|
Korean Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
|
 Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 8:47 pm Post subject: |
 |
|
| Gopher wrote: |
| 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. |
And that's why "the good people of the US" take responsibity by keeping a police force and implementing a system of rules and laws. If an occupier disbanded what you as a nation have put in place, then I would hold them, and not the ordinary American, fully responsible for the catastrophic break down of law and order. |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
|
| Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 9:10 pm Post subject: |
|
|
The analogy cannnot work.
Saddam ruled Iraq as a personalist dictator, with a secret police. He suppressed all kinds of tribal conflict and he suppressed the Shi'a. Remove him and they all fall at each other's throats again. See R. Stewart's Prince of the Marshes, which I already cited, above.
Blame the W. Bush administration for wishful thinking when contemplating post-Saddam Iraq. But do not blame them for this underlying chaos and all the violence it entails. Iraq has suffered this nonsense probably since the Mongols destroyed Baghdad, Big_Bird. It never really recovered.
There are other forces at work here than the American govt, and behind it, Western imperialism. Why, like our would-be shoe-sniper, can you not acknowledge these forces? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
|
| Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 10:21 pm Post subject: |
|
|
EDIT
Last edited by TheUrbanMyth on Mon Sep 21, 2009 10:28 pm; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
|
| Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 10:27 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Actually it would be the British who are to blame for the original mess.. They shoe(pardon the pun) horned disparate regions together and called it Iraq
Even back then, in the 1920's these regions were fighting each other. This vision of peace and utopia until the American invasion never existed. Saddam managed to impose a fear-based temporary ceasefire...that is all. Yes some mixed marriages exist but that is far from the cultural norms.
So if we blame anybody it should be the Brits. Now who on this thread is British...?  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
|
| Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 10:31 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Big_Bird wrote: |
| 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 think he pretty much was out to lunch. Bremer decided to disband the Iraqi army, and as I remember it, Bush and Cheney green-lighted it rather non-chalantly.
The whole damned thing was treated so casually. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
