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The King Of Karaoke
> Teenager of the Year <
USA
3759 Posts |
 Posted - 09/13/2004 : 13:43:36
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Turn off your TV
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harringk
- FB Fan -
USA
202 Posts |
Posted - 09/13/2004 : 13:56:15
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quote:
Originally posted by darwin
I was trying to stay out of this but what the hell.
I like how George Bush has completely screwed up Iraq, but Kerry is being criticised for not having a great plan for cleaning up Bush's mess. I do think Kerry will have a better chance of getting international help, but what has Bush done to suggest that he will have a good plan for getting out of Iraq?
1. Last I heard there were 30+ other countries providing material support to the Iraq war; troops, supplies, etc... Just because France and Germany didn't step up doesn't mean there was no international support.
2. Iraq is already sovereign. When their own security force is large enough and has been sufficiently trained and can keep the peace (basically once we rid the country of all the Iranians, Syrians, Saudis, Jordanians and other foreign terrorists) we will be gone. Bush doesn't want to be there any longer than necessary, but to leave before the job has been completed would be a tragedy (which is something Kerry would be likely to do, since it is obviously unpopular to be there). |
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harringk
- FB Fan -
USA
202 Posts |
Posted - 09/13/2004 : 13:58:56
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quote:
Originally posted by The King Of Karaoke
Turn off your TV
Do you have a point?
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Dallas
= Cult of Ray =
USA
725 Posts |
Posted - 09/13/2004 : 14:00:01
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harringk - dont waste your time. The people on this thread attacking your are not the least bit interested in what is actually going on in the world.
Just end the argument by asking any of these dolts how they plan on ridding the world of the Islamist threat. That ought to kill the thread right there. After Darwin blames the Islamist threat on Bush of course... |
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harringk
- FB Fan -
USA
202 Posts |
Posted - 09/13/2004 : 14:06:22
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quote:
Originally posted by Tre
Helped you in what? What evil? stop skirting and say what you mean
the room smelled like cupids gym
I wasn't skirting around anything, I thought it was pretty obvious but let me spell it out for you:
Evil = people who fly airplanes into buildings, people who shoot and blow up schoolchildren, people who blow up dance clubs, people who blow up commuter trains, people who hijack and crash airliners, people who strap bombs to their chest and blow up busess and restaraunts. AND--NOW TRY TO STAY WITH ME HERE--GOVERNMENTS & DICTATORS WHO SUPPORT & ENCOURAGE THESE ACTIVITIES ARE NO LESS EVIL THAN THE ANIMALS PERPETRATING THEM.
Help = Financial help, military help, intelligence help, or peace-keeping help designed to persuade or as a last resort remove governments/dictators who refuse to join the civilized world and discourage the evil activities listed above.
Is that clear enough for you? Were the activities on Sept. 11th 2001 not evil? How about the recent events in Russia? Bali? Spain? Israel?
Let me save some time by addressing your predictable response about the loss of life in Iraq being evil. There is a big difference between unfortunate and evil. Unfortunately civilian casualties are an inevitable consequence of war. Everything possible is done to limit those casualties, but you will never be able to avoid them completely.
The difference is evil people will deliberately target civilians (see above), the US led coalition has and will continue to do everything possible to avoid them. I have no doubt that Bush struggled greatly with the decision to go to war with Iraq, knowing that there would be substantial civilian and military casualties. I also have no doubt that he made the correct choice knowing that inaction would almost certainly lead to many more casualties (most likely civilian) at a later date.
Its interesting that nobody cared about the hundreds of thousands of civilians that Saddam killed and tortured over the years, but now all of a sudden its the US that is evil. |
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Jose Jones
* Dog in the Sand *
USA
1758 Posts |
Posted - 09/13/2004 : 14:08:41
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deja vu
anybody want to give insight on their personal opinions on hillary? much thanks.
-dan |
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harringk
- FB Fan -
USA
202 Posts |
Posted - 09/13/2004 : 14:12:23
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quote:
Originally posted by Jose Jones
deja vu
anybody want to give insight on their personal opinions on hillary? much thanks.
-dan
Oops sorry about the double post, I hit back on my browser and must've reposted it.
Hillary-- can't stand her. Too screechy, makes me want to jab ice-picks in my ears when I hear her talk. Has she done anything for NY? Anyone from NY want to respond? |
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n/a
deleted
4894 Posts |
Posted - 09/13/2004 : 14:18:45
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quote:
Originally posted by harringk
quote:
Originally posted by Tre
Helped you in what? What evil? stop skirting and say what you mean
the room smelled like cupids gym
I wasn't skirting around anything, I thought it was pretty obvious but let me spell it out for you:
Evil = people who fly airplanes into buildings, people who shoot and blow up schoolchildren, people who blow up dance clubs, people who blow up commuter trains, people who hijack and crash airliners, people who strap bombs to their chest and blow up busess and restaraunts. AND--NOW TRY TO STAY WITH ME HERE--GOVERNMENTS & DICTATORS WHO SUPPORT & ENCOURAGE THESE ACTIVITIES ARE NO LESS EVIL THAN THE ANIMALS PERPETRATING THEM.
Help = Financial help, military help, intelligence help, or peace-keeping help designed to persuade or as a last resort remove governments/dictators who refuse to join the civilized world and discourage the evil activities listed above.
Is that clear enough for you? Were the activities on Sept. 11th 2001 not evil? How about the recent events in Russia? Bali? Spain? Israel?
Let me save some time by addressing your predictable response about the loss of life in Iraq being evil. There is a big difference between unfortunate and evil. Unfortunately civilian casualties are an inevitable consequence of war. Everything possible is done to limit those casualties, but you will never be able to avoid them completely.
The difference is evil people will deliberately target civilians (see above), the US led coalition has and will continue to do everything possible to avoid them. I have no doubt that Bush struggled greatly with the decision to go to war with Iraq, knowing that there would be substantial civilian and military casualties. I also have no doubt that he made the correct choice knowing that inaction would almost certainly lead to many more casualties (most likely civilian) at a later date.
Its interesting that nobody cared about the hundreds of thousands of civilians that Saddam killed and tortured over the years, but now all of a sudden its the US that is evil.
how extremely patronising! And you dare assertain predictability on my part and come out with that piece of standard re-iterated pap!?
