IRAQ IS NOT VIETNAM - Page 4

"Tom Sherman" <tsherman@qconline.com> wrote in message
news:2khjffF2agkvU1@uni-berlin.de...
> Edward Dolan wrote:
>
> > ...That is the only way we are going to ultimately win
> > the war on terror....
>
> Just how does one fight a war against an abstract noun?
> It is bad enough that the mainstream US media is using
> such tripe in their marketing, but you, Mr. Dolan, should
> know better.

I am not going to reconstruct the English language. However
the media use it is good enough for me. The English
language is full of all kinds of anomalies and things that
don't make any sense, but it is sufficient if others
understand what is meant.

Newsgroups are not literary societies and the media is not
literature.

--
Ed Dolan - Minnesota

Tom Sherman wrote:
> Edward Dolan wrote:
>
>> ...That is the only way we are going to ultimately win
>> the war on terror....
>
> Just how does one fight a war against an abstract noun?
> It is bad enough that the mainstream US media is using
> such tripe in their marketing, but you, Mr. Dolan, should
> know better.

Rather reminds me of that headline in "The Onion" - "Drugs
Win War On Drugs"

--

Dave Larrington - http://www.legslarry.beerdrinkers.co.uk/
===========================================================
Editor - British Human Power Club Newsletter
http://www.bhpc.org.uk/
===========================================================

"Dave Larrington" <me@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:2ki45nF2evirU1@uni-berlin.de...
> Tom Sherman wrote:
> > Edward Dolan wrote:
> >
> >> ...That is the only way we are going to ultimately win
> >> the war on terror....
> >
> > Just how does one fight a war against an abstract noun?
> > It is bad enough that the mainstream US media is using
> > such tripe in their marketing, but you, Mr. Dolan,
> > should know better.
>
> Rather reminds me of that headline in "The Onion" - "Drugs
> Win War On
Drugs"\

Yes, and Terror could easily win the War on Terror. What
happens if they get their hands on a nuclear weapon. They
would not even have to use it - just threaten to use it..
Civilization is not as robust as most think it is. I
remember the case where we had these sniper shootings in the
Washington DC area not so long ago. Two jerks were able to
terrorize the entire region just by taking a few pot shots
at random. I remember my sister telling me that people there
were afraid to go to the gas station and get some gas for
their vehicles for fear of being shot. Civilization is
actually quite delicate and can easily be destroyed by the
barbarians, most especially if they have nuclear weapons.

--
Ed Dolan - Minnesota

Edward Dolan wrote:

> Yes, and Terror could easily win the War on Terror. What
> happens if they get their hands on a nuclear weapon. They
> would not even have to use it - just threaten to use it..
> Civilization is not as robust as most think it is. I
> remember the case where we had these sniper shootings in
> the Washington DC area not so long ago. Two jerks were
> able to terrorize the entire region just by taking a few
> pot shots at random. I remember my sister telling me that
> people there were afraid to go to the gas station and get
> some gas for their vehicles for fear of being shot.
> Civilization is actually quite delicate and can easily be
> destroyed by the barbarians, most especially if they have
> nuclear weapons.

My chum Villiers was in Falls Church at the time. His native
friends did not appreciate his comment to the effect that
one could have a considerable amount of fun with a laser
pointer...

--

Dave Larrington - http://www.legslarry.beerdrinkers.co.uk/
===========================================================
Editor - British Human Power Club Newsletter
http://www.bhpc.org.uk/
===========================================================

I think I heard this question being asked on a quiz
program today.

Who made the following statement about the upcoming trial of
Saddam Hussein:

"You know that this is all a theater by Bush, the criminal,
to help him with his campaign"

1. Tom Sherman
2. Michael Moore
3. Saddam Hussein

You get three guesses and the first two don't count.

"In certain cases, I believe the name and professed ideology
of the system is unimportant. Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, etc.
can be considered criminally insane, and their actions
represent the worst of a deranged personality and not the
tenants of any particular political system."

