[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
Have the past four years taught you nothing about geopolitical realities?!
[/QUOTE]
Look, how many times must you be reminded: Reality is irrelevant. Its liberal bias makes it unworthy of attention. All you have to do is decide what OUGHT TO BE, and firmly insist that it IS, and it WILL BE.
[QUOTE=El Cid Viscoso]
Consider the options of succession once Saddam was deposed without our influence.
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Consider that there was more than one way Hussein could have been deposed by our influence, that there were ways to arrange it that did not involve a full-scale invasion, and that we jumped the shark the day the Admin fired General Garner and replaced him with Paul Bremer. Please read the OP in this thread, and please read all of it, and please read it very carefully.
[QUOTE=El Cid Viscoso]
And fuck you. We are a good people.
[/quote]
Generally speaking, yes.
Please do not confuse our people with our government.
Even in a republic, the people do not always get the government they deserve; for time and chance happeneth to them all.
[QUOTE=Kimstu]
Unfortunately, to be good people it’s not enough just to have good intentions. You also have to be able to act on your good intentions with successful results, without causing excessive damage to other people.
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Where would lying about successful results fit into that good people scheme? As far as I can tell, having poor results, and claiming that they’re really good results is a pretty reliable indicator that someone is not good people.
Take the president’s statement about progress in the ‘surge’ today:
Presumably, Bush is referring to the brigades described in this administration briefing
Yet the Secretary of Defense said yesterday :
So the Iraqi’s have missed the first solid benchmark we gave them, yet the president is claiming they’ve met it.
This does not bode well for either the surge, or the concept that the president is good people.
The third cartoon here (you’ll have to click to get to it, since I can’t link directly to the cartoon) shows that not everyone believes Shrub’s latest tale.
House passes nasty letter which tells Shrub just how angry they are.
Now, if they can all agree to pass something which will get us out of this clusterfuck.
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
Please do not confuse our people with our government.
Even in a republic, the people do not always get the government they deserve; for time and chance happeneth to them all.
[/QUOTE]
I could accept that on the first go round, but I have no sympathy for people who voted for Bush the second time round, by which time they knew exactly what he and his crew were about. The majority of the people got the government they wanted.
The recent drop in support for the administration and the drop in support for the war is a result of the USA losing American troops in a unwinnable war. The drop in support is not because Americans who voted for Bush the second time round suddenly saw the light and realized that destroying a country and causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of its people is very, very wrong.
Does that make the majority of Americans bad people? That’s a tough one to address, however, what is clear is that the majority of Americans knowingly supported a very bad thing. At what point does knowingly supporting a very bad thing make one a bad person? Those who voted for Bush the second time round should reflect on this.
[QUOTE=Kimstu]
Actually, ISTM that until a few years ago, the most effective carrot inducing Turkey to back off from its repressive policies was the prospect of qualifying for EU membership, and thus having to improve its democracy and human-rights record and so forth. Now that the Iraq situation is so destabilized, Turkey’s started cracking down on the Kurds again. So in that respect, so far from “staving off” Turkey’s undesirable behavior, we’ve encouraged it.
[/QUOTE]
Respectfully, I couldn’t disagree with you more. Irrespective of Kurdistan, two news reports from 2006 prior to the EU’s meeting in Ankara say Turkey had actually backslid fairly universally:
It’s estimated Turkey might finally conform to EU standards by 2015; if in that intervening time had there not been action by the US and Britain to depose Saddam, there probably would have been a Kurdish rebellion.
What’s worse, if anybody else had deposed Saddam, that power or coalition would certainly hold little of the comparative clout that the US has with Turkey. So the stage would be set for a brawl between the EU and the Turks, possibly ending with a destabilization and/or breakup of the EU itself.
All these possibilities are too risky for any world power to permit. The only reasonable choice was to depose and dispose of Saddam and his lineage.
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
Please read the OP in this thread, and please read all of it, and please read it very carefully.
[/quote]
I did. It’s total ridiculous Palast-ine bullshit, one of your hundreds of OPs literally eroding GD into a wasteland of propaganda.
