If we were in their shoes we’d be doing the same thing, except we’d be called freedom fighters.
And spare me an inane reply about how you wouldn’t cut off heads, and eat hearts,or what have you. The fact is you don’t know what the fuck you would do. I’m sure, like any human, you would find a way to justify doing “whatever was necessary”.
go watch Red Dawn and get back to me. Swazy was quite the insurgent.
The Irish aren’t too different to the Brits or Yanks. Some Irish people carried out some very nasty shit. Ryan’s location would indicate that he’s well aware of some of their work.
People are bastards, not Muslims or Iraqis or and other subset of humanity. Put in the right situation we’ll carry sorts of horror.
Rubbish, they’re not freedom because they’ve gone against the very notion that they’d ever want a free and representative government ensuring rights for its citizens, this to me shows that they go against the very concept of democracy and free will, so it is legitimate to resist them and to kill them to protect the people of Iraq.
Red Dawn= Pretty much the French resistance in America, with the names and ethnicity changed.
Application to Iraq situation = Absolute Zero.
Retard, how many times did the French resistance cut off heads? Chop up civilians en masse?there are many other ways to psychologically defeat the enemy, chopping off heads has the opposite effect, the desire to defeat this kind of person grows stronger.
Then he’s retarded for doing so, and has fucked the situation up, but at least they’re going after him.
Yep, so when I say I hope the Iraqis kick some insurgent ass, and put Zarqawi in the middle of Firdos Square and let the people give him the justice he rightly deserves, after he’s been put on trial of course 
Too bad people don’t take that into consideration. We’ve placed a region into a pressure cooker of a situation, and then when the usual atrocities that occur under such circumstances arise, we act all surprised.
Um, OK. I won’t say that. No one else will say that, either, except stupid people who can only argue their position against the imaginary counter-arguments they themselves create. Saying “an insurgent is not the same thing as a terrorist” is not the same as saying “most insurgents are heroes!”
To fight an effective war, you have to have a realistic understanding of the people you’re fighting. It’s easy to dismiss anyone who opposes you as a crazed, murderous terrorist, especially when some of the people who oppose you are in fact crazed, murderous terrorists. It’s also stupid. It’s time to stop pretending everything is Good vs. Evil and start addressing the more complicated and difficult realities.
It’s simplistic idiots like you and Brutus who got us into this mess by pretending that removing Saddam would magically cause democracy to blossom in Iraq, despite all the evidence and explanations to the countrary. Now it’s idiots like you who are going let the situation descend into civil war and unleash a generation of anti-American terrorists upon the world because you can’t be bothered to think beyond “freedom=good!” It’s sickening and infuriating.
I’ll wager that this is where we will fundamentally disagree. I believe we’re dealing with two types of “insurgents”, the Zarqawi asshole and his ilk, and Iraqis who I believe have a legitimate beef. It is my opinion that Zaqawi and any other screwball sawing off heads is a small minority, but are really fucking up the works for those Iraqis with legitimate beef against the US. Furthermore, I believe Zaqawi knows this, and just like to stir up the shitpot. The more chaos goes on, and the further the divide, the more people will hate America, and that’s what he wants. As far as “going against the very concept of democracy”, maybe that’s not what they want, or they want a different flavor of it. They’re rebelling against our version of democracy, not being a civilized nation, although we’re trying hard to spin it that way.
This might be a shock to you, but all sorts of really, really nasty shit has taken place before Iraq. Actually chopping off heads of enemies is pretty common place throughout history.
That’s it? “At least” he’s cleaning up his mess? A mess which leaves hundreds of dead? You’re not disgusted at his pathetic reasoning to let him live?
That’s not what I’m talking about at all. I’m talking about when people partake in immoral, uncivilized acts and justify them as rightous. (i.e. the US must torture someone to get terror info / Zaqawi saws off a head / Soldiers at Abu G / etc)
Yes, its all my fault because I somehow want the Iraqis to be free some violence and oppression. Listen Einstein, if you can come up with a better way to defeat the insurgents without
A) Splitting up the country
B) Withdrawing prematurely
C) Bringing them into the government.
