The Politics Thread - Read the First Post

[Diebrock]

sparrow (look I used a name to make it easier, go me!), you lost me.



One, are you talking about me?

Two, is the original post the one about Lori Piestawa?

Three, what's extreme?

Four, if you are talking about me and about that post, then let me make absolutely clear that you are absolutely correct. I never said anything regarding the content of your original post. So what exactly is the problem and how can I have offended you if I haven't said a thing about the content of your post?



I'm sorry I dared to ask the meaning of an expression you used. They should shoot all those non native English speakers or at least ban them from communicating with Americans until they at least know every last American expression there is. That's not to much to ask, is it?



ETA: And she was again much faster and much more eloquent than I could ever hope to be. Thanks Kieli, you're my hero.

_____________________

"MURDERERS! Remember Orca!!! Free Willy!!!" Yun-kyung bellowed. "The shark in Jaws was just misunderstood!" - Castaway
I've kissed her best friend. I've reached into her best friend's pocket and fished around for keys. And I gave her best friend my number. I must be doing something totally, totally wrong... - TBSOL by Dreams

Edited by: Diebrock at: 4/10/03 11:44:43 am

[sparrow]

cool

And yet, I just can't seem to care
Buffy as you know it is over

[BytrSuite]

The question regarding the term "in country" has been asked and answered, further commentary about that should now be taken to email.



The topic of this thread is the war and politics and now how we post about it. If you have problems with something posted in this thread feel free to email any of the mods about it. Thanks.





Let me remind you of the guidelines of this thread:

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It's crucial that we all be respectful of one another and differing opinions. We aren't all going to agree and if you're reading and posting in this thread, it's important that you respect your fellow Kittens and their right to disagree and remember that not everyone grew up in or lives in the same culture or political climate as you do. Passions run high on this issue, but we should all be able to share our views here respectfully.



Guidelines:

• No name-calling whatsoever.
• Do not criticize others for holding a different opinion.
• Your post can be edited or removed at any time, if you cross the line.
• No flag waving or superior nationalism. There are people here from many different countries and none of these are perfect.
• In order to avoid a confrontational, adversarial, antagonistic environment or creating factions between us, please do not post to just to cheer another post.

________
"Oh, good, my dog found the chainsaw."

[bzengo]

From my blog, Bastard Zen, today:



His Whole Life Ahead of Him



This photo isn't being shown yet in the US media. Who knows if it ever will be.



This boy's photo is headlining papers all over the European, Asian, Arab, and African media. But not the United States.



Yahoo US is showing heroic Marines, kewl explosions seen from a distance, and burned out rubble. So is MSN. And NBC, CBS, ABC. FOX - official media sponsor of Bush's image - is just showing the heroic Marines, intercut with shots of American flags and Bush, striding to a helicopter and waving.



No one in the US is showing you the actual war.



What else aren't they showing you?



(Note:



Here in the blog I have a graphic photo of a 12 year old boy in the hospital, both arms cut off, and burn cream all over his chest. He is smiling.



After the photo, the blog text continues...)



REUTERS/Faleh Kheiber



Ali Ismail Abbas, 12, wounded during an airstrike according to hospital sources, lies in a hospital bed in Baghdad, April 6, 2003. Abbas was fast asleep when war shattered his life. A missile obliterated his home and most of his family, leaving him orphaned, badly burned and blowing off both his arms.



"It was midnight when the missile fell on us. My father, my mother and my brother died. My mother was five months pregnant," the traumatised boy told Reuters at Baghdad's Kindi hospital. "Our neighbours pulled me out and brought me here. I was unconscious," he said on Sunday.

bzengo


Robert A. Heinlein The Earth is too fragile a basket in which to keep all your eggs.

Prof. Gerard K. O'Neill Is the surface of the Earth really the right place for an expanding technological civilization?

[Gatito Grande]

Thank you, bzengo. God, flag, motherhood and cluster bombs: we need to see all of it.



Just yesterday, I caught myself thinking "Hey, gas prices are down: great!" How many lives to the gallon indeed . . .



Noted in "passing": I heard, very briefly, that we killed another household of civilians yesterday in that country we already "liberated", Afghanistan.



The models of "successful nation-building" being talked-up are post-WWII Germany and Japan (given a 50 year commitment to the process). Last night on NPR I heard leading experts explain why 2003 Iraq is so completely different than 1945 Germany or Japan, having neither 1) a history of at least semi-successful democracy (pre-Nazi Germany), or 2) a central figure around which to rebuild (the retained Japanese emperor). Finally, neither Germany nor Japan were surrounded by hostile nations of *other* Germans and/or Japanese. Quagmire, anyone?



With the murder of two Shiia leaders today by rival Shiia (hacked to death in an ancient Shiia holy site), we've seen the start of Iraqi groups going payback-y on each other. Anyone wanna guess how long till Rummy gives us his best Ariel Sharon (1982, FWIW) impression: "Goyim are killing goyim and it's *our* fault?" Well, yes actually. It was true then, and it will be true now: conqueror picks up the tab.