Terrorists are bad, evil nasty killers, so we go after the evil nasty killers and kill them, and their friends, and whoever gets in the fucking way, and you're telling me this isn't evil? So, help. America wants money, do you have any idea how much the UK was forced to shell out on this fucking war that no one here agreed with? No one wanted it, NO ONE. Saddam was a dictator and a bad man but has been for a long time, so why not earlier? Can't catch Bin Laden so we'll make a move on the next well known asian? And let the world know that it's a case of with us or against us! How can we justify this war, ooh you can't! But America wants support, Give us a justifiable reason. Saddam is a bad man, ok everyone knows that but to go to war with a country after no antagonistic action from them or any certain breaking of the rules is wrong and makes you (and I'm ashamed to say us) no fucking better. 9/11, an attack on America because the taliban disagree with the way america is run, Iraq, attack upon because everyone else disagrees with how it's run... sensing a theme here....Peace treaties, Ha! I'm not sure trigger happy would be happy with that. Some terrorists are certafiably mental, but some are desperate and whilst the methods can never be condoned sympathy for the cause can be felt, and maybe looking at these causes and acting earlier would be helpfull. And civilised world? who are you (and I'm guessing by your posts no-one) to say what is civilised and what is not. Define civilised to me, 'cos your treading on thin ground there. I'm glad you're so certain Bush struggled with his decision, I'm less sure, just trying to mop up Daddys mess. I got serious flashbacks with this so called war. War, two armies fighting remember!
And no, not all of a sudden US is evil, I hate to make generalisations but re-iterated opinionless crap makes me fucked off.
People cared about the troubles people had in iraq but were trying to help by not stomping in all guns a blazing, judging by the troubles still on going in that country the civillians aren't the glowing gratefull civiliseds you were hoping for.
And whats the plan for the other murdering dictators, I've not heard it yet.
the room smelled like cupids gym
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deleted
4894 Posts |
Posted - 09/13/2004 : 14:20:41
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quote:
Originally posted by Dallas
harringk - dont waste your time. The people on this thread attacking your are not the least bit interested in what is actually going on in the world.
Just end the argument by asking any of these dolts how they plan on ridding the world of the Islamist threat. That ought to kill the thread right there. After Darwin blames the Islamist threat on Bush of course...
Holy fuck, if you're not going to play nicely go sit in the "haven't got an opinion so will slate everyone elses" corner will you
the room smelled like cupids gym
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darwin
>> Denizen of the Citizens Band <<
USA
5454 Posts |
Posted - 09/13/2004 : 14:25:34
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quote:
Originally posted by harringk
1. Last I heard there were 30+ other countries providing material support to the Iraq war; troops, supplies, etc... Just because France and Germany didn't step up doesn't mean there was no international support.
There really isn't much support from other countires. I don't think anyone besides the UK, Italy, and Poland are providing more than token support.
I found specifics.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq_orbat_coalition.htm
I know nothing about this site, but it seems pretty "solid". So, the US has about 180,000 troops and the coalition is about 20,000 troops. The nation count is inflated by things like 10 troops from Norway and 12 from Moldova. That doesn't seem to be a large coalition to me.
quote:
2. Iraq is already sovereign. When their own security force is large enough and has been sufficiently trained and can keep the peace (basically once we rid the country of all the Iranians, Syrians, Saudis, Jordanians and other foreign terrorists) we will be gone. Bush doesn't want to be there any longer than necessary, but to leave before the job has been completed would be a tragedy (which is something Kerry would be likely to do, since it is obviously unpopular to be there).
That sounds like a project (eliminate all opposition) that will take many years, but Kerry has not called for a withdraw. I agree that we can't just cut and run, but I do think it wouldn't be such a big mess now if 1) the US hadn't attacked or 2) there had been a plan and enough troops to keep things under control in Iraq. That week after "victory" when there was no law and order was a disaster.
With that I hope I'm done. I get enough political aggravation elsewhere. |
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Dallas
= Cult of Ray =
USA
725 Posts |
Posted - 09/13/2004 : 14:34:13
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Jose - I think Hillary will be formidable in 4 years. She is much smarter than Kerry and knows how to build a resume. She will choose a major policy fight in the 1st 2 years of a Bush 2nd term (if he wins) and really begin positioning herself for the nomination.
I dont think she will have ANY problem getting the Dem nomination. Their base loves her. She can run in the center and won't get called on it, just like Bill. The bigger problem for the next Dem candidate is the problem Kerry is having. The US getting more conservative. The Dems cannot win national elections with their current coalition IMO. Lawyers, litmus-testing pro-abortion groups, environmentalists and femists cannot win without a near unanimous minority voting block. 2nd generation Mexican-Americans have been voting with their emphasis on their social agenda, strong pro-family and religion. Blacks voted 9 out of 10 for Gore last time. Kerry will likely get 9 out of 10 again, but, with plenty of black republicans gaining notoriety, and Bush' faith-based initiatives (that mostly benefit minority religous groups who perform social services), along with anti-gay marriage stance that religious blacks agree with, that group may be in play. To the point that 2-3 out of 10 would go republican. That would be crippling to the dems.
Hillary could still win the presidency in 4 years. Like Bill I think she knows that a Democrat has to be viewed as a moderate to win a national election. Gore unbelievably reinvented himself as a populist halfway through his campaign. Maybe that is his true-self, but he had a moderate record all along and was VP to one of the most moderate Presidents in history.
Hillary is scary for Republicans. She can pull it off and she will be the most well-funded challenger in presidential history as soon as she announces she will run. The money will pour in (nothing against her, thats just the system).
just my opinion, since you asked. |
Edited by - Dallas on 09/13/2004 14:36:02 |
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harringk
- FB Fan -
USA
202 Posts |
Posted - 09/13/2004 : 14:37:56
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quote:
Originally posted by Tre
How can we justify this war, ooh you can't!
How about a decade of ignoring countless UN resolutions? The only reason Bush #1 didn't remove Saddam was because the UN wouldn't support it. He said "Ok we'll do it your way." Saddam didn't play by the rules he agreed to in order to stay in power at the end of the Gulf War.
Throughout the 90's he didn't seem like much of a threat, so we left him alone. After Sept 11th it became obvious that he was a threat that we couldn't afford to leave alone any longer. We learned that in order to defend ourselves we needed to talked a much more proactive rather than reactive approach to our national security.
Regardless of whether or not he already had a relationship with Al Qaeda, it was a relationship that we couldn't allow to materialize or progess given his liking to WMD.
There was plenty of justification for his removal in the UN resolutions that he had been ignoring since the first Gulf War. |
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n/a
deleted
4894 Posts |
Posted - 09/13/2004 : 14:44:21
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quote:
Originally posted by harringk
quote:
Originally posted by Tre
How can we justify this war, ooh you can't!