But you don’t know anything. That’s the crux of the problem. You present us with sharp analysis that could be based on your examination of chicken entrails. From whence do you get your facts? The insurgents are this, the insurgents are that. Bring us a clear, unvarnished fact and plop it on the table, a fact verifiable from a source without an agenda.
And lest I confuse the issue: I don’t know squat either. All my possible sources are tainted by agenda, they all have good reason to lie to me. I’m a pretty smart guy, paying close attention, and I have nary a clue. When you come forth and sternly insist that you’ve got the straight shit, I’ve got to think one of two things: you have sources unavailable to me, indeed, sources unknown to me, or your eyes are brown due to the content of your skull.
Advise.
It’s comments like this that make me think you and your ilk are hopeless. Everyone wants everyone to be free from violence and oppression, you dumb fuck. Wanting something and making it happen are, in fact, two very different things. Intentions mean jack shit.
Here’s a better way: don’t start a war until you know how to win it.
Here’s another better way: once you start the war, bend over backwards to make the average Iraqi feel like you care about his/her welfare. This means not rounding people up indiscriminately and torturing them. This means not bombing neighborhoods indiscriminately while fighting insurgents. This means not equating insurgents with terrorists. This means gaining some understanding of the complexities of the ethnic and religious power structure before going to war and before setting up a government.
I myself am not an expert on the Middle East or Iraq. For this reason, I haven’t started any wars there.
I couldn’t have said it any better.
No, it’s because no one trusts you in a position of power, you dumb fuck.
I challenge you to come up with a better form of government.
This is it? This is your response? You do realize you were supposed to be arguing against my initial charge of being a simplistic idiot, right?
As I said, I am not knowledgeable enough about the Middle East to devise a workable government in Iraq, especially at this point in the game. That has nothing to do with anything. I’m arguing against casting a complex situation as a simplistic black and white choice and you’re responding with “well, I just love freedom” and “you couldn’t do any better!”
Let’s try a different approach. Here’s a little parable I wrote just for you, Ryan. See if you can spot yourself:
There once was a big, dumb guy named George with a really nice car. One day, he went to go for a drive and found that someone had keyed the passenger door, ruining the paint. Enraged, he sprang into action. He jumped into the driver’s seat and drove the car straight into a nearby telephone pole. A couple of George’s friends came by and stared at the smashed-up car. “Why did you do that?” asked the first one. “I had to do something!” responded George, “someone keyed my car!” “Keying cars is wrong!” agreed the second friend.
Moments later, George realized to his great dismay that the car would not start. Enraged, he sprang into action. He grabbed a large rock and proceeded to repeatedly bash the engine until it was twisted and misshapen, surrounded by a puddle of leaking fluids and broken car parts. “What are you doing??” asked the first friend in confusion. "The car wouldn’t start, " explained George. “I’m going to keep hitting it with this rock until it does.”
"But that won’t work, " said the second friend. “You shouldn’t have rammed it into the telephone pole in the first place, and you certainly shouldn’t have bashed the engine with that rock. At this point, you’ll be lucky if you can sell it for parts, assuming you stop hitting it.”
“Cars should run!” insisted the second friend. “Also, they should not be keyed! Can you fix the car in the next hour or so? If not, you should not criticize George for hitting it with the rock. At least he’s trying to make it run again and not have any scratches in the paint. All you’re doing is being negative. I guess you like scratched cars that don’t run.”
At that exact moment, a weather satellite fell from the sky, crushing both George and the second friend into paste.
The End.
(grins and applauds with politely restrained approval…)
But the character of the Second Friend is troublesome. He seems to embody seperate identities at different points of the narrative, obscuring his character and motivations. By what right does he question the property rights of the car owner to take whatever actions he deems appropriate, even unto highly unorthodox approaches to repair. What is the essence of the Second Friend?: we are forbidden to know.