GG An eye for an eye, making the whole world blind: fill 'er up! Out



ETA: It looks to me more like that poor child is grimacing in pain than smiling.

Edited by: Gatito Grande at: 4/11/03 12:16:26 am

[maudmac]

I was watching the BBC news the other day and they were talking about some of those same issues. How terribly complicated it's going to be to get Iraq unified, with so much conflict there among different religions, different branches of Islam, and different ethnic groups.



Also, it occurred to me that if elections are held, the US might not be pleased with whoever wins. What then? I cannot imagine the US just leaving Iraq in the hands of someone or a group of people who aren't puppets. So much for democracy.



It's all a huge mess and far more complicated on so many levels than the US wants to admit. Although everyone else around the world seems to get it. Our news media here is feeding us crap, crap, and more crap. Hardly anyone's talking about the real issues, that I've noticed, except maybe NPR.

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I had a Boddingtons and now I can see again! - The Beast

[lauriebear]

see I think there are a number of reasons that it will be very difficult to institute democracy in Iraq



1) Democracy has to come from the people, they really need to want it and to fight for it...not necessarily going to war but it's not like they will wake up one day and ohh look we have a democracy.



2) The numerous enthic and religious groups within the country.Those issues will have to be worked out. Hell, just over 100 years ago the US had a little civil war over two different ways of life.....and even still today, there are some pockets of people here that would have loved for it to have turned out differently.(and yes I know it wasn't just about slavery)



3) correct me if I'm wrong-but the Islamic religion is deeply ingrained in the culture in the region. Democracies really work inpart because they keep religion and government separate....at least try to. It would seem to me that it would be very hard to separate those two things in that region



4) and Maudac's right....how likely is it for them to elect someone that will be pro-western, pro-US. Um....yes we "liberated" them....but we also demolished their country in the process. And the longer we stay there, the worst anti-american sediment will get.



However, as I said earlier in this thread....the government they install in Iraq, whether be puppet, or democratic...WILL be pro-western. the Bush admin will just not settle for anything less.



Maybe Bush will send some of those voting machines from Florida over there



I just see so many problems with this.....And maybe it would help if I actually trusted the US government and this administration. But I don't. I don't trust a word that comes out of their mouths....And that makes me the most uneasy above all.

[Gatito Grande]

See, for example, Algeria: in 1994 (?) they had a free election, and elected an Islamicist government. The military promptly overturned the election and proclaimed martial law (don't think that the U.S.-European permanent oligarchies weren't cheering them on!). I mean, heck, Bush & Co. treated the German government like they were illegitimate, cuz Schroeder had the Balle to run on an anti-war platform and be elected on it.



GG Elected? Y'know, as in winning a majority of votes cast? Hello? / Show Bush the door in '04! (If the Supreme Court allows) Out

[4WiccanLuv]

Quote:

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His Whole Life Ahead of Him



This photo isn't being shown yet in the US media. Who knows if it ever will be.



This boy's photo is headlining papers all over the European, Asian, Arab, and African media. But not the United States.

---

I don't think the American media has been given enough credit for their coverage of this war. I've seen the good the bad and the ugly and I don't feel like they're trying to sugarcoat anything. This little boy's picture is currently in the April 14th issue of TIME magazine, page 42 & 43 and it brought tears to my eyes.

_____________


"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty." - John F. JFK

[bzengo]

Quote:

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This little boy's picture is currently in the April 14th issue of TIME magazine, page 42 & 43

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Really? On pages 42 & 43? All the way back there on pages 42 & 43? Well, wow...



Remember the little girl in Vietnam who was napalmed? Burning alive, running?







That got coverage. It impacted Nixon. It won the Pulitzer Prize. It changed the public listening of ordinary Americans.



This photo is EVERYWHERE in the overseas media. Photos of injured Iraq children are EVERYWHERE in the non-US media. But somehow, they just don't seem to make it into US newspapers and television. Its that pesky editorial judgment, don't ya know. Don't want to upset people. Don't want to upset - well, um, you.



We don't have an equivalent photo from this war. At least not in the United States. So the listening of ordinary Americans doesn't change, because they don't SEE anything that puts the lie to the pictures the TV is telling them.



Here again, is the link to the photo the rest of the world is seeing. I didn't put it in-line, because, God knows we wouldn't want to upset you by suddenly showing you a photo of a butchered child. But even if you don't look, he's still missing his arms.



Dying children, killed on Bush's orders, just...aren't...news. Not in the US anyway.



Not today.

bzengo


Robert A. Heinlein The Earth is too fragile a basket in which to keep all your eggs.

Prof. Gerard K. O'Neill Is the surface of the Earth really the right place for an expanding technological civilization?

Edited by: bzengo at: 4/11/03 3:26:34 am

[maudmac]

When journalists who tell the truth are branded as traitors and fired from their jobs by the American news media, it's no wonder they're whitewashing all of this.



War is ugly. It's fucking stomach-turning vile and repulsive, just by nature. I've always thought if you were going to support it, you should be able to look it straight in the eye, see if for what it really is, and then go to one of your pro-war rallies.



America is being denied that. We're being lied to.



