Zat you Zag? Good. I thought that you were bright enough to understand this debate.
Listen…I’ll let you in on a secret…I know that atomic bombs do more that behead people. Atomic bombs behead, beleg, befeet, benose, benut and be- everything when they explode. I just wanted to emphasize the association of al-Qaida’ beheading of a single American citizen and the real possibility of them destroying everyone in an American city with a single atomic bomb.
And ** Zag**, all is culture. The American Indians had a few trillion more resources and farmland available to them than had the Europeans.
In a friendly spirit of clearing up some lacunae in his body of knowledge , I recommend that Milum read Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. It might clear up some of the misconceptions he seems to have concerning the relative inequalities and cultural complexity of different cultural groups.
Well, as a guess I would say that Turkey is explained by Attaturk’s making it into a secular rather than a religious government and I believe Turkey’s government has remained so.
How are you going to help Milum learn if you do his homework for him?
Besides, even after Ataturk’s reforms, Turkey is still a Muslim nation, and thus according to Milum, inherently inferior to the West, so the question still remains. How does Milum explain Turkey as an emerging democracy despite being crammed to the rafters with those scary Muslims?
Now you’re talking gobear, a friendly exchange of the ideas that we find in books. See, we don’t have to be at each other’s throats. We can let the ideas that we hold sink or swim on their own merit.
Like many people I found **The Third Chimpanzee written in 1992 by Jared Diamond to be chock full of original ideas. But I’m sad to report that I found Guns, Germs, and Steel to be mostly a re-hash of tired old ideas in a new frame. I skip read it and didn’t finish the read. **Global Brain ** by Howard Bloom which I am reading now is, so far, a much better read.
Now isn’t this fun; exchanging book reviews rather than bickering about which one of us is the smartest?
So do you agree with the sentiments of Ann Coulter, who said we should invade Muslim countries, kill their leaders, and force the inhabitants to convert to Christianity?
You still haven’t answered my question, Millie. What is the debate?
All you’ve said is that American culture is special and better than everyone else, which had nothing to do with anything, but I’ll note it down in my "reasons Milum is insane folder.
::shaking head:: I never said Hussein would have initiated an attack on the U.S. I said he would have happily sold WMD to al-Qaeda. He would have denied it, of course, and I’m sure the peace-at-any-cost crowd would have believed him, because to do otherwise would require action.
I would justify starting a war on the basis of having an enemy who is known to have not only obtained or developed WMD, but has used them on another country and his own people; who has fired on our jets patrolling a no-fly zone that he agreed to; who has fired SCUD missles at Israel; who had ambitions toward capturing other countries in the region and was being frustrated by the U.S.; who had defied U.N. resolution after U.N. resolution; who played games with the weapons inspectors; who, whether he had WMD or not, wanted other countries in the region to think he did, so of course we (and the U.N. for that matter) thought he did, as well; who very likely would have been happy to provide WMD to al-Qaeda (as I said before: the enemy of my enemy is my friend, etc.); if attempting to accomplish anything through a demonstrably impotent U.N. had proven futile time after time; and if I was in the position of having to provide security and protection for my country of 300 million men, women and little children; yes, under these circumstances I would feel I had no choice, as I’m sure GWB does.
You have joined in the argument that attempts to minimize the outrage at torture committed at Abu Ghraib by comparing it to beheadings committed by terrorists. Specifically, you and Milum express outrage that both are not being discussed here, and attempt to make implications about others based on this. Apart from this being untrue, in that there were multiple threads about it before Milum spewed, the only way that these two things can be compared is if there is some equivalence or comparability between those involved. As many have attempted to point out, the two are not comparable - most people fully believe that our military is morally superior to terrorists, and are shocked and outraged to discover that they are engaging in acts of torture, some of which result in death. The only way that there could be a debate about this is if you did not believe that US armed forces are, or at least should be, morally superior to terrorists.
Please help me to see otherwise if you wish to continue a debate on the topic. How is your (and Milum’s) debate topic not “Their terrorist acts are worse than our terrorist acts”?
If your “argument” is rather that the topic was not being debated, so this means we are pro-beheading, I would suggest that there are thousands of topics not being debated at the present time. For instance, you have not once mentioned your outrage at Jeffrey Dahmer here, so shall I suggest that you have no problem with homosexual mass murdering cannibals? Or shall I more reasonably assume that you are against homosexual mass murdering cannibals until you express your support for them?
All of your yammering about the developing of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons concerns events of years ago.
His defiance of UN resolution was a matter for the UN to solve, not the US unilaterally. And our planes were patrolling the no-fly zones as agents of the UN I believe.
Our own weapons inspector David Kaye has said that his conclusion is that Iraq had no weapons or weapons programs.
Your supposed justifications are either by events of years ago; have been shown as mistaken; or are matters for the UN as a body and including the US to solve. All of those reasons are just window dressing and they were all trotted out by the GW cabal only to be dismissed by most of the world as not being a clear and present danger to anybody.
That’s the thing that you continually overlook. Going to war in the absence of a direct attack is possibly the most grave action a nation can take. Maybe, probably, woulda, coulda and all the weasling deriviatives thereof are only good enough for those who had other reasons for starting the war. Wolfowitz said that there were other reasons and that the announced ones were just those that would sell. I’m not sure I remember him saying what those other reasons were.
You are merely repeating the same tired justifications that have been refuted and the refutation admitted by representatives of the administration. I think you just wanted to get even with somebody for the WTC attacks and Iraq was handy. A cat to be kicked as it were.
Don’t bother me again unless you have something besides “Saddam used WMD 25 years ago.”
Uh, ** Starving Artist**, I know I’m a bit behind in the fight against those who think with their tongues, but er, would you mind handling ** Hector the Barbarian**?
It has been a long day and I am tired, and I’ll admit that I’ve had a couple of small drinks.
But honestly Starving, I don’t think that my poor brain can handle another spate of lefto-logic like…
“Or shall I more reasonably assume that you are against homosexual mass murdering cannibals until you express your support for them?”*
Com’on **Starving ** you know when you are down and out I try to help you. You will? Oowee! Man, you sho’ look good to me!
Shake your head to your heart’s content. Had al Qaida ever used a weapon that was perceived to have originated in Iraq, Hussein would have still paid the price–a point he knew. (Otherwise, the discussions that Iraqi and al Qaida operatives held in 1993 would have been followed by action, not seven years of distance.)
No evidence has ever been presented to justify our unilateral invasion of Iraq.