Is he plotting to use the Car Owners exotic behavior as leverage, as means by which he can appropriate and requisition the car, forcibly removing it from its proper owner, in the service of some collectivist government? Second Friend, we are forced to conclude, is a liberal. Such is his gestalt, his view of the Car Owner is skewed by his prejudices. You cannot prove that the car will not, over time, be much improved by the Car Owners bold and innovative techniques.
Every person that claims the insurgents are just in it to get the ‘foreign occupiers our of their homes’. You know, like Reeder:
Or rfgdxm:
And there are, of course, more. It is a bit of ironic humor that those who cry loudest about ‘human rights’ and ‘freedom’ and whatnot are lending a voice of legitimacy to decidely anti-democratic forces.
elucidator, Second Friend’s motivations are indeed complex. Some might ascribe his confusing dualism to a typographical error, i.e. an erroneous substitution of one word for another. In fact, the real story is much more complex, as you correctly deduced. Although First Friend initially took up the role of skeptic, Second Friend quickly appropriated his arguments into his own, using them as nonsensical justification for his own illogical worldview. Simultaneously arguing two points at once, Second Friend shows us how consistency and logic have no places in modern discussions on car repair.
Brutus, terrorists and insurgents are different things. Both bad in many cases, but different.
If that goes as well as our War on Drugs, I guess democracy really is on its way to Iraq. 
That doesn’t even make sense. How can an insurgency be legitimate or illegitimate? I’d ask how the Iraqi gov’t can be legit, but I’d be wasting my time…
Well a legitimate insurgency would be fighting against a repressive dictatorship which routinely abuses human rights.
The insurgency we’re seeing however, is a hotchpotch of decentralised cells, all fueling themselves with the passion of reinstalling the Baa’thist, Islamic theocratic ideologies the prevail within the region.
They’re fighting against a government which is organising the first free election since 1958, a government which is trying to adhere to human rights and fair governance and rule of law, which isn’t out to oppress any particular group, only trying to get each different sect of society or work within the framework of representation. I don’t see how that is illegitimate.
Well, congrats on spitting out a couple of names, undoubtedly through clenched teeth, but still pretty weak if you ask me. I was unaware that Reeder was some sort of spokesleader for the views on this board, or leftist views in general (Sorry, Reeder but that’s the way it is) and rfjdxm, so far as I know, hasn’t even posted to this thread, but I guess they’ll have to do as your whipping boys of the moment.
Anyway, I’m still wondering where all these supposed leftist quislings who want al-Zarqawi to succeed are. So far in this thread pretty much all I’ve seen are several posters, some of whom apparently would call themselves liberals, ragging on the clueless insanity of al-Zarqawi’s statements, with occasional asides that he is not necessarily the be-all and end-all of Iraqi resistance. Oh yeah, and Ryan_Liam’s curious series of posts (Ba’athism and Islamic theocracy the same thing? News to me, and to the Ba’athists, I’m sure).
Personally, I have no problem understanding there are no doubt many different viewpoints within Iraq for and against resistance to the US occupation, whether or not I may agree with any of them. This group certainly includes vicious opportunists such as al-Zarqawi’s gang, but the mere presence of such barbaric murderers in a country mired in chaos does not necessarily represent all the possible viewpoints regarding resistance, or automatically render all resistance illegitimate. Frankly, our speculations about the makeup and motives of the resisters as a group is of little importance if we don’t know much of anything about them, which for you, Brutus and for others, including myself, is surely the case. Al-Zarqawi, at least, has very clearly stated his objectives, and I think most of us can also see, and hope, that ordinary Iraqis would reject the promise of oppression that al-Zarqawi has offered to them. In the end, however, it will be their decision and not ours.
First off, how do you know this? Second, do you really understand what you’re saying? Look man, admitting that you don’t understand this situation is a lot better then reeling off statements that don’t even make any sense. Baa’thist and Islamic theocracies ideologies have little to do with each other. You understand that your sentence above doesn’t make any sense right?
Um yeah… free.
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Herman%20/Afghan_ESal_Iraq_Elections.html
Adhere to human rights, um…yeah.
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/87a242a4-6e55-11d9-a60a-00000e2511c8.html