Despite my dove-ish proclivities, I do think some war is really in the best interest of all involved parties. That is, some wars have been righteous. Now, I realize that's a judgment call, and it's my personal opinion. But something like WWII...the US needed to be involved with that. In fact, we should have gotten involved a lot sooner. I would have fought for that.



My grandfather came home from WWI with a hole in his head and God only knows what all kinds of damage from having been gassed in the trenches in France. I can't help but think that he helped make the world a better place.



I'm not even sure how I feel about Afghanistan. The Taliban needed to go. My perspective on that issue is based primarily on their treatment of women. And, based on that, someone needed to do something about the Taliban long before 9/11. Yeah, and someone needed to do something about the estimated 50,000 women in Bosnian rape camps a lot sooner, too. But, about Afghanistan...see below. What exactly is the US doing in Afghanistan, because things aren't a whole lot better for women there now.



Or how about Nigeria? Congo? How many horrible things are going on around the world that we might might be able to help stop? How many people are being hacked to death right now in conflicts that will never be on the news in the US? I consider myself pretty well-informed and I have to dig and dig and dig to get at some of this stuff. Other folks around the world can just watch their evening news. It's disgusting and I will never trust a word out of an American news media outlet's mouth again, as long as I live.



The US is on a humanitarian mission to free the Iraqi people? Bullshit. No doubt the US is involved in many, many humanitarian missions. And, you know, if you have a flood, an earthquake, well, you can pretty much count on the US to be there for you. I'm happy about that. It sure makes for some good "Go America!" TV, doesn't it? So why the blind eye to things like this:

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• Uganda: Children are abducted in record numbers by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda and subjected to brutal treatment as soldiers, laborers, and sexual slaves. Since June of 2002, an estimated 5,000 children have been abducted from their homes and communities-a larger number than any previous year of the sixteen-year-old conflict and a dramatic increase from the less than 100 children abducted in 2001.

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• Kenya: This report recounts the experiences of women from various regions, ethnic groups, religions, and social classes in Kenya who have one thing in common: because they are women, their property rights have been trampled. Many women are excluded from inheriting, evicted from their lands and homes by in-laws, stripped of their possessions, and forced to engage in risky sexual practices in order to keep their property. When they divorce or separate from their husbands, they are often expelled from their homes with only their clothing. Married women can seldom stop their husbands from selling family property. A woman's access to property usually hinges on her relationship to a man. When the relationship ends, the woman stands a good chance of losing her home, land, livestock, household goods, money, vehicles, and other property. These violations have the intent and effect of perpetuating women's dependence on men and undercutting their social and economic status.

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• Nigeria: In several instances, attacks by the OPC on Hausa or northerners in the southwest were followed by reprisal attacks on Yoruba in the north. For example, following the killings in Sagamu in July 1999, violence erupted in the northern city of Kano, widely seen as an act of retaliation by the Hausa. Similarly, riots broke out in Minna, capital of Niger State, following the violence in Ajegunle in October 2000. The same has been true in reverse: clashes in the north between Yoruba and Hausa have had repercussions in the south and appeared to strengthen the resolve of the OPC to "fight the Yoruba cause." This was notably the case with the explosion of violence between Christians and Muslims in the northern city of Kaduna, in which an estimated 2,000 people were killed in February and May 2000, and which was followed by violence in the southwest.

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• Algeria: Algerian security forces and their allies, between 1992 and 1998, arrested and made "disappear" more than 7,000 persons who remain unaccounted for to this day. This number exceeds the number of "disappearances" known to have been carried out in any other country, except wartime Bosnia, over the past decade. In addition, armed groups fighting the government kidnapped hundreds if not thousands of Algerians who also remain missing. These acts, systematically committed both by state actors and by organized non-state actors, are crimes against humanity.Today, state-sponsored "disappearances" have virtually stopped in Algeria. However, not one person accused of participating in an act of "disappearance" has been charged or brought to trial, and not one family of a "disappeared" person has been provided with concrete, verifiable information about the fate of their relatives. Nothing has been done to prevent the security forces from reviving this method. They routinely, and with impunity, flout laws designed to ensure that a person's arrest is recorded and regulated.

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• Egypt: The categories "vulnerable to delinquency" and "vulnerable to danger," set forth in Egypt's Child Law ostensibly to protect vulnerable children, have become a pretext for mass arrest campaigns to clear the streets of children, to obtain information from children about crimes, to force children to move on to different neighborhoods, and to bring children in for questioning in the absence of evidence of criminal wrongdoing. The number of such arrests has sharply increased since 2000. There were more than 11,000 arrests of children on these charges in 2001 alone, accounting for one quarter of all arrests of children in Egypt that year. In many cases they are victims of abuse even before their arrest, having suffered violence in the home, been subjected to exploitive and hazardous labor conditions, or been denied education because their families could not afford to pay for their school fees, books, and uniforms.