Patently, and rather demonstrably untrue. The
psychopathology involved was one of groups, not
individuals... and socialistic/Marxist systems are
inherently vulnerable as are most other "systems" founded on
the European Counter-enlightenment (which includes Nazism).
The key variable isn't "left" or "right," but the degree to
which the system requires state domination of individual
liberty and discretion. And all of this, Thomas, is rather
obvious and non-controversial except to Marxists.

"But Salvador Allende won a democratic election in Chile, as
opposed to being installed during a violent revolution. This
makes outside interference to remove him and his government
profoundly undemocratic and immoral if you consider
democratic governance to be a right."

Well, apart from observing that some forms of democracy lend
themselves to the rise of tyrants (the PR system in the
Weimar Republic, for example) I'm not really excusing the
action that was taken, just pointing out relative evil
between, fascism and Marxism. I don't think it was
legitimate do depose an elected leader. The fact is that
Marxism has been responsible for far more murders and deaths
than fascism, by an order of magnitude... with perhaps
Nazism (which was more than fascism, but a blood cult). The
reason for that may simply be that Marxism is more
attractive. Anyway, we supported certain Marxist
governments, most notably Yugoslavia's and China's, against
the "Soviets," clearly because of "balance of power"
considerations, rather than a conviction that Chinese
Communism was necessarily "good" and Soviet Communism evil.
So it's not surprising that we supported fascist bad guys
for similar reasons.

Bottom line, although you can probably tar the anti-Marxists
with violations of purist morality there isn't any way to
salvage from that justifications favoring the Marxist
systems they opposed. They were at least as evil as chattel
slavery, and probably worse.

Put another, and perhaps more intuitive way, the
preservation of a reasonably civil society within the
liberal/capitalist democracies <em>does not depend on the
perfection of human nature</em>, and that's the real
difference. Liberal democracy assumes *human nature is not
perfectible" and therefore strives for the 'least bad"
government. Totalitarianism, founded on various "Ur Myths"
strives for the "ideal government' (based on the ideal
collective, race perfection, or an ideal spiritual vision)
which is an entirely different thing. And furthermore, all
of the latter have direct philosophical ties to the European
Counter-enlightenment.

"The road to Hell is paved with realist intentions. Immoral
actions are still immoral, even if the ultimate goal is a
laudable one."

Strictly speaking that's not true. Being realistic doesn't
guarantee success, it just improves the odds. At any rate
there's a difference between the "realism" of accepting
autocracies for the sake of stability, and the realism of
replacing them with liberal/democracies because the
stability and autocracy are now incompatible.

"Please show one example where I have condoned autocracy of
any type. This will be a futile task, since the above
question has a false premise. "Communist" autocracies in
most cases have had the advantage of at least providing for
the basic needs of all people, while most fascist
governments pander to the wealthy elite’s while the masses
suffer from abject poverty."

Sounds like you're condoning them to me. But even if that
had validity, which it does not, it could hardly be argued
that a system like Ba'athism that *combines* fascist and
Marxist totalitarianism is acceptable on any grounds...
autocracy aside.

"> 2. And most significantly (and I really want an answer to
this one), why do
> you now support the same foreign policy position in Iraq
> that you
disdained
> almost 30 years ago in Chile?

Yet another question with a false premise. My position on
Iraq was that the UN should have demanded a large, PERMANENT
presence of weapons inspectors in Iraq as long as Hussein
and his ilk were in power in Iraq, backed by force if
necessary. Since from the fall of 2002 to the time the UN
withdrew its inspectors due to the immanent US invasion,
Hussein acceded to that demand. Therefore, the US invasion
at the time it occurred was unnecessary and immoral."

How would the presence of weapons inspectors, absent a will
to enforce anything, have made a difference? And it
certainly would have made *no difference at all* in terms of
the totalitarian nature of the society. This is an attitude
that I find almost inexplicable in the left. The assumption
that because you "act" a certain way your conviction will
translate into good behavior of the opponent. Saddam only
agreed to the inspections in the first place, because there
were a few hundred thousand US troops on his border. Remove
the realistic consequences for bad acts, and there isn't
much doubt that the bad acts would continue.

And again, the only thing "immoral" about the invasion is
that it didn't happen earlier.

