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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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 Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 7:40 am Post subject: |
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| I was under the impression that most Kurds want and have wanted independence from Iraq. |
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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| Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 4:55 pm Post subject: Re: Why I threw the shoe |
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| Big_Bird wrote: |
If only your incompetent leaders had not gone about creating a dangerous power vacuum by disbanding the entire military and police force, the power hungry extremists who spearhead these dreadful civil wars would not likely have thrived as they did. Strategists from both Britain and America looked on incredulous as the nutty ideologues running your country at that time (that I rather suspect you voted for) went ahead and did exactly that, against all sane and expert advice.
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[bolding mine]
Ladies and gentlemen you have heard it here on Dave's ESL cafe first.
It was NOT America that disbanded the Iraqi government, it was actually CANADA, apparently pulling the strings behind the scene.
After all, that is what Big Bird has said, and who am I to argue with her? |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 5:56 pm Post subject: Re: Why I threw the shoe |
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| TheUrbanMyth wrote: |
| Big_Bird wrote: |
If only your incompetent leaders had not gone about creating a dangerous power vacuum by disbanding the entire military and police force, the power hungry extremists who spearhead these dreadful civil wars would not likely have thrived as they did. Strategists from both Britain and America looked on incredulous as the nutty ideologues running your country at that time (that I rather suspect you voted for) went ahead and did exactly that, against all sane and expert advice.
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[bolding mine]
Ladies and gentlemen you have heard it here on Dave's ESL cafe first.
It was NOT America that disbanded the Iraqi government, it was actually CANADA, apparently pulling the strings behind the scene.
After all, that is what Big Bird has said, and who am I to argue with her? |
So you're Canadian then (with your fervoured support for the American right I'd assumed otherwise). But a would-be republican nonetheless. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 6:03 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| Big_Bird wrote: |
| ...what the Americans have done to Iraq. |
People should be careful when constructing their baselines to support claims about this, Big_Bird. This represents "the critics'" most common fallacy in American foreign relations. In their overzealousness to condemn, they romanticize "the before" in order to strengthen their indictment re: "what the Americans did." They revise the historical record, even. Very Orwellian. Shame, shame, shame. All we need are the top hats...
That is my point, then. I see this thinking all over your heroic shoeman's self-justificatory, self-righteous, self-congratulatory defense of his puerile, violent outburst. And you may take it or leave it.
Meanwhile, I will cite another. Your should-not-be-a-pitcher also faults W. Bush "for plundering my country's wealth." I agree that D. Rumsfeld's plan was entirely unsat. The invasion plan, that is. His postinvasion plan was virtually nonexistent because he foolishly based it upon the best-case-scenario -- that all Iraqis would respond to Saddam's fall in an orderly, pro-democratic fashion. This meant insufficient security means in Bagdhad and elsewhere, even at the Central Bank, which was destroyed.
On the other hand, who exactly did the pillaging and looting again? And why does shoeman fail to recognize this...? |
And if all police departments and military units were disbanded, do you truly believe your own country would not descend into anarchy, with looting a raping and pillaging and killing? What moron would assume otherwise. Only an idiot could have envisaged the 'best case scenario' that you put to us here. Even the Swiss and the Japanese would no doubt descend into anarchy given such circumstances. Dr Rumsfeld was obviously out to lunch.
I don't see the 'shoeman' as a hero. But I quite sympathise with him. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 6:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
| I was under the impression that most Kurds want and have wanted independence from Iraq. |
It doesn't mean that ordinary decent Kurds liked seeing senseless tragedy in the rest of Iraq. Especially when they have friends, or even family through marriage, living there.
Northern Iraq (where most of the Kurds were) was pretty much liberated from Saddam in a practical sense. The UN was keeping Saddam out. |
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Sergio Stefanuto
Joined: 14 May 2009
Location: UK
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| Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 7:27 pm Post subject: |
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| Big_Bird wrote: |
And if all police departments and military units were disbanded, do you truly believe your own country would not descend into anarchy, with looting a raping and pillaging and killing? What moron would assume otherwise.
