# Resolved, the West will Win the GWoT **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 18, 2011, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-west-will-win-the-gwot/578826 "2011-04-18T13:21:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2011, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-west-will-win-the-gwot/578826/183 "2011-04-21T14:57:11Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > We are not doing this again. **Kurama** , I’m temporarily suspending your account while the staff discusses your posting privileges and the prevalence of these kinds of posts on the SDMB of late. **Kurama** has been banned permanently for starting a second account. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2011, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-west-will-win-the-gwot/578826/184 "2011-04-21T14:58:25Z")
Yes, just like me. Educated, healthy happy, rich and free. Why are you opposed to that? ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2011, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-west-will-win-the-gwot/578826/185 "2011-04-21T14:59:58Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Read these one after other a couple of times and I hope it’ll sink in. I read them (I read them when I wrote them.) All men are created equal, that is obvious. I do not subscribe to the silly idea that all civilizations and cultures are equal. Do you? Where people are held in bondage, we must free them. ---
**Author:** ![wmfellows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2011, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-west-will-win-the-gwot/578826/186 "2011-04-21T15:02:02Z")
The Noble Wise White Man shall save, again, the nasty brutish others from themselves. That history has already been played out. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2011, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-west-will-win-the-gwot/578826/187 "2011-04-21T15:04:46Z")
> [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](#): > > I read them (I read them when I wrote them.) All men are created equal, that is obvious. I do not subscribe to the silly idea that all civilizations and cultures are equal. Do you? “All civilizations and cultures are equal” is probably less absurd than “The bombings will continue until your culture improves” or “We have to bomb the shit out of your country to save you.” War is not a culture improvement program, and imperialism is not about upholding everyone’s dignity and equality. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2011, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-west-will-win-the-gwot/578826/188 "2011-04-21T15:24:49Z")
I do not advocate bombing anyone. Really, who thinks airpower really helps anyway? ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2011, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-west-will-win-the-gwot/578826/189 "2011-04-21T15:35:31Z")
> [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](#): > > I am an American teacher in Saudi Arabia. (I changed my name while doing a year in Qatar, and it is too much trouble to change it back.) I am also a retired US Army officer, where I served in the Infantry and spent a number of years in Panama. Ha, ok, thanks for answering. Paul in Qatar sounds better than Paul in Saudi Arabia, for some reason. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2011, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-west-will-win-the-gwot/578826/190 "2011-04-21T15:41:00Z")
> [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](#): > > Change the culture A quarterback, a gymnast, and an economist get stranded on a desert island. Searching for food, they discover a coconut tree. The quarterback repeatedly slammed the tree, attempting to shake some coconuts loose, to no avail. The gymnast repeatedly attempted to climb the tree, but could not get sufficient purchase on the slick unbranching trunk. The economist thought a moment, and said “Assume that we have a ladder…” ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2011, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-west-will-win-the-gwot/578826/191 "2011-04-21T15:43:42Z")
> [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](#): > > I do not advocate bombing anyone. Really, who thinks airpower really helps anyway? Then pretend I wrote shoot instead of bomb and see how much the meaning changes. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2011, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-west-will-win-the-gwot/578826/192 "2011-04-21T15:45:44Z")
> [@Capitaine\_Zombie](#): > > **Paul in Qatar** , you dont have to answer but I thought you said you were an US expat teacher in Qatar. Yet you seem to be saying you’re a soldier as well (and your posts certainly reflect a US military state of mind), could you just tell me what you are exactly? Bonus points for explaining why you continue to do whatever it is you’re doing instead of enlisting in the Good Fight in Afghanistan. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2011, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-west-will-win-the-gwot/578826/193 "2011-04-21T15:49:02Z")
> [@Nadir](#): > > we as a nation are the only ones really practically capable of shouldering the lion’s share of the burden You might want to start watching the news, and learn that “we as a nation” are B-R-O-K BROKE. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2011, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-west-will-win-the-gwot/578826/194 "2011-04-21T15:49:19Z")
Relating to SteveMB’s question of; \*Bonus points for explaining why you continue to do whatever it is you’re doing instead of enlisting in the Good Fight in Afghanistan. \* Because I am old and fat\* and I am doing what I advocate right here. Besides it would screw up my pension. Do you think Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Libya would have happened without decades of ground work by teachers and engineers from the West? \*How big do they make body armor anyhow? ---
**Author:** ![wmfellows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2011, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-west-will-win-the-gwot/578826/195 "2011-04-21T15:52:15Z")
Re Tunisia, yes. They don’'t have a huge expat community of any sort, not since colonial days. As far as I can tell the biggest influences have come post-colonial. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2011, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-west-will-win-the-gwot/578826/196 "2011-04-21T15:52:18Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Then pretend I wrote shoot instead of bomb and see how much the meaning changes. I don’t particularly desire to shoot anyone. I simply desire to defeat them. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2011, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-west-will-win-the-gwot/578826/197 "2011-04-21T15:55:33Z")
> [@wmfellows](#): > > Re Tunisia, yes. They don’'t have a huge expat community of any sort, not since colonial days. As far as I can tell the biggest influences have come post-colonial. What they have is a mess of people in Europe who carried back word of how backward their country and government was. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2011, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-west-will-win-the-gwot/578826/198 "2011-04-21T15:55:47Z")
> [@wmfellows](#): > > What? > > Other than Der Trihs and his radical leftism, not a single person here has “lost faith” in the West. Huh? **Paul in Qatar** keeps arguing that Fourth World crapholes like Afghanistan will not improve unless some First World power takes over by force and transforms them. That’s a pretty clear expression of lost faith (or absence of faith in the first place) in Western Civilization’s ability to attract emulation on its merits. ---
**Author:** ![Ograbme](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Ograbme](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ograbme)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2011, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-west-will-win-the-gwot/578826/199 "2011-04-21T15:59:08Z")
> [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](#): > > We have to encourage them to not fall into their old, traditional ways. We have to build a new culture, one that will not allow organizations that attack other countries. How the fuck is America qualified to teach other people about not attacking other countries? ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2011, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-west-will-win-the-gwot/578826/200 "2011-04-21T15:59:21Z")
Oh not at all, I maintain the West will win. If we do nothing we will win through emulation. That might take a few centuries however, and I would prefer to hurry the process up. ---
**Author:** ![Nadir](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nadir/32/7302_2.png) [@Nadir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nadir)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2011, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-west-will-win-the-gwot/578826/201 "2011-04-21T16:01:40Z")
> [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](#): > > I do not advocate bombing anyone. Really, who thinks airpower really helps anyway? Who thinks anything at all is possible in that remote shithole _without_ airpower? ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2011, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-west-will-win-the-gwot/578826/202 "2011-04-21T16:02:41Z")
> [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](#): > > I would prefer to hurry the process up. I would prefer to slim down and build muscle tone in a few days rather than a few months, but I know better than to try any of the snake-oil nostrums that purport to make that possible. They all end up making the user worse off, not better. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-west-will-win-the-gwot/578826.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-west-will-win-the-gwot/578826.md?page=11)