"How the above position has any similarity to the position
that the US should not have interfered with the
DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED Chilean government of Salvador
Allende is beyond me."

Well you brought it up, not me. Personally, I think it's
irrelevant.

--
--Scott "Tom Sherman" <tsherman@qconline.com> wrote in
message news:2keeinF1ej6pU1@uni-berlin.de...
> Freewheeling wrote:
>
> > The number of murders that have been documented against
> > Pinochet are in
the
> > hundreds rather than the thousands, but lets assume
> > 3,000. A couple of points:
> >
> > 1. That number pales in comparison to the number of
> > people murdered
under
> > dictatorships of the left, which all-tolled in the
> > twentieth century
number
> > well over 100 million (over 30 million under Stalin
> > alone).
>
> In certain cases, I believe the name and professed
> ideology of the system is unimportant. Stalin, Hitler, Pol
> Pot, etc. can be considered criminally insane, and their
> actions represent the worst of a deranged personality and
> not the tenants of any particular political system. We
> could therefore consider Mussolini and Franco, but not
> Hitler to be representative of Fascism; and Lenin, Mao,
> and Castro but not Stalin and Pol Pot to be representative
> of Communism.
>
> > 2. The operation itself was proposed and carried out
> > *during a global
war*
> > with the above forces, which at the time had enslaved
> > another 100
million
> > people in Eastern Europe and the Baltic States.
>
> But Salvador Allende won a democratic election in Chile,
> as opposed to being installed during a violent revolution.
> This makes outside interference to remove him and his
> government profoundly undemocratic and immoral if you
> consider democratic governance to be a right.
>
> > 3. There were lots of similar operations and policies
> > aimed at "balance
of
> > power" and dictated by a "realist foreign policy" that
> > had no interest
in
> > promoting democracy, and that is currently in an
> > internal war with those wishing to spread the franchise
> > of democracy for security reasons. Most
of
> > these "realist" foreign policy professionals have
> > adopted the racist position that Arabs are unfit for
> > democracy and that we should therefore simply appoint a
> > strong man, a Pinochet if you like, in Iraq... and
leave.
> > They are also the primary advisors to John Kerry.
>
> The road to Hell is paved with realist intentions. Immoral
> actions are still immoral, even if the ultimate goal is a
> laudable one.
>
> > Which leads me to a couple of questions:
> >
> > 1. Why is it you oppose autocracy always and only if it
> > involves a
rightist
> > dictator, and never if it involves a (usually far more
> > murderous)
leftist
> > dictator?
>
> Please show one example where I have condoned autocracy of
> any type. This will be a futile task, since the above
> question has a false premise.
>
> "Communist" autocracies in most cases have had the
> advantage of at least providing for the basic needs of all
> people, while most fascist governments pander to the
> wealthy elite’s while the masses suffer from abject
> poverty.
>
> > 2. And most significantly (and I really want an answer
> > to this one), why
do
> > you now support the same foreign policy position in Iraq
> > that you
disdained
> > almost 30 years ago in Chile?
>
> Yet another question with a false premise. My position on
> Iraq was that the UN should have demanded a large,
> PERMANENT presence of weapons inspectors in Iraq as long
> as Hussein and his ilk were in power in Iraq, backed by
> force if necessary. Since from the fall of 2002 to the
> time the UN withdrew its inspectors due to the immanent US
> invasion, Hussein acceded to that demand. Therefore, the
> US invasion at the time it occurred was unnecessary and
> immoral.
>
> How the above position has any similarity to the position
> that the US should not have interfered with the
> DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED Chilean government of Salvador
> Allende is beyond me.
>
> --
> Tom Sherman – Quad City Area

"My point exactly...... why do we think we can fix the whole
mess over there."

It's not unreasonable to think we can have a sallutory
effect, and it ought to be clear by not that unless
*something* changes things were poised to get even worse.
That doesn't mean there are any guarantees with what we're
doing right now. But Iraq actually has a chance at becoming
a liberal/democratic state, which will profoundly change the
region. Of course it will! Isn't that obvious? it's
certainly obvious to the autocrats in the region, who are
getting pretty damned nervous.