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• Ethiopia and Eritrea: The war that broke out between Ethiopia and Eritrea in May 1998 shattered illusions that the two countries were to be a locus of stability in the Horn of Africa. The two-and-a-half-year border war claimed a staggering toll in human life and suffering and precipitated violations of human rights and humanitarian law on both sides.The opposing armies waged a conventional war over a long front for much of the period. The casualties, mainly soldiers, included an estimated 100,000 dead. The conduct of the war devastated the two countries' economies, decimated their draft age youth, displaced whole populations, and led to the flight-or summary deportation-of tens of thousands across the two countries' imperfectly drawn international borders.Hundreds of thousands were internally displaced and over one million became refugees in the course of the war. Many fled or were deported to other countries in the region as both countries used mass population transfers as a weapon of war. The negotiated end of the war, agreed on December 12, 2000, stopped the fighting-but it failed to resolve the plight of those uprooted from their homes and cut off from their livelihood in both countries, in particular those deported from their own country and stripped of their nationality.

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• Russia: In sub-freezing temperatures, using a combination of threats and incentives, officials have attempted to force the 23,000 people who at that time remained in seven tent camps back into an active war zone. In one case they succeeded: the Aki-Yurt camp, which housed some 1,700 displaced Chechens, was forcefully closed in early December 2002 after the international community had been temporarily barred access to it.

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• Zambia: The catastrophe of HIV/AIDS (human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome) in Africa, which has already claimed over 18 million lives on that continent, has hit girls and women harder than boys and men. In many countries of eastern and southern Africa, HIV prevalence among girls under age eighteen is four to seven times higher than among boys the same age, an unusual disparity that means a lower average age of death from AIDS, as well as more deaths overall, among women than men.Abuses of the human rights of girls, especially sexual violence and other sexual abuse, contribute directly to this disparity in infection and mortality. In Zambia, as in other countries in the region, tens of thousands of girls-many orphaned by AIDS or otherwise without parental care-suffer in silence as the government fails to provide basic protections from sexual assault that would lessen their vulnerability to HIV/AIDS.

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• India: Millions of children in India toil as virtual slaves, unable to escape the work that will leave them impoverished, illiterate, and often crippled by the time they reach adulthood. These are India's bonded child laborers. A majority of them are Dalits, so-called untouchables. Bound to their employers in exchange for a loan, they are unable to leave while in debt and earn so little they may never be free of it. The Indian government knows about these children and has the mandate to free them. Instead, for reasons of apathy, caste bias, and corruption, many government officials deny that they exist at all.Somewhere between sixty to 115 million children are working in India, most in agriculture, others picking rags, making bricks, polishing gemstones, rolling beedi cigarettes, packaging firecrackers, working as domestics, and weaving silk saris and carpets. Since Human Rights Watch's first investigation in 1996, the Indian government has taken some positive steps to address the plight of working children and bonded laborers of all ages. At the same time, there are serious problems with implementation on the ground. In the last decade, efforts in some regions have driven bonded child labor out of factories and into households, which are partially exempt from the law, changing bonded child labor's manifestation but not its prevalence or intensity. In many areas, bonded child labor still flourishes openly.

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• Afghanistan: Women in Afghanistan have long struggled to claim full rights and freedoms, and under the Taliban, their position was undoubtedly worse than at any other time in recent history. Yet, one year after the Taliban's fall, women and girls in Afghanistan still face severe restrictions and violations of their human rights, for in many areas Taliban officials have been replaced by warlords, police officers, and local officials with similar attitudes toward women. In some parts of the country, the same officials who administered the anti-women policies of the Taliban remain in their positions. This has meant the reimposition of extremely repressive social codes that typically have a devastating impact on women. Such restrictions severely undermine the most fundamental rights of women and girls in many areas of Afghanistan, including threatening their physical security.

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• Brazil: Beatings at the hands of police during and after arrest are common, we found. Such abuses often occur at police stations, where Brazilian law allows children to be held for up to five days while they await transfer to a juvenile detention facility. In the state of Amazônas, for example, nearly every boy and girl we spoke with told us that he or she had been hit by police officers while in a local police station. In rural areas, where police routinely violate the five-day limit on detention in police lockups, children are at greater risk of abuse by police.Once these children are transferred to detention centers, they must often endure further violence from state military police. The state military police-which, despite their name, are subject to civilian control-ensure the external security of detention centers, quell riots and other disturbances, respond to escape attempts, and routinely conduct cell searches. Children who complained of beatings often told us that military police hit them with cassetetes, rubber batons with a metal core. "They use batons made of rubber," said Terence M., who had spent ten months in the Aninga detention center in the state of Amapá. "When they came in for searches, they would hit us."

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Okay, all that was really long. Blame Human Rights Watch. But, if you stuck with it, what did you notice? I notice that it's an awful lot of women and children being fucked over by the powers that be wherever they live. Children are bought and sold in thirteen West African nations. All that...just the tip of the ice berg. Where's the intervention? The push for regime change? The humanitarian aid?



