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OCA said:Hey we lost 7 or 8 servicemen on Thursday and I don't know how many the final tally was on the civilians who were slaughtered in the "new democratic Iraq".........................yep that corner has definitely been turned.....right into hell.
Ain't nation building a kick in the pants?
OCA said:Yeah i'd say something assinine too if my philosophy were a miserable failure.
rtwngAvngr said:So out with it.
At this point, the "new democratic Iraq" is a long way from being a foregone conclusion. A great many people are misidentifying the mere use (out of convenience) of one particular mechanism of a democracy (i.e. free elections) with "the establishment of a democracy." If they use a democratic mechanism to elect in a theocratic government, then they haven't created a democracy, they've created a theocracy. The Shiite Muslims, and their backing organization, the Islamic Revolution (as established in Iran, and now active in Iraq), are historically radical, oppressive and theocratic. Saddam was an evil and brutal dictator, but the one and only plus he had going for him (by our way of thinking) is that he was a strict secularist. After the toppling of Saddam, I had heard that some of the Republicans in Congress wanted the Ba'ath party to remain in power, because though they had served a dictator, they were secular, and under the right leadership they might represent the best hope for a secular and democratic Iraq. Whether or not they were right, we'll never know.OCA said:Hey we lost 7 or 8 servicemen on Thursday and I don't know how many the final tally was on the civilians who were slaughtered in the "new democratic Iraq".........................yep that corner has definitely been turned.....right into hell.
Ain't nation building a kick in the pants?
OCA said:This is usually where I move on to more important discussion since i've obviously discovered something deep that RWA doesn't like to talk about, just like how he claims to be a nationalist yet remains firmly ensconced in the beliefs of the neocon new world order types, the antichrists.
rtwngAvngr said:You were saying you'd say assinine things when your theories are wrong. Well, we're waiting. Oh nevermind, i think this last post of yours qualifies. :rotflmao:
OCA said:Lol! RWA I think you posted something to the effect of "we like our ideals and will or want to export them around the world", so in other words you believe in forcing ideals on some country whether they want them or not.
What if the Iraqi's vote in overwhelmingly an Iranian style government? Are we supposed to say no, you will have American democracy whether you like it or not?
Poor little RWA that is NWO internationalism at its finest, you are no more a nationalist than Limbaugh is a flaming lib.
You didn't answer his question. What do you think we should do if the government they voted in turns into a theocracy run by the Islamic Revolution (which it appears may well happen)? Do we just cut our losses and leave it that way, or do we force the whole process to start again until they vote in the government that we want (not the one they want), thus even further eroding what trust they do have in our intentions? What's your answer? That question has been coming up a lot of late, and oh, how the right wing squirms when it is asked!rtwngAvngr said:Fine. Let's let the mullahs get nukes, and turn their populations into human bombs against the western world. Good idea, Erkle.
Nightwish said:You didn't answer his question. What do you think we should do if the government they voted in turns into a theocracy run by the Islamic Revolution (which it appears may well happen)? Do we just cut our losses and leave it that way, or do we force the whole process to start again until they vote in the government that we want (not the one they want), thus even further eroding what trust they do have in our intentions? What's your answer? That question has been coming up a lot of late, and oh, how the right wing squirms when it is asked!
Nightwish said:You'll have to forgive me if I'm not terribly optimistic. Implosions, coups, civil wars and similar changes in the Middle East are a dime a dozen, and as often as not, the result is no better than what they replaced. When one group of radical theocrats overthrows another group of radical theocrats, you're still left with a group of radical theocrats. And since Shariah is so intrinsic to the very identity of the Muslim people, it is very, very difficult for Islamic nations to divorce themselves of theocratic models of government.
True. We'll just have to wait and see. I just hope we're not trying to be Martin Luther. If that sort of thing happens, I think it's going to need to come from within, not from without.Kathianne said:Well I'm sure we'd have felt that way looking at Europe in the Middle Ages. However were they going to come out of that? Who would have envisioned that some Catholic in a rather poor part of Germany, would nail his opinions on a church door and knock Catholocism from its perch?
The problems with the Middle East ebb and flow, we Americans have a very short memory, which serves our enemies well. As for me, I get pessimistic in the short run, but am very optomistic in the long run.
Eventually, yes. The opportunity, not necessarily.Nightwish said:True. We'll just have to wait and see. I just hope we're not trying to be Martin Luther. If that sort of thing happens, I think it's going to need to come from within, not from without.