--
--Scott "Bill McAninch" <WRmcaninch@cecomet.net> wrote in
message news:40e20f7c_5@corp.newsgroups.com...
>
> > You could spend your life studying the ancient history
> > of the Near East
> and
> > end up not knowing very much. That is how complex it is.
> >
> > --
> > Ed Dolan - Minnesota
> >
> >
>
> My point exactly...... why do we think we can fix the
> whole mess over
there.
>
> Bill
>
>
>
>
> -----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News
> =----- http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service
> in the World! -----== Over 100,000 Newsgroups - 19
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On Thu, 1 Jul 2004 16:25:06 -0400, "Freewheeling"
<email_at_bottomofpost@bigfoot.com> wrote:

>Hitler, Pol Pot, etc. can be considered criminally insane,
>and their actions represent the worst of a deranged
>personality and not the tenants of any particular
>political system

Are they renting out political systems now?

Zippy the Pinhead wrote:

> On Thu, 1 Jul 2004 16:25:06 -0400, "Freewheeling"
> <email_at_bottomofpost@bigfoot.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Hitler, Pol Pot, etc. can be considered criminally insane,
>>and their actions represent the worst of a deranged
>>personality and not the tenants of any particular
>>political system
>
>
> Are they renting out political systems now?

Yes - my spell checker and a 15+ hour work day can cause
this to happen.

--
Tom Sherman – Quad City Area

Freewheeling wrote:

> "My point exactly...... why do we think we can fix the
> whole mess over there."
>
> It's not unreasonable to think we can have a sallutory
> effect, and it ought to be clear by not that unless
> *something* changes things were poised to get even worse.
> That doesn't mean there are any guarantees with what we're
> doing right now. But Iraq actually has a chance at
> becoming a liberal/democratic state, which will profoundly
> change the region. Of course it will! Isn't that obvious?
> it's certainly obvious to the autocrats in the region, who
> are getting pretty damned nervous.

Yes, the US may yet create more Ruhollah Khomeini's.

--
Tom Sherman – Quad City Area

"Tom Sherman" <tsherman@qconline.com> wrote in message
news:2kjnh9F38qhbU2@uni-berlin.de...
> Freewheeling wrote:
>
> > "My point exactly...... why do we think we can fix the
> > whole mess over there."
> >
> > It's not unreasonable to think we can have a sallutory
> > effect, and it
ought
> > to be clear by not that unless *something* changes
> > things were poised to
get
> > even worse. That doesn't mean there are any guarantees
> > with what we're doing right now. But Iraq actually has a
> > chance at becoming a liberal/democratic state, which
> > will profoundly change the region. Of course it will!
> > Isn't that obvious? it's certainly obvious to the
> > autocrats in the region, who are getting pretty damned
> > nervous.
>
> Yes, the US may yet create more Ruhollah Khomeini's.

The Iranians are not happy with their government of
clerics and they are on their way out in any event.
However, they are still dangerous and we need to monitor
them closely. Iraq is not likely to follow their example
for the simple reason that the whole word has the Iranian
example there to see.

Frankly, it would not bother me in the slightest if Iraq
were to break up into three separate nations based on their
traditional tribal identities. If Iran were to move against
any of them it would be understood that we would atom bomb
them out of this world so they could enjoy the next world
with their Allah. The Mullahs of Iran are the most miserable
excuse for a government any people were ever saddled with.
Imagine, theocracies in this day and age! If you aren't
laughing, then you should be.

--
Ed Dolan - Minnesota

"Freewheeling" <email_at_bottomofpost@bigfoot.com> wrote in message
news:2kja94F32tckU1@uni-berlin.de...
> "In certain cases, I believe the name and professed
> ideology of the system is unimportant. Stalin, Hitler, Pol
> Pot, etc. can be considered criminally insane, and their
> actions represent the worst of a deranged personality and
> not the tenants of any particular political system."
>
>
>
> Patently, and rather demonstrably untrue. The
> psychopathology involved
was
> one of groups, not individuals... and socialistic/Marxist
> systems are inherently vulnerable as are most other
> "systems" founded on the European Counter-enlightenment
> (which includes Nazism). The key variable isn't "left" or
> "right," but the degree to which the system requires state
> domination of individual liberty and discretion. And all
> of this, Thomas, is rather obvious and non-controversial
> except to Marxists.

