotels Group, Anheuser Busch and Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. What is the reputation of RT Strategies? Given the client list, I'd assume that the company has a good reputation in the market and knows what it is doing. Ritu ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
On 11/25/06, Charlie Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Which is what I said when I said An overall deterrent to people (not just terrorists) bringing dangerous items on planes is a good thing for everyone, and it gives the *impression* that we're totally safe. It's not going to stop the really determined, but it's a sensible precaution (to follow your analogy, it won't stop ebola but it'll stop polio...). Looks like John's straw man sidetracks work again, then. 'Twas my point. Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
On 11/25/06, jdiebremse [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I was about to write that this was yet another reason why the US is becoming more and more inclined to not count so-called world opinion as being worth much more than a hill of beans Yeah, this is a democracy, not the kind of country where leaders care what ordinary people think. Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
On 26/11/2006, at 4:12 PM, Nick Arnett wrote: 'Twas my point. Fair enough. :-) Charlie ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
At 05:13 PM Saturday 11/25/2006, Charlie Bell wrote: The security on planes is still a joke, really. Ceramic razors. Glass bottles in the cabin. And you know that too. (Or maybe you don't. Maybe you have no idea how easy it is to make weapons.) A sharp 9H pencil, frex . . . -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
At 06:09 PM Saturday 11/25/2006, Robert Seeberger wrote: - Original Message - From: Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Killer Bs Discussion' brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Saturday, November 25, 2006 4:07 PM Subject: RE: Someone Must Tell Them -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dan Minette Sent: Saturday, November 25, 2006 4:00 PM To: 'Killer Bs Discussion' Subject: RE: Someone Must Tell Them I remember near term energy independence being a policy of Nixon and Ford and Carter. :-) It's not really achievable. So, it seems reasonable to decrease our dependency now, by raising fuel taxes by, say, $0.50 gal per year for the next 10 years, or some similar means. I should have restated my often repeated argument on this list that we need investments in basic science that could someday provide reasonably priced alternative energy (e.g. solar or fusion or reprocessed nuclear fuel with drastically reduced utility for bombs.) These investments are, by nature, very long term but there's no time like the present to start. The basic engineering on PBR is already done. Wouldn't that be a reasonable investment? I suppose it depends on what the acronym means. Peanut Butter on Rye? -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
On 26/11/2006, at 5:28 PM, Ronn!Blankenship wrote: At 05:13 PM Saturday 11/25/2006, Charlie Bell wrote: The security on planes is still a joke, really. Ceramic razors. Glass bottles in the cabin. And you know that too. (Or maybe you don't. Maybe you have no idea how easy it is to make weapons.) A sharp 9H pencil, frex . . . Possibly the origin of the term Writer's Block... Sorry. Charlie. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
On 22/11/2006, at 3:18 PM, jdiebremse wrote: --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Charlie Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And so there are some f*ckers out there who have been responsible for acts of terror causing the deaths of a few hundred people worldwide on top of the WTC attacks. I was going to write a long, impassioned response here, and then I realized - you guys really don't believe that one can measure a threat based upon the number of people that that threat succeeds in killing. Actually, I do. And compared to just about any other cause of death you can think of, terrorism is way way down the list. Like I've said, the response is disproportionate to the risk. Charlie ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Someone Must Tell Them
Charlie wrote: And compared to just about any other cause of death you can think of, terrorism is way way down the list. This reminds me of an article I read this morning - international travellers were polled and it turns out that most consider US to be the 'most unfriendly country', worse than even the ME and the subcontinent [which was a bit of a surprise]. The article I read ended with a line to the effect that people were more worried about US immigration than about terrorism or crime. :) Ritu ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
Charlie Bell wrote: On 22/11/2006, at 3:18 PM, jdiebremse wrote: --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Charlie Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And so there are some f*ckers out there who have been responsible for acts of terror causing the deaths of a few hundred people worldwide on top of the WTC attacks. I was going to write a long, impassioned response here, and then I realized - you guys really don't believe that one can measure a threat based upon the number of people that that threat succeeds in killing. Actually, I do. And compared to just about any other cause of death you can think of, terrorism is way way down the list. Like I've said, the response is disproportionate to the risk. Charlie Charlie-- I agree, that's as good a way to measure things as any other. I guess one could include economic damage somehow, but that could get pretty nebulous. On the other hand, maybe JDG means that just because things turned out well in the past and relatively few people were killed, it doesn't mean that the THREAT is minor. It could just mean that we've been lucky so far. Got me. JDG? ---David Which also might lead to a nebulous discussion. Maru. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