How about a decade of ignoring countless UN resolutions? The only reason Bush #1 didn't remove Saddam was because the UN wouldn't support it. He said "Ok we'll do it your way." Saddam didn't play by the rules he agreed to in order to stay in power at the end of the Gulf War.
Throughout the 90's he didn't seem like much of a threat, so we left him alone. After Sept 11th it became obvious that he was a threat that we couldn't afford to leave alone any longer. We learned that in order to defend ourselves we needed to talked a much more proactive rather than reactive approach to our national security.
Regardless of whether or not he already had a relationship with Al Qaeda, it was a relationship that we couldn't allow to materialize or progess given his liking to WMD.
There was plenty of justification for his removal in the UN resolutions that he had been ignoring since the first Gulf War.
all propaganda no proof
the room smelled like cupids gym
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darwin
>> Denizen of the Citizens Band <<
USA
5454 Posts |
Posted - 09/13/2004 : 14:47:22
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I can't stay away, damn me. I disagree that the US is becoming more conservative. The more urban areas of the US are the most pro-Democrat and I don't see any reason that the US will become less urban.
Hispanics because of their rapid population growth will be a key group in this election and many elections to follow. They are why New Mexico is leaning towards Kerry, and Colorado and Nevada are close. To this point they are pro-Democrat (not to the degree of blacks) and don't think the Republicans have yet had much success swinging them away from Democrats (with the exception of Cubans).
Technically, if Hillary runs in 2008 she wouldn't be a challenger since there wouldn't be an incumbent Republican. |
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Dallas
= Cult of Ray =
USA
725 Posts |
Posted - 09/13/2004 : 14:51:55
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"I can't stay away, damn me. I disagree that the US is becoming more conservative. The more urban areas of the US are the most pro-Democrat and I don't see any reason that the US will become less urban."
We'll just have to disagree on this. The burbs are growing and growing and growing. Just look at the sky-rocketing home ownership stats, you think most of those are in the cities?
"Hispanics because of their rapid population growth will be a key group in this election and many elections to follow. They are why New Mexico is leaning towards Kerry, and Colorado and Nevada are close. To this point they are pro-Democrat (not to the degree of blacks) and don't think the Republicans have yet had much success swinging them away from Democrats (with the exception of Cubans)."
We'll see, but, keep an eye on Texas. Its the 2nd/3rd generation that is skewing right. But, just prognostication on both sides.
"Technically, if Hillary runs in 2008 she wouldn't be a challenger since there wouldn't be an incumbent Republican."
Checkmate. But, if Kerry wins and looks vulnerible... |
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twist
- FB Fan -
USA
191 Posts |
Posted - 09/13/2004 : 23:28:12
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America has a health care system run by insurance companies, an energy policy written by Ken Lay, the EPA is being run by polluters, it used to be the Military Industrial complex, now it's Industrial Military. We have been Lied to by our President about some very important things. More important than pathetic affairs. Instead of bludgeoning Iraq into Democracy why aren't we insisting our "friends" who we made billionairs practice a little human rights? Our "friends" stone women to death for adultery. We're still working on our democracy, what makes us think we can install one overnight? What happened to Afganistan? Most of the highjackers were Saudi. America has turned off it's brain for god and country. What the hell does Hilary Clinton have to do with Bush's failures? He's a moron! Hello America! Your President is a moron! Wake Up!
God I hope Kerry doesn't turn out to be another LBJ, but to vote for Bush or say "I'm pro war" is to say "I am as moronic as my apparently lobotomized Commander in Chief".
I'ts good to see that at least Frank Black has bipartisan support. |
Edited by - twist on 09/13/2004 23:35:39 |
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vilainde
>> Denizen of the Citizens Band <<
Niue
7443 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2004 : 02:19:31
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quote:
Originally posted by harringk
How about a decade of ignoring countless UN resolutions? The only reason Bush #1 didn't remove Saddam was because the UN wouldn't support it. He said "Ok we'll do it your way." Saddam didn't play by the rules he agreed to in order to stay in power at the end of the Gulf War.
Throughout the 90's he didn't seem like much of a threat, so we left him alone. After Sept 11th it became obvious that he was a threat that we couldn't afford to leave alone any longer. We learned that in order to defend ourselves we needed to talked a much more proactive rather than reactive approach to our national security.
I won't participate much in this thread, cause I don't have the skills to sustain a debate in english. I just wanted to say that I find completely crazy how you keep talking about "national security" and then admit that terrorists commit crimes in the whole world. Basically what you're saying is that you don't give a damn if other countries are attacked as long as nobody tries to kill YOU. That's egoistic and wrong. Terrorism is a global issue and you'll get nowhere if you don't share information and resources between all the nations. Which is what the UN was created for.
Denis
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vigorstrength
- FB Fan -
87 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2004 : 07:49:42
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I don't know... if more things like these
show up, opinions might change.
pictures: The Iraqi jet, an advanced Russian MiG-25 Foxbat, was found buried in the sand after an informant tipped off U.S. troops.
While there are rumors of Iraqi chemical and biological weapons being shipped to nearby Syria, the weapons may very well still remain inside Iraq buried under the vast desert wastelands.
http://www.bagleytree.com/pix/jet1.jpg
http://www.bagleytree.com/pix/jet2.jpg
 www.againandagain.net - dynamic acoustic rock |
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Cult_Of_Frank
= Black Noise Maker =
Canada
11687 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2004 : 08:02:15
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quote:
Originally posted by harringk
quote:
Originally posted by Tre
How can we justify this war, ooh you can't!
How about a decade of ignoring countless UN resolutions? The only reason Bush #1 didn't remove Saddam was because the UN wouldn't support it. He said "Ok we'll do it your way." Saddam didn't play by the rules he agreed to in order to stay in power at the end of the Gulf War.
Throughout the 90's he didn't seem like much of a threat, so we left him alone. After Sept 11th it became obvious that he was a threat that we couldn't afford to leave alone any longer. We learned that in order to defend ourselves we needed to talked a much more proactive rather than reactive approach to our national security.
Regardless of whether or not he already had a relationship with Al Qaeda, it was a relationship that we couldn't allow to materialize or progess given his liking to WMD.
There was plenty of justification for his removal in the UN resolutions that he had been ignoring since the first Gulf War.
a) Someone who himself blatantly disregards UN resolutions has no right to denounce others for doing the same, much less invade a sovereign state as a result.
b) Iraq has nothing to do with Sept. 11. Period. Proactive defense sounds a lot like offense to me.
c) What WMD?