Extremely well said Scott - and so true. I have always
thought there is not a tinker's damn worth of difference
between the totalitarianisms of the right and of the left
(fascism and communism) and I believe you have put your
finger on the reason why. I used to know all of this in my
college days, but I have grown rusty now. But it comes back
home in a flash when you explain why it is the way it is. I
especially like that bit about "groups" as opposed to
blaming everything on a single individual. We are seeing
that now in Iraq where obviously there was a whole group of
people who strongly supported Saddam Hussein.

>
>
> "But Salvador Allende won a democratic election in Chile,
> as opposed to being installed during a violent revolution.
> This makes outside interference to remove him and his
> government profoundly undemocratic and immoral if you
> consider democratic governance to be a right."
>
>
>
> Well, apart from observing that some forms of democracy
> lend themselves to the rise of tyrants (the PR system in
> the Weimar Republic, for example)
I'm
> not really excusing the action that was taken, just
> pointing out relative evil between, fascism and Marxism. I
> don't think it was legitimate do depose an elected leader.
> The fact is that Marxism has been responsible
for
> far more murders and deaths than fascism, by an order of
> magnitude... with perhaps Nazism (which was more than
> fascism, but a blood cult). The reason for that may simply
> be that Marxism is more attractive. Anyway, we
supported
> certain Marxist governments, most notably Yugoslavia's and
> China's,
against
> the "Soviets," clearly because of "balance of power"
> considerations,
rather
> than a conviction that Chinese Communism was necessarily
> "good" and Soviet Communism evil. So it's not surprising
> that we supported fascist bad guys for similar reasons.

Nazism was more a racist thing than anything else, like you
say - a blood cult. The mythology behind it appealed
strongly to the German people. If Hitler was insane, then so
was all of Germany. The propaganda movies and pictures (art)
of the time are still attractive in a perverse sort of way
today. All utopian ideologies are like that - they both
attract and repel.

>
>
> Bottom line, although you can probably tar the anti-
> Marxists with
violations
> of purist morality there isn't any way to salvage from
> that justifications favoring the Marxist systems they
> opposed. They were at least as evil as chattel slavery,
> and probably worse.
>
>
>
> Put another, and perhaps more intuitive way, the
> preservation of a reasonably civil society within the
> liberal/capitalist democracies
<em>does
> not depend on the perfection of human nature</em>, and
> that's the real difference. Liberal democracy assumes
> *human nature is not perfectible"
and
> therefore strives for the 'least bad" government.
> Totalitarianism,
founded
> on various "Ur Myths" strives for the "ideal government'
> (based on the
ideal
> collective, race perfection, or an ideal spiritual vision)
> which is an entirely different thing. And furthermore, all
> of the latter have direct philosophical ties to the
> European Counter-enlightenment.

Wow! I haven't read anything that succinct and that
profound in a long time. When you combine a bit of
philosophy with what is known of human nature you have got
the most powerful argument possible for avoiding 101 bad
types of governance (including present day liberalism). I
hadn't come across that term Counter-enlightenment before,
but of course that is exactly what it was. Nothing good
came out of any of that.

>
>
> "The road to Hell is paved with realist intentions.
> Immoral actions are still immoral, even if the ultimate
> goal is a laudable one."
>
>
>
> Strictly speaking that's not true. Being realistic doesn't
> guarantee success, it just improves the odds. At any rate
> there's a difference between the "realism" of accepting
> autocracies for the sake of stability, and the realism of
> replacing them with liberal/democracies because the
> stability and autocracy are now incompatible.

The Saudis are going to fall like a rotten apple some day.