Charlie said: Actually, I do. And compared to just about any other cause of death you can think of, terrorism is way way down the list. Like I've said, the response is disproportionate to the risk. The number of people who died from terrorism in the US in 2001 was about the same as the number who die in fires every year. Rich ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
JDG said: This strikes me as classic generational arrogance - the old saw that *our generation* dealt with threats much more sensibly than the young'uns out there. I like to delude myself that I'm in the same generation as you, so it's not generational arrogance on my part. Since I became an official adult in 1992, the major crises have the wars in the Balkans, the genocides in Rwanda and Sudan, the terrorist attacks of 11/9, and the continued proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons (you may add to this list as you wish; certainly some natural disasters belong on there too). The responses to all of these seem to me to be inadequate to disastrous. And in any case, it would be crazy to claim that they were my generation's responses rather than my parents' generation's responses. But my point was that while there might have been some unfortunate responses to superpower confrontation between the Soviet empire and NATO, the threat then was much more serious than what we face now. Even the worst case scenario for the war against the terrorists or rogue states is not going to include the general collapse of human civilisation. Rich, who was 2^5 years old on Monday. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Someone Must Tell Them
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Charlie Bell Sent: Wednesday, November 22, 2006 1:58 AM To: Killer Bs Discussion Subject: Re: Someone Must Tell Them But it isn't. The whole idea of terror is to get you to take away your own freedoms by fear. I really don't see this. For example, with AQ, the evidence is that they see the lifestyle of the West as decadent and evil, and the dominance of the West to be anathema to the proper order of things. I really don't think that AQ considered Bush wiretapping without a warrant or the law establishing military tribunals as the types of goals they wanted to reach. I think they more had in mind isolationism tactics like the restriction of American ship movement after the Cole, or the change in the Spanish government after the Madrid bombings. Bush bungling Iraq as bad as he did is a gift to the insurgency. There is no doubt that any time the US tries and fails miserably, it will be a boon to the insurgency. But, the war on terror apart from Iraq hurt the insurgency more than it helped it. The capacity and command and control of AQ has been weakened. They no longer control Afghanistan. Thus, it should be harder to stage overwhelming massive attacks, like 9-11. There have been no attacks on the US (outside of the battlegrounds that we chose to fight in...for better or worse) since 911, while there had been four during the '90s. It's still too early to consider this having statistical significance (from random chance, one could expect this to happen 30% of the time) but it is approaching 1 sigma. It's not about killing as many as possible, it's about killing spectacularly and violently and most importantly, randomly. I think, fundamentally, it's about getting a better armed adversary to retreat and eventually give up. Spectacular, violent, and random killings are very good at getting through people's defense mechanism for fear: understanding the risk, fighting the riskleaving flight as the single natural reaction that's possible. The suicide bombings in Israel will succeed if enough Jews decide that it's not worth living there any more and move on, to the US for example. I think that the terror attacks do work as you saybut I think that regular killing of 100 citizens of Israel every week would have been more successful than the suicide bombings were. And, FWIW, those bombings have decreased noticeably over the past few years. They still happen, but not all the time. So, the poorly planned incursion into Lebanon notwithstanding, Israel seems less likely to see people leave than it did just a few years agoso whatever they did to counter the bombings does seem to be working. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
Dan said: I really don't see this. For example, with AQ, the evidence is that they see the lifestyle of the West as decadent and evil, and the dominance of the West to be anathema to the proper order of things. My take is that the radical fringe of Islam is a sort of cargo cult. I think that fundamentally most people everywhere want prosperity and security for themselves and their families, and a sense that they're respected. The Islamic world once had all of those things. For the period from, say, AD800 to AD1400, Islam was one of the world's two most powerful civilisations (especially in the period when an expansionist Abbasid Caliphate skirmished with China's T'ang dynasty in central Asia). Indeed, even at the end of that period the great conqueror Temur-i-Lang thought that the important parts of the world were the Islamic states, India and China, and that Europe was too insignificant to bother conquering. Since then, the position of the dar al-Islam relative to the European civilisation has clearly shifted dramatically in favour of Europe and its overseas extensions. For the last two centuries, the once mighty Islamic world has suffered military reverses, the dismemberment of its last major empire, and near total colonisation by Western powers. The essential problem facing us today is that