 "Join the Cult of Frank 2.0 / And you'll be enlightened (free for 1.x members)" |
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Dallas
= Cult of Ray =
USA
725 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2004 : 09:08:24
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c) What WMD:
"We've found ten or twelve Sarin and Mustard rounds," said Charles Duelfer, who replaced David Kay as head of the Iraq survey group earlier this year after Kay concluded that WMDs were unlikely to be found.
"We're not sure how many more are out there that we haven't found," Duelfer added. "There are still surprises out there. We're finding things and we're getting reports of hidden caches almost every day which we have to investigate."
They have found more. I think the latest number I saw was in the 30's, but, I havent readily found a link and I dont have the time right now.
You dont deny also that long-range missiles capable of reaching Israel and US troops in Saudi Arabia have also been found do you? Those are classed as WMD by the UN resolution banning them.
Not the stockpiles that the French, Russians, Germans, US, UN, Saudi's, Israeli's, Poles, Italians, Spanish, etc. etc. pronounced there would be, but, to say none have been found is false.
And dont be confused, the US is on offense and will remain so. Just like the US didnt wait for more planes or boats to attack US soil after Pearl Harbor, we won't wait this time. The war is being taken to the enemy.
The whole offense/defense line is a red-herring anyway. When a group has come out and declared that your way of life WILL be obliterated through violence and death, any action is a defensive action. War was declared on the US, not the other way around.
Also on point 'b', Bush has been clear that this is a war on terror. Not on 9/11. Its a war on the people who bomb embassy's, disco's, busses, shopping centers everywhere and the people who harbor them. Like the terrorists discovered in Baghdad within days of the liberation. Saddam was harboring and protecting them. Iraq WAS a safe-haven for anyone who wished to attack the US. That is a fact. |
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vilainde
>> Denizen of the Citizens Band <<
Niue
7443 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2004 : 09:16:16
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quote:
Originally posted by Dallas
Also on point 'b', Bush has been clear that this is a war on terror. Not on 9/11. Its a war on the people who bomb embassy's, disco's, busses, shopping centers everywhere and the people who harbor them. Like the terrorists discovered in Baghdad within days of the liberation. Saddam was harboring and protecting them. Iraq WAS a safe-haven for anyone who wished to attack the US. That is a fact.
And a perfectly valid reason to kill innocent Iraqi citizens in the process... What were they doing there anyway?
Denis
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Dallas
= Cult of Ray =
USA
725 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2004 : 09:25:46
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Oh denis you cannot be that naive. Saddam LOVED his citizens.
Do you want to compare civilian death tolls with the bodies dug up from the mass graves?
People (this is a general reference) can always find a way to avoid conflict when they are cowards. Sticking up for Saddam just happens to be the most vile. The fact is, no Liberation = Saddam in power. 20 years of history make that a FACT that is unimpeachable.
Specifically YOUR leaders propped Saddam up for cheap oil. Lets talk about the French, which # is greater, the number of civilian deaths in Iraq or the # of senior citizens allowed to cook to death while Chirac was at holiday?? Which deaths are more egregious? The ones that resulted in the imprisonement of a murderous Despot and the liberation of millions? Or the one that extended the vacations of thousands of Franco's?
The biggest humanitarian disaster in the world didnt take place in a war zone in Iraq it took place on the beaches of Southern France. What were those old-timers doing dying while France was on vacation anyway? |
Edited by - Dallas on 09/14/2004 09:26:50 |
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Posted - 09/14/2004 : 10:41:48
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quote:
Originally posted by Dallas
c) What WMD:
"We've found ten or twelve Sarin and Mustard rounds," said Charles Duelfer, who replaced David Kay as head of the Iraq survey group earlier this year after Kay concluded that WMDs were unlikely to be found.
What a coincidence, one guy reckons there aren't any so he's swapped with someone who magics them up.....
Jesus some people are gullible
the room smelled like cupids gym
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harringk
- FB Fan -
USA
202 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2004 : 10:44:51
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quote:
Originally posted by Cult_Of_Frank
c) What WMD?
Are you really this stupid or just disingenuos? How about the WMD he used against Iran? How about the WMD he used against the Kurds? How about the WMD programs he admitted to having?
There is a very remote possibility that he didn't have any WMD when we invaded. More likely they were shipped to Syria, or are still hidden. Regardless, even if he didn't have ANY at that time, I said "given his liking for WMD" not 'that he is indisputably sitting on a large stockpile of WMD that he will not make any attempt to hide or get rid of, thus making it very easy for us to find...' blah blah blah...
The point is, even if he didn't have any WMD, the war was still justified, Bush did the right thing, and the average Iraqi will be much better off once the dust settles (soon). |
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deleted
4894 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2004 : 10:51:19
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quote:
Originally posted by harringk
quote:
Originally posted by Cult_Of_Frank
c) What WMD?
Are you really this stupid or just disingenuos? How about the WMD he used against Iran? How about the WMD he used against the Kurds? How about the WMD programs he admitted to having?
There is a very remote possibility that he didn't have any WMD when we invaded. More likely they were shipped to Syria, or are still hidden. Regardless, even if he didn't have ANY at that time, I said "given his liking for WMD" not 'that he is indisputably sitting on a large stockpile of WMD that he will not make any attempt to hide or get rid of, thus making it very easy for us to find...' blah blah blah...
The point is, even if he didn't have any WMD, the war was still justified, Bush did the right thing, and the average Iraqi will be much better off once the dust settles (soon).
You are rude and ignorant and fairly entertaining, how's the shovel holding out, do you need to borrow one? I'm hoping you're going to dig all the way down to the core....
the room smelled like cupids gym
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Cult_Of_Frank
= Black Noise Maker =
Canada
11687 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2004 : 10:55:38
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I suppose that a rocket capable of reaching Israel or Saudi Arabia is not something we'd want Saddam to have, but I would disagree that this is the justification for the war. The reason for going to Iraq, as delivered by the government at that time, was to protect America from future potential attacks. I don't really buy that protecting US troops abroad qualifies as that.
Comparing Pearl Harbor and the return attack on Japan to this is interesting but irrelevant as it was then clearly an attack by one party and a response to that party in kind. 9/11 was an attack by the Taliban and specifically Al Queada. Which, as has been well documented, has nothing to do with Iraq. But you already agreed with that, I just wanted to reiterate it.