I’m not, you idiot. Whom do you think are manning the checkpoints? Which people are carrying out the humanitarian, civil, reconstruction, training and legal outreach? Our people. We are a good people. Learn to fucking read, and while you’re at it, look around you at the individuals who make up your home country, you twisted self-loathing fuck.
Some of you seem to forget Saddam’s state was a police state; news and information with any objectivity was quashed and totally distorted. There had been countless Shiite and Kurdish rebellions under Saddam’s aegis, yet we know of only a few notable ones. Our government put us into a well-known flashpot. (Christ, so many of our esteemed posters have been saying that since before the invasion.) The powers that be installed the best Coalition of the best people in the world to watch over one of the worst places in history.
The next morning, Assad is in Tehran holding scheduled talks over Iraq. Effectively, Syria is meeting separately with Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Khamenei over two days of negotiations. Call it a shotgun wedding, but I think they’re starting to get the message.
[QUOTE=El Cid Viscoso]
You do realize there are others engaged in this discussion? :)I don’t see how either of you can think this is a threat we can’t carry out. If the Admin has the will, we have the manpower.
Back to Iraq, Saddam’s dementia and his heirs’ abject disregard for humanity was impetus, but it did not force our hand. I’ll give you that. We weren’t forced to invade Iraq, but we do have obligations to our allies, regardless of what the leftist blogs have to say about the matter. Beyond that and most importantly, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it 'til I die: an unstable Kurdistan threatens the world.
Someone needed to control Iraq until it could make its own destiny; isn’t it better that we did it? Which other world leaders would you trust to stave off Turkey’s heavy-handed approach to the Mideast? In this respect, don’t you trust our American troops, and the good people of the Coalition, much much more than any other group, or single state?
Flash forward to the burgeoning conflict in Iran. Consider the cheap interview on Good Morning America where Ahmadinejad shows his ass. Consider that among all the other news outlets in the US, this supposed strongman set himself on Diane Sawyer. This is a reasonable, educated (and scared) dude who is just about ready to come to the table. On our terms.
Postscript: one day, when this is all over and Iraq is a stanchion of peace and prosperity, the world will look on the nobility and generosity of all Americans who made it happen. And note I didn’t say our volunteer troops, I said all Americans. This is a turning point for our nation: do we protect our influence as it stands, or do we shrink our interests back to the 50+ States?
[/QUOTE]
Dynamite stuff. Is it local? And how much for an ounce? Clean and seedless please.
[QUOTE=El Cid Viscoso]
Whom do you think are manning the checkpoints? Which people are carrying out the humanitarian, civil, reconstruction, training and legal outreach? Our people. We are a good people.
[/quote]
All of that is evidence that we are bad people, given how they are being carried out - or not, as the case may be. The simple fact that we are there at all makes us “bad people”. At the very least, all those who support and prosecute our actions against Iraq are “bad people”.
[QUOTE=El Cid Viscoso]
Some of you seem to forget Saddam’s state was a police state; news and information with any objectivity was quashed and totally distorted.
[/quote]
Everyone knows that it was a police state; it’s just that it was better run, more prosperous, safer and for most people more free than the hellhole we’ve made Iraq into.
[QUOTE=El Cid Viscoso]
The powers that be installed the best Coalition of the best people in the world to watch over one of the worst places in history.
[/QUOTE]
Oh, nonsense. We are not the best people in the world, and the Coalition is simply a rather pathetic mask for American imperialism. And Iraq wasn’t one of the worst places in history until after we took over, if then.
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
Everyone knows that it was a police state;
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I have a nasty suspicion most of the people who jumped on, and cling to, the 'We’re saving those barbarians’ bandwagon, are the ones who paid little attention to international relations or history previously and so have willingly soaked up all the bull they were fed by Shrub & Co. because they knew no better. And continue to be ignorant of what has really gone on on the rest of the planet.
[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster]
I have a nasty suspicion most of the people who jumped on, and cling to, the 'We’re saving those barbarians’ bandwagon
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You don’t seem to understand. According to our own anti-indigenous history the US is not known for saving “barbarians” at all. Apparently only evangelicals are interested in that. Why are you talking to evangelicals in the first place?!