"CNN Despicable" - Marines Say
Here is one report among many that I've been getting about the media's (disinformation) operations in Iraq. It's the first one that identifies journalists at the scene. A Marine sends the following:
Things are going real well over here. We had a fantastic turnout for the elections a couple of days ago. I should preface that by telling a story of a couple of nights ago. On the night of the 13th, I was up at one of our satellite bases on the Syrian border in the city of Husaybah. The Company Commander for the area was having a sit down with some tribal sheiks that evening and he asked me to go along. Our entire area is Sunni for the most part. We have had very little participation in this area during previous elections and the area was largely anti- Coalition Forces. The Company Commander wanted to have a sit down with this sheiks to talk to them about the upcoming election and to urge them to talk to their followers about voting on election day.
We went to the house of the sheik around 7:30 at night. We rolled up with armored humvees and 2 dozen Marines who cordoned off the house. It was a real big, stone house with a walled off yard in front, which is common for many of the homes in this area. We went inside the house, took off our shoes and were ushered into the dining room. They do not eat at tables or use chairs here. Instead, they lay down a blanket on the floor and sit cross legged. Also, all meals are communal and family style, rather than having individual plates and meals. In the middle of this room, there was a giant metal dish, approximately 3 feet in diameter. The plate was piled with rice, nuts, dates and grilled mutton. They have large circular flat bread, looks like a cross between an Indian Nan and a giant wheat tortilla, that are about 1 foot and a half across. You sit cross legged around the metal dish and tear the bread into pieces. Then, no forks or utensils, you use the bread as a tool to pick up the food off the plate and eat it. It was really good and a very interesting experience. Of course, being that America is everywhere, we washed it all down with an RC Cola.
After the dinner, we retired to the edges of the room. The sides of the room were surrounded with pillows lining the walls in a U shape. The pillows looked and felt similar to couch cushions. The younger men of the tribe, probably teenagers, swept away the meal and the elders took their places against the wall. The chief sheik sat at the curve of the U, like being at the head of the table. This guy was the top sheik for the entire tribe in the country of Iraq. He was an older man, probably 70, had a white mustache, headress and robes with golden trim. There was small talk around the room (difficult because everything was being done through interpreters) while the young men of the tribe served chai tea and fresh fruit. Suddenly, the chief sheik called everyone in the room to quiet and gave a long speech to the Captain who is the Company Commander.
The Sheik said that the Sunnis understood that democracy is the only option for Iraq. He said that in the past, they had boycotted the election process. This was completely true for our area. Last January, when the elections for the transitional government took place, our area did not have 1 single voter. Not 1 vote. In October, when the constitutional referendum election was held out here we had a few hundred voters. This was a big success in our minds, because we had been told that no one was going to vote, but still not the turnout that one would hope for. The sheik explained that they knew that these boycotts of the process had only hurt the Sunnis because they were not able to get their agenda and their representatives into the process to help form the new government. The sheik further stated that before, the insurgents had told the people that if they voted they would be killed. He said this scared many Sunnis away from the polls who might have otherwise wanted to vote. Now, though, he said that things have changed. He claimed that because of our two operations, Steel Curtain and Iron Fist, and because of the Coalition presence in the area, the people felt safer and more secure. They felt that the insurgents had been largely neutered in the area and they wanted to participate in the process. He also said that they wanted to get involved to ensure that they had representatives in the new Parliament.
Well, when the elections came about on the 15th, we had 20,000 voters show up to cast ballots in our area alone. From 0 one year ago to 20,000 for this election. The lines were a half mile long and people waited for hours to get inside the several polling places out here. That was close to 60% of the entire eligible voter pool. A pretty amazing turnaround in less than a year's time. Things are getting better out here.
Not that you will hear about it on tv. I watched CNN last night while I was eating dinner. They ran a story about my battalion on there that was originally run 5 weeks ago when we were in the middle of combat operations in the area. It was a story about a family that was killed by American bombing runs in the city of Husaybah. The family had been kidnapped by insurgents and held inside their house while the insurgents shot at Marines. Air strikes were called in and the family was killed inside the home when the bombs dropped. The video showed people wailing and crying and talked about how Americans had caused the deaths of the family. This story was 5 weeks old. When we were doing offensive operations out here, we had 25 plus reporters from CNN, USA Today, the NY Times, Time Magazine, among others. Now that the bombs aren't dropping and the cities have been stabilized... we had 1 reporter here for the elections. She is from the Christian Science Monitor. Not exactly the most widely read publication in the US of A. So, instead of CNN coming out here to report on the current situation and the success of the elections, they ran a 5 week old story showing wailing and crying and dead children. CNN has it out so bad for George Bush, that they cannot even bring themselves to accurately report the gains that are being made by us out here. They are complete misinformation artists - and I have seen first hand how they warp and manipulate the "truth" to fit their agenda. I have been on the scene and witnessed a situation with my own 2 eyes, while CNN was standing right next to me (Arwa Damon and Jennifer Eccelston have been our 2 offenders by the way). Then, the story that I read on their website or saw on CNN International did not even remotely resemble the actual scene. The video had been altered, edited out of order, and the narration used in such a way to warp the situation and twist it into what they wanted it to be. It is amazing and despicable.
