Understanding terrorism

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by marichiko

Mr Galloway also claimed "the insurgents were ordinary Iraqis defending their country against foreign invaders." There's something to be said for that, let's face it. The US is a foreign country, we did invade Iraq.

The insurgents are the ordinary Iraqis defending their country. The terrorists are the people from other countries who came to take potshots at convenient Americans. Both types are there.

Not that I think that's what Galloway was saying.

[Happy Monkey]

Member of Parliament.

[Troubleshooter]

Galloway said a lot of the right things when he was before congress a while back.

That doesn't mean he's not an asshat though.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Marichiko is straining much too hard to find an evil, any evil, in what is really a great good: removing the threat presented us by bigots and religious fanatics -- which threat is the greater if it is raised up in a non-democracy. Nondemocratic social orders are prone to wars, wars by proxy (terrorist movements, deniable with varying plausibility by the ruling circles) and extremism. Fomenting democracies in the midst of this cauldron of troubles is the best chance we have of making Islamoterrorism go extinct. Is this really any harder to follow than rocket science?

If Marichiko keeps straining like that, she risks losing an intestine. The result may be good for making the roses grow, but beyond that... tsk tsk tsk.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Marichiko is straining much too hard to find an evil, any evil, in what is really a great good: removing the threat presented us by bigots and religious fanatics -- which threat is the greater if it is raised up in a non-democracy. Nondemocratic social orders are prone to wars, wars by proxy (terrorist movements, deniable with varying plausibility by the ruling circles) and extremism. Fomenting democracies in the midst of this cauldron of troubles is the best chance we have of making Islamoterrorism go extinct.

If Marichiko keeps straining like that, she risks losing an intestine.

I don't ever think of was as a 'great good'. At it's best, war is an unpleasant neccesity. Also, most countries which invaded other countries in the past 100 years did so to 'liberate' those countries. There are a lot of justifications, and most of them only seem to be believed inside the borders of the invading country.

Iraq is either a $200+ billion mistake based on faulty intelligence or the result of a conspiracy. The fact that we are attempting nation building is supposed to be a side issue to the real reason for the war.

The men and women who are making the sacrifices in Iraq today are doing so because they took and oath and trusted their leaders to use them as a last resort.

Will it be worth it? It will be while before we know. Was it a great good? If the entire Iraqi population could have voted for the invasion, would they have? We never gave them the chance to do so, and we will never know.

As for a great good, ask the parents of a dead child if the price was right.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

"We (the USA?) never gave them a chance"? Sorry, Rich, that was all Saddam's doing, as you know perfectly well. Now why in Hell didn't you have the honesty to so state?

"Ask the parents of a dead child"? Ask our dead soldiers' parents. You, Rich, will be surprised, indeed, shocked and awed, at the affirmative responses you will receive. If you have the moral courage to essay it.

My commitment to human liberty is not rattled by casualties. Not by any casualties in any amount -- for I know what freedom is worth, and know whose blood is shed to water Liberty's tree. You, OTOH, seem to know something of the cost, but not of the worth. You could stand to take a leaf from my book. I doubt you have the courage to manage it, but it would rid you of the moral cowardice I see in your position here.

I believe liberty is every bit as good for Yusuf al-Iraqi as it is for Joe Sixpack. Liberty is good for humans, and last I checked, Iraq was chiefly inhabited by humans.

Will the Shi'ite majority become politically dominant in Iraq? Very likely. It will turn out all right as long as the rights and liberties of the Sunni, Kurdish, and Christian minorities are carefully safeguarded, checking and balancing any crudities, crassnesses, or oppression the numerical majority might be tempted to enact.

Is it yet guaranteed to happen this way? No, but I'll tell you what was guaranteed: that life under a strongman rule would continue to suck, between economic distortion (few dictators ever seem to understand economics) and oppression (dictatorships always oppress, to a greater or lesser degree).

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

"We (the USA?) never gave them a chance"? Sorry, Rich, that was all Saddam's doing, as you know perfectly well. Now why in Hell didn't you have the honesty to so state?

The US backed Saddam as long as we had a use for him. Why don't you have the honesty to admit this?

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

"Ask the parents of a dead child"? Ask our dead soldiers' parents. You, Rich, will be surprised, indeed, shocked and awed, at the affirmative responses you will receive. If you have the moral courage to essay it.

Nah, UG, you're the one who lacks the moral courage to ask. I am extremely proud of my career military father's 30 years of service to this country. I was angrier than hell that he had to go risk his life doing two tours of duty in 'Nam - a foolish politician's war, if there ever was one. I'd be angry if he had to go fight in Iraq today. My friend whose husband has orders to go to Iraq in October is angry. The E3's and E4's I've talked to who have had to do 2 or 3 stints in Iraq are angry. Try to get an active duty soldier to say what he thinks about Iraq for the record. They'll be a member of JAG standing just behind his left elbow to make sure he says the right thing.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

My commitment to human liberty is not rattled by casualties. Not by any casualties in any amount -- for I know what freedom is worth, and know whose blood is shed to water Liberty's tree. You, OTOH, seem to know something of the cost, but not of the worth. You could stand to take a leaf from my book. I doubt you have the courage to manage it, but it would rid you of the moral cowardice I see in your position here.

Why don't you just crawl back into the pages of Soldier of Fortune with all those other gung ho nuts who never have seen combat? Were you with the tanks in the first wave of assault in Desert Storm? Were you in the jungle during the Tet offensive? Have you been in a fire fight in Iraq? Most soldiers who have seen actual combat don't write like you do. Tell us what branch you served in, what was your rank, and in what engagements were you under direct enemy fire. What campaign ribbons do you have, what military honors and citations? Tell us what its like to be on the "FEBA" and no fair copying out of someone else's memoirs.