Can't possibly help everyone? True enough. But if it were up to me, I think I'd go for focusing my attention, influence, pressure, might, whatever I had at my disposal on the issue of the 60-115 million children working in India. Now, that's a complicated situation over there, to be sure. But, well, Iraq isn't? The international community could no more call up India and say, "Hello, India? Hi. Quit that! Thanks, bye," than it could call up Iraq and say, "Iraq? Hi, listen, just sort this mess out, okay? Thanks, bye." If we intend to commit to seeing order and democracy in Iraq...well, number one, let's look over there across Iran to Afghanistan. Look what an excellent job we've done there. And, number two, it's damn complicated and we have no business being cowboys when we barely understand what we're getting into. It's foolish, a colossal use of resources, and more people are going to get hurt and/or killed than have to.



Why does the Bush Administration pretend the goal is simply to help people? When we haven't helped the Afghans. When we have no apparent intention of trying to help nations like India or Congo?



When we have children suffering from malnutrition right here in the States? In Appalachia, on reservations, in inner cities... When people are freezing to death in the winter because they lack adequate housing? We can't even get food, clothing, and shelter for everyone in America and we're traipsing all over the world, sticking our fingers in oily pies. Is there no crisis in America? Who's going to help us?



If all those other countries are none of our business, okay, fine. I'd listen to that argument. But if that's true, then how can Iraq be any of our business, either? What's Iraq got that, say, Eritrea doesn't? Or India? Or Togo? Certainly no greater human suffering.



Oh, but it sure does have a lot of that black gold, doesn't it?



And that matters so much more than little girls being sold into prostitution or little boys being sold into agricultural labor, right? Or women being systematically tortured, raped, and mutilated, right?



Maybe to George W. Bush. Maybe to Dick Cheney. But not to me, not to me.

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I had a Boddingtons and now I can see again! - The Beast

[Diebrock]

The following article is about the Iraqi uprisings in 1991. It is very hard for me to believe that the US had to attack Iraq now, because they had to do something to keep Saddam from murdering (more of) his people (this reason was brought up after the WMD and 9/11 claims didn't really work and weren't convincing enough to a lot of people).



I guess that is part of the new doctrin. Human lifes matter now. Sometimes. Maybe. If it's convenient.

Lucky Iraqis. Those who aren't dead or mutilated or haven't lost family or friends, that is.

Is it a wonder that most of the Iraqis that cheer and support the war are sitting comfortably in front of a TV in the US, UK, Europe?



Did the U.S. Betray Iraqis in 1991?

_____________________

"MURDERERS! Remember Orca!!! Free Willy!!!" Yun-kyung bellowed. "The shark in Jaws was just misunderstood!" - Castaway
I've kissed her best friend. I've reached into her best friend's pocket and fished around for keys. And I gave her best friend my number. I must be doing something totally, totally wrong... - TBSOL by Dreams

[darkmagicwillow]

lauriebear, I agree that democracy must come from the people. There's a reason that the U.S., with its origins in the U.K., became a stable democratic society, while most of the colonies of absolutist Spain did not. Islam has very different origins than Christianity, so you're right that democracy will not come easily if at all to their civilization.



Mohammed was a huge success, not only founding the religion of Islam, but also dictating the Koran and uniting the Arab people for the first time in history. In stark contrast, Jesus was a failure, executed for treason against the Roman state without establishing a religion or leaving any writings behind.



Ironically, that failure became a source of strength for Western civilization. The West was able to come up with the idea of separating church and state, partially because it was unified by Rome, not Christianity, and there was no church hierarchy in the beginning--the Bishop of Rome, known today at the Pope, was one bishop among hundreds of the early church. By contrast, the successors of Mohammed, the caliphs, were warrior-priests who led both church and state in the early Islamic conquests. Perhaps more importantly, the West could also sustain failure with the understanding that it could be transformed into later success, as the story of Jesus transforms his execution into a transcendent act of salvation.



Returning to the present, I suspect that the US will use the same means to control power in Iraq that it does at home. It doesn't matter what the voters say, as long as you determine who the people can vote for by controlling the nomination process. Controlling the counting of votes also eliminates the electorate's power, and while that's a little more blatant, Bush has shown that he's not above using that method at home.



The American Civil War is an interesting argument for not intervening in civil wars; if the UK and France had intervened for the South as it requested them to do, then the US would have been permanently split and the world wars likely would've been fought in North America. Even if the wars weren't fought in America, I can hardly see the US willingly helping either the UK or France.

--

"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."

[Aradia785]

Maudmac, heres a little lesson from the horses mouth, so to speak. I pulled a stint in the Marines Inteligence division about a year ago, and one of my lessons was that "Going to war for 'human rights' is perhaps the most convienient way to publically show a situation. You can easily prove human rights violations for any country in the world because even if they have a good record, theres always a case or two you can hit them on. And it will easily sway public opinion. Play the sympathy trump card. Tell the peril of the population. Your population likes to do the "right thing". People are more likely to support a fight if you tell them it will relieve suffering than if you come right out and say that its economically benefitial to you to go, kill, and be killed. Convince them they are doing the "right thing" and they will fight and die for anything you tell them to." This is pretty much verbaitum Marine Inteligence training 101.



Funny how the countries we go to war with to save people always seem to have something we want, isnt it. Dont forget Rwanda in 1994. Ethnic cleansing was wrong in Germany, but, hey, if its an African nation well... darnit! Nothing we can take there! Oh well! Hack em up. : :: Think its to late to emigrate?