>
>
> "Please show one example where I have condoned autocracy
> of any type. This will be a futile task, since the above
> question has a false premise. "Communist" autocracies in
> most cases have had the advantage of at least providing
> for the basic needs of all people, while most fascist
> governments pander to the wealthy elite's while the masses
> suffer from abject poverty."
>
>
>
> Sounds like you're condoning them to me. But even if that
> had validity, which it does not, it could hardly be argued
> that a system like Ba'athism that *combines* fascist and
> Marxist totalitarianism is acceptable on any grounds...
> autocracy aside.
>
>
>
> "> 2. And most significantly (and I really want an answer
> to this one),
why
> do
> > you now support the same foreign policy position in Iraq
> > that you
> disdained
> > almost 30 years ago in Chile?
>
> Yet another question with a false premise. My position on
> Iraq was that the UN should have demanded a large,
> PERMANENT presence of weapons inspectors in Iraq as long
> as Hussein and his ilk were in power in Iraq, backed by
> force if necessary. Since from the fall of 2002 to the
> time the UN withdrew its inspectors due to the immanent US
> invasion, Hussein acceded to that demand. Therefore, the
> US invasion at the time it occurred was unnecessary and
> immoral."
>
>
>
> How would the presence of weapons inspectors, absent a
> will to enforce anything, have made a difference? And it
> certainly would have made *no difference at all* in terms
> of the totalitarian nature of the society.
This
> is an attitude that I find almost inexplicable in the
> left. The
assumption
> that because you "act" a certain way your conviction will
> translate into good behavior of the opponent. Saddam only
> agreed to the inspections in
the
> first place, because there were a few hundred thousand US
> troops on his border. Remove the realistic consequences
> for bad acts, and there isn't much doubt that the bad acts
> would continue.
>
>
>
> And again, the only thing "immoral" about the invasion is
> that it didn't happen earlier.

Amen! Clinton was an expert at only one thing, and that was
avoiding ever having to take any action.

>
>
> "How the above position has any similarity to the position
> that the US should not have interfered with the
> DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED Chilean government of Salvador
> Allende is beyond me."
>
>
>
> Well you brought it up, not me. Personally, I think it's
> irrelevant.
>
>
> --
> --Scott

I have re-posted your entire message in full (it is too
good to be edited) so all the liberal dunderheads here can
reread it and maybe get a glimmer of some truth and honesty
for a change.

--
Regards,

Ed Dolan - Minnesota

skip wrote:
> I think I heard this question being asked on a quiz
> program today.
>
> Who made the following statement about the upcoming trial
> of Saddam Hussein:
>
> "You know that this is all a theater by Bush, the
> criminal, to help him with his campaign"
>
> 1. Tom Sherman
> 2. Michael Moore
> 3. Saddam Hussein
>
> You get three guesses and the first two don't count.

Apparently Saddam Hussein is facing the death penalty. But
he says he's not worried, as he's heard David Beckham is
going to take it...

(dies)

--

Dave Larrington - http://www.legslarry.beerdrinkers.co.uk/
===========================================================
Editor - British Human Power Club Newsletter
http://www.bhpc.org.uk/
===========================================================

On Thu, 1 Jul 2004 13:38:52 -0500, "skip" <skip@beherenow.com> wrote
in message <ccWdneUz2_Gxx3ndRVn-vw@comcast.com>:

>Who made the following statement about the upcoming trial
>of Saddam Hussein:

"Mr. Ed" Dolan? His tireless work on behalf of the opponents
of Shrub (mainly, it must be said, thorough the mechanism of
making them look good by comparison) has recently been
recognised by his being awarded the Jihad name El Ohssa.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after
posting. http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at
Washington University

> If Iran were to move against any of them it would be
> understood that we
would
> atom bomb them out of this world so they could enjoy the
> next world with their Allah.
> --
> Ed Dolan - Minnesota
>
>

Now I know your whacked.......... anyone that would even
think of using Nukes these days doesn't think much of the
human race. Your upset with France because they don't
support our efforts in Iraq, drop the bomb and see how much
support the world gives us then. The world is in the mess
it's in because of people like you that try and force there
ideals on different cultures (I think the name for them is a
Politician).

Weather you liked John Lennon or not, his song Imagine says
it all. Everyone do yourself a favor and listen to
it......... I mean listen to the words.

Bill

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