I’m really not sure how we got from “police state” to “barbarians,” though. :eek: Are you trying to tell me that without a crippling police state, Iraqis are barbarians?
[QUOTE=El Cid Viscoso]
I did. It’s total ridiculous Palast-ine bullshit, one of your hundreds of OPs literally eroding GD into a wasteland of propaganda.
[/quote]
:rolleyes: You’ll have to do better than that, Cid. Contradiction is not refutation, not even if you spice it with an asinine pun. Everything in Palast’s book, especially that particular chapter of it, is backed up with research, documentation, and interviews with inside sources. What exactly did he report that is not factual? Please be specific and provide cites of your own. That, in answer to your earlier question, is what we do in GD. It is also something you should be learning to do in college. It’s called developing critical thinking skills; I could send you some literature on it.
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
Contradiction is not refutation
[/QUOTE]
Yes it is.
Recall, I said the Coalition is made of the best people in the world. Americans are a good people. Don’t conflate these in your zeal to insult the non-US components of the Coalition.
See my EU post above. Europe has a nice stake in this too. Not to mention Australia and South Korea.
You have a distorted view of reality. Whole encyclopedias have been filled with the violent history surrounding the junction of the Tigris and Euphrates. Any imperial adventures into what the west knows as Iraq have been met with fierce resistance that ultimately devolved into the kind of class-based retribution that might’ve made Hammurabi blush.
I’m starting to get a picture of what goes on inside your head. You think our Coalition allies are lapdogs and you think Americans are possibly the worst people in the world. Gotcha. I’ve got to wonder whether there’s any place you dislike more than America. I’m going to guess you haven’t traveled much.
Non-US Forces in Iraq - February 2007
1 United Kingdom 7200
2 South Korea ~2,300
3 Australia ~850
4 Poland 900
5 Romania 865
6 Denmark 515
7 El Salvador 380
8 Georgia 300
9 Azerbaijan 150
10 Bulgaria ~150
11 Latvia 136
12 Albania 120
13 Czech Republic 100
14 Mongolia 100
15 Lithuania ~50
16 Armenia 46
17 BosniaHerzegov 37
18 Estonia 34
19 Macedonia 33
20 Kazakhstan 29
21 Moldova* 12
TOTAL ~14,200
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
Everything in Palast’s book, especially that particular chapter of it, is backed up with research, documentation, and interviews with inside sources. What exactly did he report that is not factual?
[/quote]
Remember how you shat on Stratfor somewhere upthread? Well, I’m going to have to shit on “Palast the ballast” for almost identical reasons. In that thread people were trying to be gentle to you: you don’t know what you’re talking about. That’s why GD is so fucking tiresome these days.
And if you were my real-life friend, I’d kick you in the fucking balls for all the links to your own threads that you post as cites.
You mean I’ve got to back to school just to be able to talk to you? Jesus, but aren’t you a haughty little dick?
Any views on the Syria-Iran kumbaya and/or yesterday’s Tehran bombing, or are you going to keep waving that Associate’s Degree at me?
Iranian officials said the explosives used in that attack were manufactured in the United States.
[QUOTE=ElvisL1ves]
Yes it is.
[/QUOTE]
No, it isn’t!
[QUOTE=El Cid Viscoso]
Recall, I said the Coalition is made of the best people in the world. Americans are a good people. Don’t conflate these in your zeal to insult the non-US components of the Coalition.
[/quote]
America is the driving force and by far the most powerful and numerous member of the “coalition”; the others don’t matter except to pretend this is something other than an American invasion, and I doubt it fools anyone outside of America. And do you have any reason to believe Americans are “good people” beyond repeating it over and over ? “Good people” don’t invade other countries and kill tens of thousands in an unprovoked war. That is the act of evil people, not good ones.
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
And do you have any reason to believe Americans are “good people” beyond repeating it over and over ? “Good people” don’t invade other countries and kill tens of thousands in an unprovoked war. That is the act of evil people, not good ones.
[/QUOTE]
You’re an American, aren’t you? Are you evil?