Why? To clarify that when you speak of a "group" coming out and declaring that it will exterminate your way of life, and that war was declared on the US first, that this has NOTHING to do with Iraq, and you should know it.
"Join the Cult of Frank 2.0 / And you'll be enlightened (free for 1.x members)" |
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harringk
- FB Fan -
USA
202 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2004 : 11:01:57
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quote:
Originally posted by Tre
You are rude and ignorant and fairly entertaining, how's the shovel holding out, do you need to borrow one? I'm hoping you're going to dig all the way down to the core....
Tre, you are your ilk will never wake up and see the real world. I don't expect to convince you. The only reason I spoke up is because I'm sick of seeing our President and the US constantly trashed in the press and on this board.
This thread was originally started to gloat about Bush's supposed defeat. I thought it would be constructive to present the other side of the argument, that way when Bush trashes Kerry in a couple of months (and I resurect this thread to do some gloating of my own) you will see that your opinion is in the minority and sanity and clear thinking still rules. |
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deleted
4894 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2004 : 12:33:41
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your arguments are weak and not so much arguments as the spoutings of a crazy man happy to believe everything the news tells him and he wants to hear.
And if Bush wins it'll support my theory that the majority of americans are nuts, I'll only revise that he doesn't, america may prove me wrong... but if the majority of the board are the exceptions and you are the rule.......well..... it's a fucking scary prospect
the room smelled like cupids gym
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vilainde
>> Denizen of the Citizens Band <<
Niue
7443 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2004 : 13:42:12
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quote:
Originally posted by Dallas
Oh denis you cannot be that naive. Saddam LOVED his citizens.
Did I say that?
quote:
Do you want to compare civilian death tolls with the bodies dug up from the mass graves?
So? War is OK as long as you kill less civilians than Saddam did?
quote:
People (this is a general reference) can always find a way to avoid conflict when they are cowards. Sticking up for Saddam just happens to be the most vile. The fact is, no Liberation = Saddam in power. 20 years of history make that a FACT that is unimpeachable.
Specifically YOUR leaders propped Saddam up for cheap oil. Lets talk about the French, which # is greater, the number of civilian deaths in Iraq or the # of senior citizens allowed to cook to death while Chirac was at holiday?? Which deaths are more egregious? The ones that resulted in the imprisonement of a murderous Despot and the liberation of millions? Or the one that extended the vacations of thousands of Franco's?
The biggest humanitarian disaster in the world didnt take place in a war zone in Iraq it took place on the beaches of Southern France. What were those old-timers doing dying while France was on vacation anyway?
Please tell me you're kidding, cause this is laughable. Hey, you forgot to mention the French nuclear tests in '95, and the fact that the French don't bathe and eat stinky cheese.
What the hell does all this have to do with the war in Iraq? Plus I certainly don't stand behind the pricks who are governing my country right now. So I don't see the point of bringing the French president in the conversation. And sorry, but the situation in Iraq is nothing to be compared with the situation in Europe during WWII, and if you think the Iraqis will thank the USA forever like the French do, you're totally wrong.
Denis
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Jose Jones
* Dog in the Sand *
USA
1758 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2004 : 17:45:56
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everyone is crazy and they're all trying to kill me.
-dan (yossarian) |
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PsychicTwin
* Dog in the Sand *
USA
1772 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2004 : 20:56:09
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harringk-
Reading between the lines, I see that you support a pre-emptive war by the U.S. on countries that have not directly attacked us. That's what Bush thinks, and a whole lot of other people here as well.
I just don't see it. Throwing our weight around (the large weight that it is) should involve a far more global-minded, peace-oriented, cooperative approach than the path that Bush has taken. There had to be a 'response' to 9-11. When the actual perpetrators and their inner circles couldn't be apprehended, a scapegoat was found instead. There are benefits to freeing the Iraqis from what was a horrible regime, that is simple logic, but it was neither the TIME nor the PLACE for the U.S. to do so, especially with a relative lack of support abroad. |
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The King Of Karaoke
> Teenager of the Year <
USA
3759 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2004 : 22:12:24
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MMMMUUUUUUUUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
I love that picture of the buried jet by the way. See! See! a plane! We were doomed if we didn't act!
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darwin
>> Denizen of the Citizens Band <<
USA
5454 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2004 : 22:51:56
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Yeah, I must have missed the UN resoluton that said Iraq wasn't allowed to have fighter jets and maybe it was buried to avoid having it destroyed during the no fly patrols prior to the war.
And anyone who thinks that Iraq is going should read this week's Newsweek article which includes these tidbits:
"We're dealing with a population that hovers between bare tolerance and outright hostility," says a senior U.S. diplomat in Baghdad. "This idea of a functioning democracy here is crazy. We thought that there would be a reprieve after sovereignty, but all hell is breaking loose."
The Defense Department counted 87 attacks per day on U.S. forces in August—the worst monthly average since Bush's flight-suited visit to the USS Abraham Lincoln in May 2003. Preliminary analysis of the July and August numbers also suggests that U.S. troops are being attacked across a wider area of Iraq than ever before. And the number of gunshot casualties apparently took a huge jump in August. Until then, explosive devices and shrapnel were the primary cause of combat injuries, typical of a "phase two" insurgency, where sudden ambushes are the rule. (Phase one is the recruitment phase, with most actions confined to sabotage. That's how things started in Iraq.) Bullet wounds would mean the insurgents are standing and fighting—a step up to phase three.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5973272/site/newsweek/ |
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PsychicTwin
* Dog in the Sand *
USA
1772 Posts |
Posted - 09/15/2004 : 06:52:02
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came across this essay. It's long, but well-worth reading...maybe harringk will see things in a slightly different context:
"The Bush Crusade
By James Carroll
At the turn of the millennium, the world was braced for terrible things. Most "rational" worries were tied to an anticipated computer glitch, the Y2K problem, and even the most scientifically oriented of people seemed temporarily at the mercy of powerful mythic forces. Imagined hobgoblins leapt from hard drives directly into nightmares. Airlines canceled flights scheduled for the first day of the new year, citing fears that the computers for the traffic-control system would not work. The calendar as such had not previously been a source of dread, but all at once, time itself held a new danger. As the year 2000 approached, I bought bottled water and extra cans of tuna fish. I even withdrew a large amount of cash from the bank. Friends! mocked me, then admitted to having done similar things. There were no dances-of-death or outbreaks of flagellant cults, but a millennial fever worthy of medieval superstition infected the most secular of cultures. Of course, the mystical date came and went, the computers did fine, airplanes flew and the world went back to normal.
