Saddam is a secularist

Post #45,222 by mhuber 7/11/02 5:21:39 PM Reply	Saddam is a secularist The Islamists don't like him, and he doesn't them. He's a real bad guy in a lot of ways, but in a War on Terrorism, invading Iraq represents a major loss of focus. He's any number of kinds of rat-bastard, but he isn't currently a terrorist. When 41 wimped out last time, it was to keep the coalition together. I don't see a coalition forming in the first place this time. If we invade Iraq without Iraq doing something beyond borders first, we will be going in almost alone. Probably get a little symbolic support from a few of our staunchest allies (I can't see Great Britain not backing us short of an unprovoked first strike on the Netherlands) but the diplomacy is going to be bad. 41 wasn't concerned (to the point of blowing the chance to shut down Saddam completely) about the diplomacy because he's some kind of lefty peacnik, and I doubt that going it alone is a much better idea now than it was then. And any strategy that calls for the Kurds doing anything is doomed - they don't have the MTV attention span, and haven't forgotten how it went down last time they put their lives on the line to help us. ---- United we stand Divided we dominate the planet without really trying
Post #45,230 by Ashton 7/11/02 6:02:37 PM Reply	Yup.. were I a Kurd With vivid memory of body parts and heaped dead burnt bodies of my kith & kin, after reading Murican leaflets urging: "Action! to Save Your Country From the Beast - We Be Helpin Ya, Bro!" I'd be in Ashcroft's Covenant House in Guantanamo, or trying really hard to qualify. The Prescott Bushie clan was ever about [oil], $$, emulatin that there Dallas Dynasty Tee Vee series.. and as Nixon? Reagan? said about Dad-Bushie: ~ the kinda guy you appoint to commissions. I recall vividly the weasel words rationalizing US inaction While the helicopters We Allowed To Fly! were wiping out these people. It was such an ASSHOLE-Cowardly piece of studied, CPA/CIA-approved inaction. And it still is. Empire knows no shame. Ashton
Post #45,301 by marlowe 7/12/02 1:17:32 PM 7/12/02 1:28:39 PM Reply	Well, so much for blaming religious fanaticism. I've always maintained that it was merely a symptom, not a root cause. Brutal dictators are another manifestation. The root cause is the traditional attitudes that prevail in that part of the world. The grievance fixation, the contempt for logic and facts, the xenophobia, and the amoral familism. But why shouldn't be aligned with the terror groups that use the religious rhetoric? Hatred makes strange bedfellows, after all. Why, look at all the Western leftists championing their cause. Kind of puts the lie to all those protestations of liberal ideals, doesn't it? [link\|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html\|http://www.angelfir...e/index.html] Everything's a mystery until you figure out how it works. If competence is considered "hubris" then may I and my country always be as "arrogant" as we can possibly manage. Edited by marlowe July 12, 2002, 01:28:39 PM EDT Expand All History
Post #45,314 by orion 7/12/02 3:27:14 PM Reply	Don't forget that Saddam has promised $25,000USD to any suicide bomber's family. That is a lot of money over in that area. Sure, people here say Saddam is a nice guy and Saddam and Iraq didn't do anything to us. Such a nice guy, maybe they should invite him to their child's next birthday party? US Intelligence reports say otherwise, that he is a lying sack of sht building up NBC weapons and funding terrorism. I am free now, to choose my own destiny.*
Post #45,337 by Brandioch 7/12/02 4:45:07 PM Reply	And so the fantasy is continued. Don't forget that Saddam has promised $25,000USD to any suicide bomber's family. That is a lot of money over in that area. Yet you are unable to identify ANY Iraqi terrorists. Yet Saddam is offering A LOT of money for people to become one. But you can't name any Iraqi terrorists. But Saddam is offering A LOT of money for people to become one. But you can't name any Iraqi terrorists. Saddam is a "BAD MAN". He is offering A LOT of money for people to become terrorists. But you can't name any Iraqi terrorists. We KNOW he's a "BAD MAN" because our government tells us so. We all trust our government, don't we? Our government wouldn't LIE to us, would it?
Post #45,346 by mhuber 7/12/02 5:21:06 PM Reply	Never said Saddam was a nice guy Just that he isn't an appropriate target if what we are doing is a war on terrorism. He's yer basic conventional military threat. You know, with armies and stuff. Yer basic brutal dictator who slaughters his own people. When he attacks, he uses his own planes, soldiers in uniform, all the standard stuff. I'll shed no tears for him when (not if) he dies violently (probably as part of a coup, killed by someone near and dear to him). But he isn't an international terrorist, unless you extend the meaning of the term so far that every country that has participated in military activities that result in death outside that country's borders (which includes most countries, and by definition all the good guys in WWII) is also. He's a dictator, a military threat, a war criminal (gassing inconvenient populations qualifies), an all-around bad guy. But we are supposedly in a war at this point, and invading Iraq diverts resources from that war. Unless it isn't really a war or terrorism, but a war on all the stuff GWB doesn't like. ---- United we stand Divided we dominate the planet without really trying
Post #45,315 by Ashton 7/12/02 3:29:19 PM Reply	There's said to be a cure for your xenophobia You know: the part where you elide the "familial fanaticism" here, amongst the Dynasties who vie for rule of the consumers; the "contempt for logic and facts" of our constant pursuit of a larger and larger share of the world's [oil] and the $$/power which attends its use - via the force of arms and econ. As to hatred: the very first ploy of the hate-filled ever is the creation of Us/Them - your constant mantra. Evidently too, your 'knowledge' of Them derives from cant-filled screeds, second- and third- hand regurgitations from fellow xenophobes. You have no direct experience of any Thems in their own milieu: you just read and do Boolean logic and conclude from across the pond - Yup, We be Different from Them so, They aren't exactly like Us: so screw 'em. Oh the cure? Get off digital academic ass and go meet some of Them. (Yes, there's a risk of your being strangled just for obviously being a smug jingoistic twit ... but - them's the breaks.)

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