the model used by the radical Islamists to explain this immense political, economic and social cataclysm is utterly incorrect. The reason for the explosive expansion of the Arab armies was partially the unity given them by Islam, but was mostly the weakness of the Roman and Persian empires in the aftermath of their final apocalyptic war. Following that expansion, the reason for the prosperity of the Islamic states in the AD800 to AD1400 period wasn't their adherence to strict Islamic laws - in fact most of them were pretty lax about applying such things - but their position straddling the trade routes crossing Asia. For most of that period, the most important trade routes in the world were the silk roads that ran from Chang'an in the east through the Tarim basin or the northern foothills of the Tien Shan mountains, through Samarkand and the other great trading cities of Central Asia, into Persia and Iraq and then to the Levantine ports on the Mediterranean and south into Egypt. The power and wealth of Islam were the result of its openness and encouragement of trade. Then later the Atlantic states of Europe mastered the art of oceanic navigation, discovered America and bypassed the silk roads by opening up direct contact with India, the East Indies and China. As transcontinental trade dried up, so the Islamic world supported by that trade began the long, slow decline from its brilliant apogee into today's decrepitude. Unfortunately, the radical Islamists don't see it that way. One of the characteristics of Islam is that the success of Islam-the- religion and the success of Islam-the-states are closely tied together in the minds of many Muslims (certainly more so than the two kinds of success are in the minds of Christians). Attacks on the dar al-Islam are easily seen as attacks on Islam itself, and failures of the dar al-Islam are easily considered the effects of moral failings on the parts of the people. In my opinion, the radical Islamists have built a cargo cult on this basis: they see the recapitulation of the forms of Muslim behaviour from the great days of Islam as the key to regaining prosperity, security and respect. But the shallow aping of forms misses the deep reasons for the success of Islam. This is seen most clearly in the case of the Taliban, whose viewpoint seems to be that the relative poverty and impotence of Afghanistan isn't due to the withering of trade through the region (which once supported some of the most magnificent and rich cities in the world) or other more recent but secondary historical factors but is caused by the people not being strict enough or literal enough in their interpretations of the Koran and application of the Sharia. It's also apparent in the web of international Islamic terrorism, which seeks to regain the greatness of the Islamic world through fantasies of recapitulating the heroic military actions of the first armies of Islam against the infidels. Unfortunately, although these attitudes are clearly idiocy of the first order to most of us, they are pretty seductive to certain groups of people both inside and outside the Islamic world. Equally unfortunately, they are doomed to failure and generally deleterious to the well-being both of Islam and the dar al- Islam. Quite how we can convince people in the regions where the failure of the Islamic states is most total that the things they ought to be emulating from the glorious past of Islamic are openness to trade, toleration, meritocracy, egality, respect and encouragement for
RE: Someone Must Tell Them
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Richard Baker Sent: Wednesday, November 22, 2006 4:30 PM To: Killer Bs Discussion Subject: Re: Someone Must Tell Them I appreciated your response, and will give it some consideration for a longer reply. I found one area on which we differ significantly. It's a future event, so I guess neither one of us will be able to falsify the opinion of the other. :-) Quite how we can convince people in the regions where the failure of the Islamic states is most total that the things they ought to be emulating from the glorious past of Islamic are openness to trade, toleration, meritocracy, egality, respect and encouragement for science and scholarship and so forth, I just don't know. I think the admission of Turkey - former heartland of Islam's last great empire - into the European Union will be an important step. Would have been an important step, certainly. But, the way I'm reading the actions of the European governments, it's just not going to happen. I think the actions of governments taken over the last year or so, the rising violence of young Muslims within Europe and the opinion polls of young ethnic Europeans that I've seen indicate that Turkey will not be admitted into the EUexcept maybe as a distinct distant trading partner. The actions of the Netherlands government concerning burkas is just the latest example of this. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
Rich wrote: Quite how we can convince people in the regions where the failure of the Islamic states is most total that the things they ought to be emulating from the glorious past of Islamic are openness to trade, toleration, meritocracy, egality, respect and encouragement for science and scholarship and so forth, I just don't know. I think the admission of Turkey - former heartland of Islam's last great empire - into the European Union will be an important step. Engaging with the educated, partially Westernised elites of Iran might be another. But the near total failure of the heartlands of Islam to provide anything like a viable model for the organisation of modern industrial societies is an immense and complex problem to solve, and certainly not amenable to the sorts of quick and easy fixes that the more primitivist branches of Islam are desperate to try. Excellent anaysis, Rich, thanks for that. Let's hope Dan is wrong about Turkey. Doug ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