Then came September 11, 2001, the millennial catastrophe--just a little late. Airplanes fell from the sky, thousands died and an entirely new kind of horror gripped the human imagination. Time, too, played its role, but time as warped by television, which created a global simultaneity, turning the whole human race into a witness, as the awful events were endlessly replayed, as if those bodies leaping from the Twin Towers would never hit the ground. Nightmare in broad daylight. New York's World Trade Center collapsed not just onto the surrounding streets but into the hearts of every person with access to CNN. Hundreds of millions of people ! instinctively reached out to those they loved, grateful to be alive. D eath had shown itself in a new way. But if a vast throng experienced the terrible events of 9/11 as one, only one man, the President of the United States, bore a unique responsibility for finding a way to respond to them.
George W. Bush plumbed the deepest place in himself, looking for a simple expression of what the assaults of September 11 required. It was his role to lead the nation, and the very world. The President, at a moment of crisis, defines the communal response. A few days after the assault, George W. Bush did this. Speaking spontaneously, without the aid of advisers or speechwriters, he put a word on the new American purpose that both shaped it and gave it meaning. "This crusade," he said, "this war on terrorism."
Crusade. I remember a momentary feeling of vertigo at the President's use of that word, the outrageous ineptitude of it. The vertigo lifted, and what I felt then was fear, sensing not ineptitude but exactitude. My thoughts went to the e! lusive Osama bin Laden, how pleased he must have been, Bush already reading from his script. I am a Roman Catholic with a feeling for history, and strong regrets, therefore, over what went wrong in my own tradition once the Crusades were launched. Contrary to schoolboy romances, Hollywood fantasies and the nostalgia of royalty, the Crusades were a set of world-historic crimes. I hear the word with a third ear, alert to its dangers, and I see through its legends to its warnings. For example, in Iraq "insurgents" have lately shocked the world by decapitating hostages, turning the most taboo of acts into a military tactic. But a thousand years ago, Latin crusaders used the severed heads of Muslim fighters as missiles, catapulting them over the fortified walls of cities under siege. Taboos fall in total war, whether crusade or jihad.
For George W. Bush, crusade was an offhand reference. But all the more powerfully for that, it was an accidental probing of unintended but! nevertheless real meaning. That the President used the word inadverte ntly suggests how it expressed his exact truth, an unmasking of his most deeply felt purpose. Crusade, he said. Later, his embarrassed aides suggested that he had meant to use the word only as a synonym for struggle, but Bush's own syntax belied that. He defined crusade as war. Even offhandedly, he had said exactly what he meant.
Osama bin Laden was already understood to be trying to spark a "clash of civilizations" that would set the West against the whole House of Islam. After 9/11, agitated voices on all sides insisted that no such clash was inevitable. But crusade was a match for jihad, and such words threatened nothing less than apocalyptic conflict between irreconcilable cultures. Indeed, the President's reference flashed through the Arab news media. Its resonance went deeper, even, than the embarrassed aides expected--and not only among Muslims. After all, the word refers to a long series of military campaigns, which, taken together, were the defining event in! the shaping of what we call Western civilization. A coherent set of political, economic, social and even mythological traditions of the Eurasian continent, from the British Isles to the far side of Arabia, grew out of the transformations wrought by the Crusades. And it is far from incidental still, both that those campaigns were conducted by Christians against Muslims, and that they, too, were attached to the irrationalities of millennial fever.
If the American President was the person carrying the main burden of shaping a response to the catastrophe of September 11, his predecessor in such a grave role, nearly a thousand years earlier, was the Catholic pope. Seeking to overcome the century-long dislocations of a postmillennial Christendom, he rallied both its leaders and commoners with a rousing call to holy war. Muslims were the infidel people who had taken the Holy Land hundreds of years before. Now, that occupation was defined as an intolerable blasphemy. The H! oly Land must be redeemed. Within months of the pope's call, 100,000 p eople had "taken the cross" to reclaim the Holy Land for Christ. As a proportion of the population of Europe, a comparable movement today would involve more than a million people, dropping everything to go to war.
In the name of Jesus, and certain of God's blessing, crusaders launched what might be called "shock and awe" attacks everywhere they went. In Jerusalem they savagely slaughtered Muslims and Jews alike--practically the whole city. Eventually, Latin crusaders would turn on Eastern Christians, and then on Christian heretics, as blood lust outran the initial "holy" impulse. That trail of violence scars the earth and human memory even to this day--especially in the places where the crusaders wreaked their havoc. And the mental map of the Crusades, with Jerusalem at the center of the earth, still defines world politics. But the main point, in relation to Bush's instinctive response to 9/11, is that those religious invasions and wars of long ago established a cohe! sive Western identity precisely in opposition to Islam, an opposition that survives to this day.
With the Crusades, the violent theology of the killer God came into its own. To save the world, in this understanding, God willed the violent death of God's only beloved son. Here is the relevance of that mental map, for the crusaders were going to war to rescue the site of the salvific death of Jesus, and they displayed their devotion to the cross on which Jesus died by wearing it on their breasts. When Bush's remark was translated into Arabic for broadcast throughout the Middle East, the word "crusade" was rendered as "war of the cross."
Before the Crusades, Christian theology had given central emphasis to the resurrection of Jesus, and to the idea of incarnation itself, but with the war of the cross, the bloody crucifixion began to dominate the Latin Christian imagination. A theology narrowly focused on the brutal death of Jesus reinforced the primitive notion! that violence can be a sacred act. The cult of martyrdom, even to the point of suicidal valor, was institutionalized in the Crusades, and it is not incidental to the events of 9/11 that a culture of sacred self-destruction took equally firm hold among Muslims. The suicide-murderers of the World Trade Center, like the suicide-bombers from the West Bank and Gaza, exploit a perverse link between the willingness to die for a cause and the willingness to kill for it. Crusaders, thinking of heaven, honored that link too.
Here is the deeper significance of Bush's inadvertent reference to the Crusades: Instead of being a last recourse or a necessary evil, violence was established then as the perfectly appropriate, even chivalrous, first response to what is wrong in the world. George W. Bush is a Christian for whom this particular theology lives. While he identified Jesus as his favorite "political philosopher" when running for President in 2000, the Jesus of this evangelical President is not the "turn the other cheek" one. Bush's savior is th! e Jesus whose cross is wielded as a sword. George W. Bush, having cheerfully accepted responsibility for the executions of 152 death-row inmates in Texas, had already shown himself to be entirely at home with divinely sanctioned violence. After 9/11, no wonder it defined his deepest urge.