Again, this is not the only first-hand report that I have received about CNN's election coverage.
The Mullah's Quest, The Mullah's Fear
by Austin Bay
January 3, 2006
Discussion Board on this On Point topic
Pity the United Nations and the European Union. The militant theocrats running Iran have ignored their pleas, protests, promises of aid and finger-wagging threats of economic sanction.
Tehran's mullahs want nuclear weapons. Money, media appeals and political yammering -- the arsenal of so-called "soft power" -- have so far failed to curtail Iran's nuclear ambitions.
As 2006 begins, it appears Iran's decade of atomic fan dancing with "the international community" is approaching a dangerous finale. One hopes the latest gesture doesn't prove to be another hollow jest. Moscow has offered to enrich Iranian uranium in Russian facilities. It's an interesting diplomatic gambit, one that means Iran's jig may continue for several more months.
Iran insists that the Russian proposal, if accepted, would be "supplementary" and not a "final plan." One senior Iranian official cautioned that any proposal that limited uranium enrichment "to Russian soil only" wouldn't do at all.
At some point in time, Iran's radical mullahs and aging Islamic revolutionaries will have enough nuclear material to make a nuclear weapon.
Those who think the current Iranian leaders' pursuit of nuclear weaponry is a theatrical performance (primarily designed to solidify domestic political support or shake down Arab and European governments for loans and aid) should consider the rhetoric of Iran's hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad is a Holocaust denier -- he calls Hitler's mass murder of European Jews a "myth." On a regular basis, Ahmadinejad and his cohorts enthusiastically tout the capabilities of Iranian ballistic missiles. Unfortunately, unchecked fanatics like Ahmadinejad have a tendency to move from words to war.
Note that Israeli cities aren't the only targets within range. In the 1990s, the Iranians and the United Arab Emirates quarreled over islands in the Persian Gulf, but that was lightweight sparring. Still, Iran with a nuclear weapon threatens every Arab nation on the Arabian Peninsula.
An Iranian nuke also threatens Iraq. Saddam's gone, and with good reason Iranians despised him. Saddam attacked Iran and started the Iran-Iraq War. Iraqi forces used chemical weapons on Iranian troops. However, the rise of Iraqi democracy puts Iran's autocrats in a political and cultural bind.
Iran begins the 21st century as a profoundly divided country. One of the key divisions is age. Most Iranians under the age of 40 have no truck with the ruling mullahs. To describe the clerics' economy as "stagnant" is a multi-decade understatement. Iran's young don't remember the Shah, and Khomeini's revolution is ancient history. The Council of Guardians' brutality is current news, however. The cultural straightjacket of clerical puritanism chafes, and the mullahs' hypocrisy and corruption are self-evident.
In some ways, the thief in religious robes is even more repugnant than the usual greased-palm bureaucrat. Democracy may not be a panacea, but Iranian youth see it as a source of political and economic opportunity. Now, "the Arabs" (in this case, the Iraqis, considered by many Iranians to be cultural inferiors) are building a new society, while Iran continues to rot.
Ahmandinejad and his clique may believe a nuke will help restore their "balance of prestige" vis a vis Baghdad.
With a fanatic like Ahmadinejad in charge, Iran will ultimately go nuclear.
In 1981, Israeli air attacks destroyed Saddam's Osirak nuclear reactor, and everyone in the Middle East (including Iran) sighed with relief. The "hard power" of U.S. and Israeli military capabilities has always been the big stick behind EU and U.N. anti-proliferation diplomacy. However, the rumor mill says Iran has hardened and dispersed its nuclear sites. As it is, airstrikes and special forces attacks are never "sure things."
The real solution is regime change in Tehran. The EU and the United States have talked about supporting the mullahs' political opponents, but they have not walked that walk with sufficient financial aid, political support, media support and -- yes, it may be necessary -- weapons. Iran's tyrants believe they can finesse diplomatic discourse and ride out a military strike. They fear they cannot quell a popular, pro-democracy rebellion.
sitarro said:There have already been 4 people murdered this weekend in Houston one of which just wanted to keep his car. I would imagine that would be average for large metro areas around the United States. Then there were the hundreds killed on the highway this week across the country. It's getting too dangerous in this so called democracy, I think I'm gonna cut and run........but where?
Hobbit said:I tend to agree. A civilian in L.A. is more likely to be shot than a soldier in Iraq (based on percentages), so why don't we cut and run from there?