Ann

If I hear that Gong of Doom I will send stoned squirrels to raid your kitchen
- Lisa of Nine

[Gatito Grande]

Kittens, I'm literally writing this through drying tears (uncommon for me---too butch).



Ten minutes ago, on the radio, I heard General Myers (Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) describe gunning down another carload of Iraqi civilians. Two children were killed. He concluded this "regrettable" verbatim with "this is a reminder to the Iraqi people to stop" at our military checkpoints.



There was no emotion in his voice. No real "regret." This was just another little blurb in his daily briefing. It was so off-hand that I consequently went into my usual sarcasm-laugh "You So Funny General 'Reminder' Man!" only to start sobbing 5 seconds later.



I can't take this anymore. I've got a life---a pathetically-easy-by-world-standards life---that requires me to disconnect myself from this trauma that my (unemployed pittance) tax-dollars are paying for, done in my name. I've got to stop obsessing about this war and get to my own business. But though I hide from it for awhile, I know it's still out there. Killing more children. Throwing the world into disarray. Spreading more lies to well-intentioned Americans (inc. the troops).



If you can work for peace, work. If you can (find and) tell the truth, speak it (loud and often). If you can pray, pray. And if you can only cry, then shed your tears. Learn the names. Care.



GG Going Kitten silent. Peace to you all, and I'll see you when all my graduation requirements are met. Te amo amigas/os. Out

[bzengo]

Maudmac, Ann, Gatito Grande and other's posts move me.



I feel for Gatito's tears, and have cried my own.



I served my own time with the 101st Airborne as a teenager, and only through the grace of international luck, was not sent to war, as were young men and women two years on either side of my own three year tour.



As a paramedic, I have seen first hand, how truly fragile human bodies are, and what damage we can do to each other, and to the smallest and most vulnerable amongst us.



I believe maudmac is correct - if we're going to intervene, we should look first to where women and children are being abused. Currently, we are looking to where there is oil, and justifying it with women and children, then abandoning them once again, once control has been taken of the oil.



Women and children first.



They cried it as Titanic was sinking, and surely cried it many times before. It is time to cry it from the roof-tops and the streets, in the op-ed articles and letters to editors, in phone calls and letters to Congress. A feminist cry from the ages. "Women and children first."



As people of every color and sexual persuasion have taken back control of phrases used to control them, it is time for true feminists of every gender, to take back what was once seen as an anti-feminist male-dominative phrase, and see it for what it really is - appropriate, wanted, and necessary.



Taking care of the world's women and children IS what the world needs next.



"Women and children first."

bzengo


Robert A. Heinlein The Earth is too fragile a basket in which to keep all your eggs.

Prof. Gerard K. O'Neill Is the surface of the Earth really the right place for an expanding technological civilization?

[darkmagicwillow]

The Arab world is still stunned by the fall of Baghdad, but some initial reactions can be discerned. Here's an excerpt from BBC news:

The Arab world is teetering in the balance following the ignominious toppling by US-led forces of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, after a bloody three-week campaign.



The mood today is one of despondency and bewilderment, with people asking:



* Why did the Iraqi regime - seen by many as the last Arab hope to resist American neo-colonialism - promise to fight to the death, and then suddenly allow US troops unopposed into Baghdad?



* What role did Arab governments play in facilitating Saddam's downfall, against the wishes of the vast majority of their citizens?



* What hope now for the development, democratisation and independence of Arab countries?



The question that we journalists, along with the political analysts, government officials and diplomats, must ask is: "How will these feelings translate themselves - into the 100 Bin Ladens feared by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, or into a new Middle East which bows to American might?"

....

Mr Ramadan believes that, having learnt the lessons of Iraq's failure to repel the overwhelmingly superior US forces, the Arab masses will soon take matters into their own hands to launch "unconventional" resistance to what he calls American-British-Zionist colonialism.



"Look at history and remember how the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 sparked the rise of Hezbollah, and the 1967 defeat of the Arabs marked the beginning of Palestinian resistance," he says.



"I can't predict what form the new resistance will take," he adds. "But if the Americans say they lost 100 soldiers during the invasion, wait and see how many they lose in the next phase, the occupation."

--

"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."

[tommo]

On the BBC news tonight, a doctor treating the little boy who had his arms blown off has said it would be "a mercy if he died", his injuries are so severe.



Fathers are digging up graves to find their dead sons.



Personally, I found it alarming that the first flag to be raised on the statue of Saddam Hussein was the stars and stripes. It seemed incongruously out of keeping with the idea of "liberating" Iraq. Liberating them to be what? Americans?



I was glad to see that the stars and stripes was removed, and the flag of Iraq put up in its place. I'm sure that the appearance of the US flag made its way onto news channels in America. I'm wondering how much of the anarchy, confusion and the refusal of American troops to help keep order did.

I was being patient, but it took too long. I mean, I miss Buffy, I do. But life shouldn't just stop because she's gone.