But sacred violence, once unleashed in 1096, as in 2001, had a momentum of its own. The urgent purpose of war against the "enemy outside"--what some today call the "clash of civilizations"--led quickly to the discovery of an "enemy inside." The crusaders, en route from northwestern Europe to attack the infidel far away, first fell upon, as they said, "the infidel near at hand"--Jews. For the first time in Europe, large numbers of Jews were murdered for being Jews. A crucifixion-obsessed theology saw God as willing the death of Jesus, but in the bifurcated evangelical imagination, Jews could be blamed for it, and the offense the crusaders took was mortal.
The same dynamic--w! ar against an enemy outside leading to war against an enemy inside--ca n be seen at work today. It is a more complex dynamic now, with immigrant Muslims and people of Arabic descent coming under heavy pressure in the West. In Europe, Muslims are routinely demonized. In America, they are "profiled," even to the point of being deprived of basic rights. But at the same time, once again, Jews are targeted. The broad resurgence of anti-Semitism, and the tendency to scapegoat Israel as the primary source of the new discord, reflect an old tidal pull. This is true notwithstanding the harsh fact that Ariel Sharon's government took up the Bush "dead or alive" credo with enthusiasm and used the "war on terrorism" to fuel self-defeating overreactions to Palestinian provocations. But some of Israel's critics fall into the old pattern of measuring Jews against standards to which no one else is held, not even our President. That the war on terrorism is the context within which violence in Israel and Jerusalem has intensified should be no surprise. It wasn't ! "Israel" then, but conflict over Jerusalem played exactly such a flashpoint role a thousand years ago.
The Crusades proved to have other destructive dynamics as well. The medieval war against Islam, having also targeted Europe's Jews, soon enough became a war against all forms of cultural and religious dissent, a war against heresy. As it hadn't been in hundreds of years, doctrine now became rigidly defined in the Latin West, and those who did not affirm dominant interpretations -- Cathars, Albigensians, Eastern Orthodox -- were attacked. Doctrinal uniformity, too, could be enforced with sacred violence. When the US Attorney General defines criticism of the Administration in wartime as treason, or when Congress enacts legislation that justifies the erosion of civil liberties with appeals to patriotism, they are enacting a Crusades script.
All of this is implicit in the word that President Bush first used, which came to him as naturally as a baseball referenc! e, to define the war on terrorism. That such a dark, seething religiou s history of sacred violence remains largely unspoken in our world does not defuse it as an explosive force in the human unconscious. In the world of Islam, of course, its meaning could not be more explicit, or closer to consciousness. The full historical and cultural significance of "crusade" is instantly obvious, which is why a howl of protest from the Middle East drove Bush into instant verbal retreat. Yet the very inadvertence of his use of the word is the revelation: Americans do not know what fire they are playing with. Osama bin Laden, however, knows all too well, and in his periodic pronouncements, he uses the word "crusade" to this day, as a flamethrower.
Religious war is the danger here, and it is a graver one than Americans think. Despite our much-vaunted separation of church and state, America has always had a quasi-religious understanding of itself, reflected in the messianism of Puritan founder John Winthrop, the Deist optimism of Thomas Jefferson, the ! embrace of redemptive suffering that marked Abraham Lincoln and, for that matter, the conviction of Eisenhower's Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, that Communism had to be opposed on a global scale if only because of its atheism. But never before has America been brought deeper into a dynamite-wired holy of holies than in our President's war on terrorism. Despite the post-Iraq toning down of Washington's rhetoric of empire, and the rejection of further crusader references -- although Secretary of State Colin Powell used the word this past March -- Bush's war openly remains a cosmic battle between nothing less than the transcendent forces of good and evil. Such a battle is necessarily unlimited and open-ended, and so justifies radical actions--the abandonment, for example, of established notions of civic justice at home and of traditional alliances abroad.
A cosmic moral-religious battle justifies, equally, risks of world-historic proportioned disaster, since t! he ultimate outcome of such a conflict is to be measured not by actual consequences on this earth but by the earth-transcending will of God. Our war on terrorism, before it is anything else, is thus an imagined conflict, taking place primarily in a mythic realm beyond history.
In waging such a "war," the enemy is to be engaged everywhere and nowhere, not just because the actual nihilists who threaten the social order are faceless and deracinated but because each fanatical suicide-bomber is only an instance of the transcendent enemy--and so the other face of us. Each terrorist is, in effect, a sacrament of the larger reality, which is "terrorism." Instead of perceiving unconnected centers of inhuman violence--tribal warlords, Mafia chieftains, nationalist fighters, xenophobic Luddites--President Bush projects the grandest and most interlocking strategies of conspiracy, belief and organization. By the canonization of the war on terrorism, petty nihilists are elevated to the status of world-historic warriors, exactly the fate they might h! ave wished for. This is why the conflict readily bleeds from one locus to another--Afghanistan then, Iraq now, Iran or some other land of evil soon--and why, for that matter, the targeted enemies are entirely interchangeable -- here Osama bin Laden, there Saddam Hussein, here the leader of Iran, there of North Korea. They are all essentially one enemy -- one "axis" -- despite their differences from one another, or even hatred of one another.
Hard-boiled men and women who may not share Bush's fervent spirituality can nonetheless support his purpose because, undergirding the new ideology, there is an authentic global crisis that requires an urgent response. New technologies are now making it possible for small groups of nihilists, or even single individuals, to wreak havoc on a scale unprecedented in history. This is the ultimate "asymmetric threat." The attacks of 9/11, amplified by the murderous echo of the anthrax mailer, the as-yet-unapprehended psychopath who sen! t deadly letters to journalists and government officials in the weeks after 9/11, put that new condition on display for all the world to see. Innovations in physics, biology, chemistry and information technology--and soon, possibly, in nanotechnology and genetic engineering--have had the unforeseen effect of threatening to put in a few hands the destructive power that, in former times, could be exercised only by sizable armies. This is the real condition to which the Bush Administration is responding. The problem is actual, if not yet fully present.
So, to put the best face on the Bush agenda (leaving aside questions of oil, global market control and economic or military hegemony), a humane project of antiproliferation can be seen at its core. Yet a nation that was trying to promote the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear weapons, would behave precisely as the Bush Administration has behaved over the past three years. The Pentagon's chest-thumping concept of "full spectrum dominance" itself motivates other ! nations to seek sources of countervailing power, and when the United States actually goes to war to impose its widely disputed notion of order on some states, but not others, nations -- friendly as well as unfriendly -- find themselves with an urgent reason to acquire some means of deterring such intervention.