On 23/11/2006, at 9:29 AM, Richard Baker wrote: Quite how we can convince people in the regions where the failure of the Islamic states is most total that the things they ought to be emulating from the glorious past of Islamic are openness to trade, toleration, meritocracy, egality, respect and encouragement for science and scholarship and so forth, I just don't know. I think the admission of Turkey - former heartland of Islam's last great empire - into the European Union will be an important step. Engaging with the educated, partially Westernised elites of Iran might be another. But the near total failure of the heartlands of Islam to provide anything like a viable model for the organisation of modern industrial societies is an immense and complex problem to solve, and certainly not amenable to the sorts of quick and easy fixes that the more primitivist branches of Islam are desperate to try. Also the slow but painful democratisation of Indonesia, the largest Islamic country, may bring change too. Charlie ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Someone Must Tell Them
At 07:03 PM Tuesday 11/21/2006, Dan Minette wrote: -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Richard Baker Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2006 4:13 PM To: Killer Bs Discussion Subject: Re: Someone Must Tell Them It is rather strange to see a country that not so long ago faced with an iron will ten thousand nuclear warheads ready to vaporise its cities and dozens of armoured divisions ready to pour across the borders of its allies, that controls the seas with its carrier battle groups and the skies with its thousands of combat aircraft suddenly driven almost insane with terror by a few hijacked airliners. Why are so many Americans so afraid? I don't think that's actually what's going on. One of the things that I see is that there are vastly different sets of presuppositions that underlie people's viewpoints, including yours and mine of course. One way I've seen success in breaking through the cycle of these presuppositions is to try different frameworks for attacking the problem...with the assumptions clearly laid out. I know that's a habit of mine to do so, but I'll be happy to see other ways of breaking that pattern tried. Anyways, looking back to the 20th century, the US can be seen to have fought in 3 world wars. The first two were fairly conventional: WWI and WWII. The third was the Cold War. It was an unconventional war. Mostly, this was the result of the ultimate weapon of this war: the H-bomb. For a span of time, from say '48 to '57, the US could have attacked the USSR; destroyed it as an effective military machine, while suffering relatively modest casualties itself (modest in relation to the WWII casualties). After this, the Soviet Union acquired delivery systems that allowed it to achieve MAD. The world came close to a shooting nuclear war in October, '62. After that, it appeared clear that neither the US nor the USSR was interested in such a war. The US was fortunate that its opponent was a bureaucracy, not a single strong man. I think Uncle Joe wouldn't have blinked over Cuba the way the USSR did in '62. So, the Cold War continued to be fought as a proxy war. In hindsight, the strategy of containment worked. The West lost a good deal of ground between '45 and '90, but in the end the USSR collapsed because with its economy experiencing more than a decade of backwards movement, it could no longer keep it's military machine well oiled. In the '90s, in an article and book, Huntington put forth a viewpoint of 21st century conflict between civilizations. One of the two potential conflicts he saw for the first quarter of this century was between Islamic and Western forces. Given the events of the start of the 21st century, it's hard not to consider his ideas prophetic. Even giving modest plausibility to this viewpoint, we can have a framework for seeing what's happening. One piece that I think needs to be added is the losses of the two superpowers when they fought asymmetric wars in 'Nam and Afghanistan. The combined time the US took to insure victory for its allies in WWI and WWII was less than the time it took to lose 'Nam. These types of wars could only be won by successful counter-insurgency fighting (COIN). We didn't do well in 'Nam. Fortunately, the US was strong enough to take the loss and keep going. Also fortunately, the USSR wasn't. But, with these two actions as a background, there is a framework within which to consider the events of the last 5 years. The dominant countries (say, the EU, the USA, Canada, Japan, and Australia...and probably one or two more I'm missing) are facing a world wide insurgency. In some cases, governments are part of the insurgency. In many cases, its small groups of people. Further, the dominant countries are sending a great deal of money to the areas where the insurgencies are basedwith some of it ending up funding the insurgencies. At the same time, historical tendencies have now favored asymmetric attacks. Lets look back 100 years, how big of a chance was there that even as big a country as China could do significant damage to any European, American, or even Japanese city. Compare this to the present situation, where small countries are close to the point where they can devastate major cities in much more powerful countries. I cannot think of another example where fighters with modest means were able to inflict as much damage to a large, distant country as on 9-11...and even then the US was rather lucky things weren't much worse. Given that, one can see the desire to not just fight defensively. The fact that GWB is so unbelievable incompetent that he could probably coach the New England Patriots into a loss vs. the Little Sisters of the Poor has clouded the question somewhatmaking the next step of the US to be more towards isolationism (one of the natural US tendencies). The incompetence of Bush does not mean that treating attacks of this nature