Even the Swiss and the Japanese would no doubt descend into anarchy given such circumstances
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My objection to this is so obvious that I assume you've already considered it and it failed to convince you otherwise, but, unlike the Iraqis, the Swiss and the Japanese are not third world barbarians. They have high levels of education and wealth with no evidence that they are potential hotbeds of sheer savagery. Indeed, they are among the most highly educated, most affluent and least religious populations in the world. I certainly don't believe that the only thing standing in the way of total anarchy and mass murder in Switzerland and Japan is the threat of force. For a start, there isn't an equivalent level of force (Swiss and Japanese government agents won't deliver a son's head in a box to the family's front door, for example) and nor could one reasonably expect an equivalent level (or kind) of violence. Swiss men strapping on nails and blowing themselves up shouting "God is great"? Can't quite picture it. I suspect, if we were to implement regime change in Switzerland and Japan, the people would very quickly and peacefully implement a safe democracy.
Iraqi adult literacy (2003): 59.6% (and decreasing)
http://globalis.gvu.unu.edu/indicator_detail.cfm?country=IQ&indicatorid=27 |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 7:44 pm Post subject: |
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| Sergio Stefanuto wrote: |
| Big_Bird wrote: |
And if all police departments and military units were disbanded, do you truly believe your own country would not descend into anarchy, with looting a raping and pillaging and killing? What moron would assume otherwise.
Even the Swiss and the Japanese would no doubt descend into anarchy given such circumstances
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My objection to this is so obvious that I assume you've already considered it and it failed to convince you otherwise, but, unlike the Iraqis, the Swiss and the Japanese are not third world barbarians. They have high levels of education and wealth with no evidence that they are potential hotbeds of sheer savagery. Indeed, they are among the most highly educated, most affluent and least religious populations in the world. I certainly don't believe that the only thing standing in the way of total anarchy and mass murder in Switzerland and Japan is the threat of force. For a start, there isn't an equivalent level of force (Swiss and Japanese government agents won't deliver a son's head in a box to the family's front door, for example) and nor could one reasonably expect an equivalent level (or kind) of violence. Swiss men strapping on nails and blowing themselves up shouting "God is great"? Can't quite picture it. I suspect, if we were to implement regime change in Switzerland and Japan, the people would very quickly and peacefully implement a safe democracy.
Iraqi adult literacy (2003): 59.6% (and decreasing)
http://globalis.gvu.unu.edu/indicator_detail.cfm?country=IQ&indicatorid=27 |
Then darling, if it is so obvious the Iraqis are crazed barbarians in need of constant supervision, you are only making my point for me.
Rumsfield was a blithering idiot in ignoring all advice (from his own intelligence, as well as the British) that disbanding the military and police would have catastrophic results. And the Bush administrations actions did indeed have catastrophic results for ordinary men women and children.
Imagine if they disbanded the police in Manchester, dear? |
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Sergio Stefanuto
Joined: 14 May 2009
Location: UK
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| Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 8:07 pm Post subject: |
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| Big_Bird wrote: |
Imagine if they disbanded the police in Manchester, dear? |
Again, very little difference.
Why do you constantly mention Manchester, by the way?
Can we dispense with "dear" and "darling" too, by any chance? |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 8:08 pm Post subject: |
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I doubt you would find a single person here who genuinely defended D. Rumsfeld -- or who could even make the hypothetical case for defending him, for that matter. "If I were Rumsfeld's lawyer, I would argue..." I enjoy such abstractions, but there is no way I could make this case plausibly because I disagree with his thinking so completely.
He in fact has few defenders outside of the Bush family and R. Cheney and their immediate partisans anymore.
But Rumsfeld is not the issue here. We were discussing the looting. And no matter how you spin it, the Iraqis did it. They jumped at the chance and they did it. When do you think they ought to acknowledge their own responsibility for their own actions? |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 8:14 pm Post subject: |
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| Sergio Stefanuto wrote: |
| Big_Bird wrote: |
Imagine if they disbanded the police in Manchester, dear? |
Again, very little difference.
Why do you constantly mention Manchester, by the way?
Can we dispense with "dear" and "darling" too, by any chance? |
Not while you continue to behave like a naughty little child looking for attention. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 8:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Big_Bird wrote: |
| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
| I was under the impression that most Kurds want and have wanted independence from Iraq. |
It doesn't mean that ordinary decent Kurds liked seeing senseless tragedy in the rest of Iraq. Especially when they have friends, or even family through marriage, living there.