The odd and tragic thing is that the world before Bush was actually nearing consensus on how to manage the problem of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and had begun to put in place promising structures designed to prevent such spread. Centrally embodied in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty of 1968, which had successfully and amazingly kept the number of nuclear powers, actual as well as admitted, relatively low, that consensus gave primacy to treaty obligations, international cooperation and a serious commitment by existing nuclear powers to move toward ultimate nuclear abolition. All of that has been trashed by Bush. "International law?" he! smirked in December 2003. "I better call my lawyer."
Now indi cations are that nations all over the globe -- Japan, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Brazil, Australia -- have begun re-evaluating their rejections of nukes, and some are positively rushing to acquire them. Iran and North Korea are likely to be only the tip of this radioactive iceberg. Nuclear-armed Pakistan and India are a grim forecast of the future on every continent. And the Bush Administration -- by declaring its own nuclear arsenal permanent, by threatening nuclear first-strikes against other nations, by "warehousing" treaty-defused warheads instead of destroying them, by developing a new line of "usable" nukes, by moving to weaponize the "high frontier" of outer space, by doing little to help Russia get rid of its rotting nuclear stockpile, by embracing "preventive war" -- is enabling this trend instead of discouraging it. How can this be?
The problem has its roots in a long-term American forgetfulness, going back to the acid fog in which the United States ended Wor! ld War II. There was never a complete moral reckoning with the harsh momentum of that conflict's denouement -- how American leaders embraced a strategy of terror bombing, slaughtering whole urban populations, and how, finally, they ushered in the atomic age with the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Scholars have debated those questions, but politicians have avoided them, and most citizens have pretended they aren't really questions at all. America's enduring assumptions about its own moral supremacy, its own altruism, its own exceptionalism, have hardly been punctured by consideration of the possibility that we, too, are capable of grave mistakes, terrible crimes. Such awareness, drawn from a fuller reckoning with days gone by -- with August 6 and 9, 1945, above all -- would inhibit America's present claim to moral grandeur, which is simultaneously a claim, of course, to economic and political grandiosity. The indispensable nation must dispense with what went before.
!
"The past is never dead," William Faulkner said. "It isn't even pa st." How Americans remember their country's use of terror bombing affects how they think of terrorism; how they remember the first use of nuclear weapons has profound relevance for how the United States behaves in relation to nuclear weapons today. If the long American embrace of nuclear "mutual assured destruction" is unexamined; if the Pentagon's treaty-violating rejection of the ideal of eventual nuclear abolition is unquestioned--then the Bush Administration's embrace of nukes as normal, usable weapons will not seem offensive.
Memory is a political act. Forgetfulness is the handmaiden of tyranny. The Bush Administration is fully committed to maintaining what the historian Marc Trachtenberg calls our "nuclear amnesia" even as the Administration seeks to impose a unilateral structure of control on the world. As it pursues a world-threatening campaign against other people's weapons of mass destruction, that is, the Bush Administration refuses to confront the moral m! eaning of America's own weapons of mass destruction, not to mention their viral character, as other nations seek smaller versions of the American arsenal, if only to deter Bush's next "preventive" war. The United States' own arsenal, in other words, remains the primordial cause of the WMD plague.
"Memory," the novelist Paul Auster has written, is "the space in which a thing happens for the second time." No one wants the terrible events that came after the rising of the sun on September 11, 2001, to happen for a second time except in the realm of remembrance, leading to understanding and commitment. But all the ways George Bush exploited those events, betraying the memory of those who died in them, must be lifted up and examined again, so that the outrageousness of his political purpose can be felt in its fullness. Exactly how the war on terrorism unfolded; how it bled into the wars against Afghanistan, then Iraq; how American fears were exacerbated by Administration! alarms; how civil rights were undermined, treaties broken, alliances abandoned, coarseness embraced--none of this should be forgotten.
Given how they have been so dramatically unfulfilled, Washington's initial hubristic impulses toward a new imperial dominance should not be forgotten. That the first purpose of the war--Osama "dead or alive"--changed when Al Qaeda proved elusive should not be forgotten. That the early justification for the war against Iraq--Saddam's weapons of mass destruction--changed when they proved nonexistent should not be forgotten. That in former times the US government behaved as if facts mattered, as if evidence informed policy, should not be forgotten. That Afghanistan and Iraq are a shambles, with thousands dead and hundreds of thousands at risk from disease, disorder and despair, should not be forgotten. That a now-disdainful world gave itself in unbridled love to America on 9/11 should not be forgotten.
Nor, given Bush's reference, should the most relevant fact about the Crusades be forgotten -- th! at, on their own terms and notwithstanding the romance of history, they were, in the end, an overwhelming failure. The 1096 campaign, the "First Crusade," finally "succeeded" in 1099, when a remnant army fell upon Jerusalem, slaughtering much of its population. But armies under Saladin reasserted Islamic control in 1187, and subsequent Crusades never succeeded in re-establishing Latin dominance in the Holy Land. The reconquista Crusades reclaimed Spain and Portugal for Christian Europe, but in the process destroyed the glorious Iberian convivencia, a high civilization never to be matched below the Pyrenees again.
Meanwhile, intra-Christian crusades, wars against heresy, only made permanent the East-West split between Latin Catholicism and "schismatic" Eastern Orthodoxy, and made inevitable the eventual break, in the Reformation, between a Protestant north and a Catholic south. The Crusades, one could argue, established basic structures of Western civil! ization, while undermining the possibility that their grandest ideals would ever be realized.
Will such consequences--new global structures of an American imperium, hollowed-out hopes for a humane and just internationalism--follow in the train of George W. Bush's crusade? This question will be answered in smaller part by anonymous, ad hoc armies of on-the-ground human beings in foreign lands, many of whom will resist Washington to the death. In larger part, the question will be answered by those privileged to be citizens of the United States. To us falls the ultimate power over the American moral and political agenda. As has never been true of any empire before, because this one is still a democracy, such power belongs to citizens absolutely. If the power is ours, so is the responsibility."
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The King Of Karaoke
> Teenager of the Year <
USA
3759 Posts |
Posted - 09/15/2004 : 07:42:41
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Jeepers.
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COUNT DOWN TO THE DAY WHEN BUSH GOES AWAY