Iraq Re: Someone Must Tell Them
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], pencimen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 1993 (Oct.): Killing of U.S. soldiers in Somalia. etc. And how does that 13+ years of attacks compare to just the last month in Iraq? I dunno, how many Iraqis did the US kill last month? And how many Iraqis did Iraqis kill? JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], pencimen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Whereas some of us see that as a subset of the threat posed by militant Islamic extremists in general. And while AQ staged the most successful attack on US soil in Sep 2001, the threat is worldwide. And still others of us see that if we worked towards energy independance and got the hell out of the middle east (and quit subsidising and cozying up to their despots and fanatics) they'd loose both the desire and (eventually) the means to f*uck with us. So, if I understand you correctly, your favored strategy in dealing with Al Qaeda would be to: -Withdraw immediately from Iraq -Cease all aid to Israel, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the Persian Gulf States -Discontinue all pushes for UN oversight of Iran's nuclear program -Impose a tariff on oil imports such that the price of oil consumption exceeds to price of renewable energies produced in the US Do I have your policy correct? Thanks. JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Richard Baker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm all for bombing the crap out of bad guys and killers, and showing fools just exactly what they are. It is kinda hard to do that when you cower in fear and/or harbor illusions about what it is you fear. But that is the entire point of Terrorism is it not? It is rather strange to see a country that not so long ago faced with an iron will ten thousand nuclear warheads ready to vaporise its cities and dozens of armoured divisions ready to pour across the borders of its allies, that controls the seas with its carrier battle groups and the skies with its thousands of combat aircraft suddenly driven almost insane with terror by a few hijacked airliners. Why are so many Americans so afraid? This strikes me as classic generational arrogance - the old saw that *our generation* dealt with threats much more sensibly than the young'uns out there. Sorry, but does anyone remember the red scare, McCarthyism, the missile gap, air raid drills in schools, backyard nuclear shelters, the Sputnik gap, We Will Bury You, the domino theory, managed decline, etc.? And I might point out that while some Muslim clerics may have been unfairly denied boarding onto a flight yesterday, we haven't exactly evicted all Muslims from their homes and sent them to concentration camps either. Yes, but it is *our* generation that is driven almost insane. JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Robert Seeberger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: When it becomes plain that the whole idea of terror is to scare someone, then a look at our *rhetorical* reactions shows that we are not stiffening our spines and holding our jaws up sufficiently. And what happens when the whole idea of terror is to kill as many people as possible? In other words, in your mind, is the reason that no American city is currently a smoldering radioactive heap: a) A lack of will on the part of Al Qaeda, or b) A lack of means on the part of Al Qaeda ? JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Someone Must Tell Them
At 09:58 PM Tuesday 11/21/2006, jdiebremse wrote: --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], pencimen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Whereas some of us see that as a subset of the threat posed by militant Islamic extremists in general. And while AQ staged the most successful attack on US soil in Sep 2001, the threat is worldwide. And still others of us see that if we worked towards energy independance and got the hell out of the middle east (and quit subsidising and cozying up to their despots and fanatics) they'd loose both the desire and (eventually) the means to f*uck with us. So, if I understand you correctly, your favored strategy in dealing with Al Qaeda would be to: -Withdraw immediately from Iraq -Cease all aid to Israel, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the Persian Gulf States -Discontinue all pushes for UN oversight of Iran's nuclear program -Impose a tariff on oil imports such that the price of oil consumption exceeds to price of renewable energies produced in the US Do I have your policy correct? Thanks. JDG And should we conclude with all 300 million of us chanting in unison There is no G-d but Allah and . . . ? -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Iran Re: Someone Must Tell Them
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Ritu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And why do reports about Iran's nuclear program [any of them, from those which claim disaster looms a few months ahead to those which claim that nuclear capability is nearly a decade away]cause such a lot of alarm? Our intelligence said that the DPRK was a nearly a decade away too. In any event, Iran still doesn't recognize Israel's right to exist, has previously tried to hold the flow of oil through the Persian Gulf hostage, regularly leads rallies chanting Death to America, and on top of all that, would have questionable institutional control over any nuclear bombs that it would produce. Other than that, though, I'm not worried. JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