[The Angry Lion]

okay I lost my appetite this morning, Hollywood is going to throw millions of dollars at Private Lynch for her 'story' (what about all the other soldiers, wounded, dead, or otherwise, do they get movie offers, will Iraqi soldiers get movie offers) and they were talking about getting Sarah Michelle Gellar to play her! MY GOD! my god my god, Im positively ill. dont do it smg, you gained a modicum of respect in my eyes when you left Buffy, youll lose every drop of it if you go ahead.

this one time, at witch camp!

[dekalog]

This just feeds into part of the problem though Angry Lion - this war particularly has been about the media, and selling the merchandise - and now Bush and Rumsfeld are off trying to sell the sequel "Syria the next threat to your public safety".



Having a movie about a 'brave soldier' just feeds into the whole glory of war. Not saying anything about the soldiers - its just that the images I have seen try to push this 'glory of the battlefield' idea, and the soundbites from some networks would fit in with some of the best bits from WWF announcers. People dying, and losing their limbs is not something that is entertainment for me though, unfortunately I have run across many people who do seem to think the idea and vision of war, battles, and bloodshed is - if not entertainment at least gratifying and cheerworthy.



This war is being played out by many news outlets as if it was a tv show - it's not surprising that they will further blur the lines with biopics and the like. Sad to say I really expect for there to be a new Playstation (or whatever) game out by the spring.

[Gatito Grande]

Agreed, dekalog, and that's why I have trouble w/ the language of "Support the Troops."



IMO, there are no such thing as "troops," there are only people who happen to be in uniform (and armed). Of course, I want nothing bad to befall these people (in this case, Americans) but at the same time, I'd just as soon they not be in the military. Or, if they must---I realize not everyone's in the pacifism space---that they just be *strictly for defense* (like, no farther than the U.S. borders).



Whenever I've heard "the troops" questioned by reporters about peace demonstrations, they are inevitably negative. Now I'm not sure if we're really getting a truthful representation (like you'd hear a anti-war soldier on, say, FoxNews! ), but it's understandable that, at some (post-deployment) point, soldiers would want to do the job they were trained for, i.e. to make war. Which is why it's so important to not put them in that position, and, perhaps more importantly, to not glorify war in such a way that draws more impressionable young people to that position.



I've never been in the military, but I totally get the raison d'etre for all troops, of any army, namely "fighting for your buddies." We're all like that, in feeling close bonds w/ our friends. Wars are made w/ commanders cynically counting on that bond to sustain them: the order to attack, no matter how insane or immoral, only has to be obeyed once, for all these kids to become gung-ho warriors. That's the message that needs to be communicated: war is not about heroism (that's only incidental). War is about manipulation.



GG Bring them all home, and disarm them (not necessarily in that order). Out

[sparrow]

Support are troops.

And yet, I just can't seem to care
Buffy as you know it is over

[Gatito Grande]

OK, sparrow, I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume you mean "support our troops," but beyond that, what are you saying? Are you debating me? As I just said, I don't believe there's any such animal as homo troopus, merely a bunch of easily-manipulated kids who are into the 1)paycheck, 2) "see the world," 3) great outfits , and (for many) 4)"boom-sticks."



I support the kids. I totally understand the paycheck and "see the world" benefits. Hey, I even like the uniforms (it's that butch thing for me). It's just the boomsticks---i.e. pump hot lead (or depleted uranium) and high explosives into the flesh and bones of other human beings (frequently at a *great distance* from the U.S., the "target," or both) that I have a problem with.



Yeah, there is a number 5) "patriotism." But what the heck is that, anyway? They take a pledge to "defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies" but frankly, they'd do far better on that angle to make war on (Attorney General) John Ashcroft. It's the language of "support our troops" which feeds into 5), making the kids think that they're doing something important for the Constitution (or just the flag), which obscures numbers 1-4 (especially 4).



Tell me I'm wrong. Explain the neccesity of the military outside (at most) simple self-defense. Say I've "forgotten 9/11" or that pacifism is even more immoral than it is idiotic. But don't just say "support our troops," cuz I think we all get those three little words.



GG But all the citizens voting for war, and paying for it? There's your real crime. Out

[lauriebear]

Support our troops???



Last time I checked they were doing a job. They enlisted in the military, they chose that line of profession. They get paid; They get benefits. They get to discriminate against women and gays. But they weren't drafted.... it's a total volunteer military.



I support our law enforcement, Firefighters, and EMT's far, far, more than any soldier. See, their job is to SAVE people's lives.

A soldier's job is to KILL another human being. Yes, of course, there's the rhetoric that they're "protecting the US", or "saving the _____ people" from the evil dictator of the moment...but the bottom line is they have to Kill or Be Killed. Hell, the side that kills the most usually wins. but ultimetly it's the person's choice to join or not.



So I will not support our troops



I will, however, hope and pray that those human beings blowing each other up and shooting at each other because some leader told them to-make it out alive and back to their families-or in the Iraqi's case, whatever is left of them.



Those of you here that are in or have been in the military, I mean you no offense. It's just that I see no reason to be told to support people that are doing their job but doing something I don't agree with.

