Clarification/Follow-up by Oldstillwild on 07/26/06 2:57 pm:
Well Microspyro,
thanks 4 your comments,but let me line out the flaw in your thinkin'.
Iraq is an isolated event within the Middle East.
Furthermore,where I cant forsee the future,you seem to be extraordinary gifted.
Al Qaida's actions,as you admit,have nothing to do with USA invading Iraq.
Furthermore you seem to prefer leaning on theorethical rules,really using them totally out of context.
It doesnt matter at all what state-form is using terrorist-activities.
The same goes for your remarks re Israel.
So,
try to use the proper arguments to the proper issues next time!
Clarification/Follow-up by MicroGlyphics on 07/26/06 3:46 pm:
To your points:
- Politics never happen in isolation.
- I don't see where I have made any forecasts.
- Although Al Qaida's actions had nothing to do with USA invading Iraq, Iraq is now a breeding groud for such operatives.
- You will have to explain your concept of contextual boundaries.
- It doesn't matter which state-form terrorists use, which is why George Bush can still be considered to be running a decidedly terrorist state and is leading crimes against humanity.
- Israel is also a terrorist state.
Clarification/Follow-up by Oldstillwild on 07/26/06 5:43 pm:
Well Microspyro,
I feel,youre not properly discussing the matter or in other words,
its no use talking to you,because youd always react as an opportunist,using whatever he/she can, to not get to the quintessence of things.....
well,
apparently youre happy with that and Im not going to disturb that happiness......
Clarification/Follow-up by Oldstillwild on 07/26/06 5:43 pm:
Well Microspyro,
I feel,youre not properly discussing the matter or in other words,
its no use talking to you,because youd always react as an opportunist,using whatever he/she can, to not get to the quintessence of things.....
well,
apparently youre happy with that and Im not going to disturb that happiness......
Clarification/Follow-up by Oldstillwild on 07/26/06 5:43 pm:
Well Microspyro,
I feel,youre not properly discussing the matter or in other words,
its no use talking to you,because youd always react as an opportunist,using whatever he/she can, to not get to the quintessence of things.....
well,
apparently youre happy with that and Im not going to disturb that happiness......
Clarification/Follow-up by Jon1667 on 07/26/06 7:45 pm:
You wrote:
"Your underlying premise is that the Middle East must be brought "from the 10th century into the 21st century" is suspect. First, Iraq, like Iran, had not been a Third-World entity, although embargoes we aimed at doing this. This being said, you are presuming, too, the value judgment that the world is better cast in a 21st century mold than a 10th century one.
Your comparison of Hussein to Hitler is specious at best, save perhaps in some minds, and Chamberlain was wrong. Hussein's capacity to actually do anything save throw a stone across his border was severly limited. Sure he was a "bad" guy and an a-hole, but we have one of those in the white house, and our jerk is responsible for more deaths than Saddam, so what does that say? Moreover, punishing the people on behalf of its government can always be considered to be immoral. It is even worse in the case of the Israeli governments attacks on civilians (not to mention UN peacekeepers) in Lebanon."
1.The whole of the Middle East is 10th century culturally, and ideologically. There were some modernizations in Iraq, just as there have been in Iran (due to the Shah) but the general posture of the government is that of insane medievalism.
2.I did not compare Hussein to Hitler (although I would be glad to defend that comparison). I was simply ILLUSRATING (not comparing, illustrating) how it is often a good thing, and not a bad thing, to attack tyranny despite the short-term consequences, since not doing so would have been worse in the long run. It was a good thing to have deposed Saddam, not only because that regime was intolerable, but because it has indeed shaken up things in the area. What is going on now will ultimately be a good thing, since, except for Israel, the Mideast has been a festering sore, which has produced only two things: oil and murder.
Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 07/27/06 8:56 am:
Jon thanks for seeing things in the long run .That is refreshing .
Clarification/Follow-up by MicroGlyphics on 07/27/06 11:24 am:
Jon,
I do appreciate your generally level-headed and objective responses here rather than substantially emotionally-driven content.
By bringing Hitler into reference, you are making a comparison, if not only tacitly. You can call it illustration, but by not choosing a different illustration, you are employing allegory (but you knew that).
I am not making a value judgment; I am making an observation. I am not declaring that a 10th century model is somehow better or worse than a 21st century model. Personally, I prefer the 21st century model (though I don't always feel it is all for the best), but I don't presume to speak for the world at large from some ethnocentric vantage.
Regarding the "intolerability" of the Middle East, a simply intolerable power does not nullify its otherwise inherent sovereignty. Behaviour in the US can be deemed intolerable (read: Patriot Act), but that doesn't justify an overthrow by some oppositional force on that basis.
I am not going to respond to your use of the phrase "insane medievalism," except to point out the inherent bias in the statement.
Finally, I don't understand how you can exclude Israel from that "festering sore" of the Middle East.
Clarification/Follow-up by Jon1667 on 07/27/06 12:26 pm:
"Bias" means a slant that cannot be sustained. Of course, I am making a value judgement. That's obvious. The question is whether the practice of beheading (and stamping on the still alive body so that the blood gushes out as Zaquawi did) is not properly called "insane" (in the non-clinical sense. I would just settle for the word "evil")
Israel is not in any sense, a festering sore. It is a democracy (where the Arab citizens are represented even in the Knesset). No one is disputing the "inherent sovereignty" of the Middle East (if I know what you might mean by that). What is bothersome is there export of murder and mayhem to Israel and to the West. There are places in the Mid East, although not ideal, do not engage in such exports. I have no quarrel with them, although I am content that I should not be there.
Clarification/Follow-up by MicroGlyphics on 07/27/06 12:38 pm:
This war is about hegemony, oil, and corporate profits. If is not about honour or glory or Democracy or weapons of mass destruction or the desire to eradicate evil from anywhere. Zaquawi is no more or less sane than Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld, all of whom are desperately out of touch with reality.
World opinion is not in sync with US opinion, and much of the US is not in favour of US foreign policy.
Clarification/Follow-up by Jon1667 on 07/27/06 1:00 pm:
I have only to push a button, and you immediately produce all the buzz-words of the left. Zaquawi, after having partly sawed off the head of his victim, Daniel Pearl, and while Pearl was still alive, stomped on Pearl's body to force the blood to gush up through the neck. Think that President Bush can top that?
Your terrorist chums are, as we say over here, "something else".
Clarification/Follow-up by MicroGlyphics on 07/27/06 1:07 pm:
Jon,
I think Bush has topped that over thousands of times since. I am not politically aligned with either the Left or the Right, though I do connect to Classical Liberal ideas in the realm of Locke et al. I don't feel the world can be viewed as a dichotomy. This is a peculiarity of Western culture. This being said, the Bush regime is responsible for tens of thousands (likely surpassing a hundred thousand) deaths. Perhaps some feel these deaths were somehow more merciful than that of Pearl, but these people are just as dead, many with grieving families left behind (and many with no remaining families). This also doesn't speak to the condoned torture of people in various contexts worldwide sponsored by the US.
As with Hitler, one can argue that Bush is not "personally" responsible for any deaths, but of course this is a mere technicality. I suppose it is less sane to slowly kill a man with your own hands (or saw blade) than to methodically send thousands of troops into peril (and 2,500 to their death) all for personal financial gain.