Northern Iraq (where most of the Kurds were) was pretty much liberated from Saddam in a practical sense. The UN was keeping Saddam out. |
The UN was keeping Saddam out?? In fact the UN would not even approve no fly zones in Iraq.
Furthermore it was the US who started protecting the Kurds in the first place and if the US stopped protecting them Saddam would have gone back to slaughtering them.
Accuracy please.
I wonder if asked what the Kurds would say about US actions in Iraq. Would they say it was a bad thing and they wish the US had never got involved or would they give a different answer? |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 8:19 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
I doubt you would find a single person here who genuinely defended D. Rumsfeld -- or who could even make the hypothetical case for defending him, for that matter. "If I were Rumsfeld's lawyer, I would argue..." I enjoy such abstractions, but there is no way I could make this case plausibly because I disagree with his thinking so completely.
He in fact has few defenders outside of the Bush family and R. Cheney and their immediate partisans anymore.
But Rumsfeld is not the issue here. We were discussing the looting. And no matter how you spin it, the Iraqis did it. They jumped at the chance and they did it. When do you think they ought to acknowledge their own responsibility for their own actions? |
So innocent women and children and other law abiding citizens must take responsibility for this looting?
Why does any country have a police force then? Even the Swiss have a police force, and even Swiss murder and rape and are sent to jail. I lived there for a while, and I can tell you that Switzerland has its criminals too.
Every country needs a police force. If the Chinese suddenly made an amazing technological advance that saw them superior in force to you, and they invaded and disbanded your police, and then you - and people you loved - had to suffer looting and much violence against you, would you sing "but it is the responsibility of my people and it is they I blame for this" or would you bitterly blame the Chinese for the breakdown in law and order that lead to so much increased crime and suffering? Be honest with yourself, now. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 8:28 pm Post subject: |
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No. Shoeman faults W. Bush. This is wrong.
The perpetrators perpetrated the looting, Big_Bird. Where do the perpetrators appear in shoeman's allegations?
E. Said has got so many in the Near East in the habit of blaming "imperialism" for all faults and shortcomings that it begins to sicken me.
If Near Eastern peoples and cultures want to be treated as adults -- and I believe they do, for one of their most persistent complaints, as I understand it, as that we Orientalists look down upon them as children, etc. -- then they need to begin showing that they know how to assume responsibility for their own faults and shortcomings.
Where is it written that they had no choice but to loot Baghdad, Big_Bird? They chose to do so, many of them. Not all of them. But many of them. Why are you letting them off the hook? |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 8:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Big_Bird wrote: |
| Be honest with yourself, now. |
We do not need to imagine hypotheticals.
New Orleans police officers looted, on film, in Katrina's aftermath. Journalists filmed them and reported the story immediately. The city fired them or worse, I recall, although not exactly. They may have faced prosecution.
In any case, while people like BLT here were shrilly blaming W. Bush for conjuring up the entire thing, the hurricane, that is, and destroying cities, etc., the real world faulted the looters and moved against them. |
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Sergio Stefanuto
Joined: 14 May 2009
Location: UK
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| Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 8:45 pm Post subject: |
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| Big_Bird wrote: |
| So innocent women and children and other law abiding citizens must take responsibility for this looting? |
The people personally doing the looting, the murdering must take responsibility for their own actions, and the culture of religiously-justified violence must take collective responsibility for the violence. And the culture of poverty, of illiteracy � which is informed by the culture of Islam � must take collective responsibility for the looting.
Analogy: the individuals who shoot people in the US must take responsibility for their actions, and the culture of gun ownership must take collective responsibility for the high murder rates.
| Big_Bird wrote: |
| Switzerland has its criminals too |
Well, thank you for that piercing commentary, but Switzerland has very low rates of crime, and what crime it does have has very high rates of reporting � the exact of opposite, in both cases, of Iraq.
Countries have police forces for different reasons. Saddam�s police force was chiefly to protect the status quo (the govt). The police force in Switzerland exists to protect individual and property rights. There will always be a certain number of individuals who attack others. How high the number depends on the culture.
| Big_Bird wrote: |
| "but it is the responsibility of my people and it is they I blame for this" or would you bitterly blame the Chinese for the breakdown in law and order that lead to so much increased crime and suffering? |
Alternatively, Gopher, if the above scenario occurred and you, as a result, took it upon yourself to commit murder, would it be an advisable defense to blame the Chinese? |
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