[Diebrock]

Quote:

---

Support are troops.

---

Sorry, I'm not into foreign military. (Shucks, it's one of those unamerican furriners, again, making unqualified remarks )

I would also never support this: (in response to a suicide bombing)

Quote:

---

"The Iraqis are sick people and we are the chemotherapy," said Corporal Ryan Dupre. "I am starting to hate this country. Wait till I get hold of a friggin' Iraqi. No, I won't get hold of one. I'll just kill him."

The Times UK, 3/30/03

---

Neither do I support the soldiers standing by while hospitals, private homes and museums (as a student of archaeology I don't even want to think of the artefacts lost forever) were/are being looted, when it is their duty and responsibility as the faction in control to keep law and order.

Why did only some of them step in, and only after Iraqis asked them directly to stop the people looting their homes?

(Sarcastic dig on the government: )Guess they were too busy protecting the oil wells (who survived unharmed and are enjoying their newfound freedom) and couldn't send anymore troops. Because when faced with the choice of fully protecting the Iraqi oil resources or the Iraqi human resources, the cost benefit ratio logically pointed to the helpless oil wells.



Hmmm...

Support the suffering children.

Now that would be a universal request I could easily get behind (be it in Iraq or America or elsewhere). You know, those innocents that didn't have a choice? In Iraq that would be half of the Iraqi population.

_____________________

"MURDERERS! Remember Orca!!! Free Willy!!!" Yun-kyung bellowed. "The shark in Jaws was just misunderstood!" - Castaway
I've kissed her best friend. I've reached into her best friend's pocket and fished around for keys. And I gave her best friend my number. I must be doing something totally, totally wrong... - TBSOL by Dreams

[tommo]

Sigh. It's comments like that being used in national newspapers that makes me wonder what kind of preparation the US Army had before going to Iraq. I'm assuming that if the first Iraqi this soldier saw had been an old woman, or a ten year old boy, or a pregnant wife, then perhaps he might not have been so quick to kill them.



Or then again, judging from what I've read and seen on the news; maybe not.



To say that a nation is "sick" and offer yourself as the preventative cure is both arrogant and ignorant. I would have thought that any fool could see that it's not the Iraqi people who are "sick", but their errant leader. Oh wait, this is the biggest nation in the world that we're talking about. And here I am crediting its soldiers with a world view intelligence, or at least to have some perception that every country in the world isn't run exactly like the US. For a nation that's made up of a melting pot of cultures, the US appears like a military bigot, sometimes. I have to say, it makes me less inclined to "support are troops".



I'm wondering just when the US is going to rename Iraq "New America".

I was being patient, but it took too long. I mean, I miss Buffy, I do. But life shouldn't just stop because she's gone.

Edited by: tommo at: 4/15/03 8:38:25 am

[darkmagicwillow]

I suspect the coalition allowed a short term period of looting to let the people vent their frustrations and show that the Iraqi people were free of the regime of Saddam Hussein. The American military is very big into psy ops, so this makes sense as a calculated maneuver though it is possible that they were successful faster than they expected so that commanders hadn't prepared orders for occupation tasks as opposed to fighting ones.



As for the soldier hating Iraqis, it's a hard question. In many ways, I don't blame him for feeling hostile towards the people he's fighting; he's got to feel that way to fight and survive. If no one gave in the type of propaganda and conditioning that a modern military uses, there wouldn't be any wars. Of course, the first people that could form a modern military in such a situation would conquer the world, as the European powers proved in their conflicts with other world civilizations in the 15th-19th centuries. Ironically, the ability to not think for oneself, to follow orders with discipline, is one of the most important survival traits for a civilization.

--

"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."

[tommo]

I suppose that would depend on one's definition of "civilised". But then, one of the reasons why I never even considered joining the armed forces is because I'm not sure I could follow an order to kill someone.

I was being patient, but it took too long. I mean, I miss Buffy, I do. But life shouldn't just stop because she's gone.

[sparrow]

In battle you do what you have to do to survive and get home.

And yet, I just can't seem to care
Buffy as you know it is over

[Diebrock]

Quote:

---

I suspect the coalition allowed a short term period of looting to let the people vent their frustrations and show that the Iraqi people were free of the regime of Saddam Hussein.

---

I can understand letting them loot the government and official buildings for that purpose. And in fact these were the first buildings affected.

But hospitals and the homes of common people who have so little to begin with are a different matter to me. They managed to successfully protect the oil wells, how much more difficult can it be to protect a damn hospital or two? Especially at a time where there are so many injured. They just stood by and let it happen in front of them.



You're right of course about the soldier mentality. I just find it schizophrenic that soldiers claiming to bring someone freedom and human rights, are taught to see the same people as not really human, certainly not as equal to them.

_____________________

"MURDERERS! Remember Orca!!! Free Willy!!!" Yun-kyung bellowed. "The shark in Jaws was just misunderstood!" - Castaway
I've kissed her best friend. I've reached into her best friend's pocket and fished around for keys. And I gave her best friend my number. I must be doing something totally, totally wrong... - TBSOL by Dreams