I don't need to burst a gut. You provide more than enough manure around here.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

My commitment to human liberty is not rattled by casualties. Not by any casualties in any amount -- for I know what freedom is worth, and know whose blood is shed to water Liberty's tree. You, OTOH, seem to know something of the cost, but not of the worth. You could stand to take a leaf from my book. I doubt you have the courage to manage it, but it would rid you of the moral cowardice I see in your position here.

So tell us how democracy is flourishing in Vietnam. We literally used every military resource (except nuclear) to democratize a country that did not want nor would fight for democracy. Instead they wanted independence. So clearly your vision of liberty is proven by Vietnam.

Clearly democracy is flourishing in Haiti where democracy is also being forced upon the nation. And Somalia?

By now one can appreciate why enlisted men are both dumb and directed. We need such cannon fodder in the front lines. But the lessons of history are lost on these militaristic types. No problem. Knowing why would only keep them from grasping their enlisted man job.

A nation cannot have liberty and democracy forced upon it. That nation must earn those rights. Only fools still claim that the US can force democracy on nations such as in the Middle East and Central Asia. Fools who fail to first learn basic history or even the purpose of war.

Fools said we would save Vietnam when it did not want to be saved. And so those fools even lied to us until they were exposed by the Pentagon Papers. Urbane Guerrilla talks just like Gen William Westmoreland. He would have fit perfectly in late 1960s America - when America foolishly thought we could force democracy and liberty on other nations. When smarter people said Westmoreland, et al were wrong, Urbane Guerrilla types would then insult the better educated. Somehow insults and claims of military service are a replacement for knowledge, education, and intelligence. Deja Vue.

I once thought Americans would learn from the mistakes of Vietnam. Apparently enlisted men need not learn history. They just know better. It explains why enlisted men are not officers. Officers are now required to learn the lessons of history.

[lookout123]

It explains why enlisted men are not officers. Officers are now required to learn the lessons of history.

good thing tw never stoops to insulting people. UG is ridiculous in his assumptions and arguments, but tw - you know this is an asinine statement.

1) a 12 week "officer candidate school" is all that separates the enlisted from the officers in many cases when you acknowledge that a very high percentage of enlisted have at least a bachelor's and many have advanced degrees.

2) If officers are required to learn the lessons of history and officers are the decision makers, how could the mistake of repeating history be made?

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

"We (the USA?) never gave them a chance"? Sorry, Rich, that was all Saddam's doing, as you know perfectly well. Now why in Hell didn't you have the honesty to so state?

"Ask the parents of a dead child"? Ask our dead soldiers' parents. You, Rich, will be surprised, indeed, shocked and awed, at the affirmative responses you will receive. If you have the moral courage to essay it.

My commitment to human liberty is not rattled by casualties. Not by any casualties in any amount -- for I know what freedom is worth, and know whose blood is shed to water Liberty's tree. You, OTOH, seem to know something of the cost, but not of the worth. You could stand to take a leaf from my book. I doubt you have the courage to manage it, but it would rid you of the moral cowardice I see in your position here.

You mean like these parents of soldiers?

You claim to have been in the Navy. You must remember your oath. I was never in uniform, but I also took an oath to 'support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies'.

The 'Constitution of the United States', not the Constitution of Iraq. If we really wanted to invade Iraq and commit to nation building, then by all means make the case and ask for volunteers. The men and women in Iraq are doing their jobs as well as they can considering how truly *&(*ed up the planning for this war was. They are abiding by their oath, which also says that they will obey the President. This does not mean that they should be there or that they even think that they should be there. It was the job of Congress and the President to decide when to deploy them and how to support them and they royally screwed up.

If a bunch of gung ho idiots are really up for 'freeing the world', then they should reenlist and let the soldiers who have done their tour and just want to come home do so.

You show me a real, credible threat to this country and I will fight it. Getting cranked up from watching too much GOP TV and getting a hard-on to take on the world is a waste of my time.

I'd love to take a leaf from your book, but I don't read crayon too well.

BTW, if you have a complaint, you can ask for me by name, my real name. I use it to back up every post that I make. How's that for moral courage, Mr. Urbane?

Actually, I really don't need an answer. There are people on the Cellar who I disagree with who I still have a lot of respect for. Their opinions matter to me. Considering the tone, manner, and content of your posts, I think a dialogue with one of Wolf's tenants would probably be more productive than anything you could generate, assuming you are a real person and not a pseudonym of some Cellarite picking the most outlandish personality to stir up trouble. You just seem a little too one-dimensional, Mr. Urbane.

If you are indeed real, your prayers have been answered and there's a war on. Don't let us keep you from your nearest recruiting station.

Originally Posted by richlevy

Considering the tone, manner, and content of your posts, I think a dialogue with one of Wolf's tenants would probably be more productive than anything you could generate, assuming you are a real person and not a pseudonym of some Cellarite picking the most outlandish personality to stir up trouble. You just seem a little too one-dimensional, Mr. Urbane.

Gosh, maybe Urbane Guerilla is really Slang!

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

removing the threat presented us by bigots and religious fanatics --

That is not what we are doing in Iraq. Hussein was a tinpot dictator, but he was a secular one. He tortured people for purely personal and/or political reasons. The bigots and religious fanatics are the ones who are now preparing to write sharia law into the Iraqi Constitution.

Nondemocratic social orders are prone to wars, wars by proxy (terrorist movements, deniable with varying plausibility by the ruling circles) and extremism.

Why, that's what the US has been doing for decades! Good point. We do need to work on improving our democracy.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

That is not what we are doing in Iraq. Hussein was a tinpot dictator, but he was a secular one. He tortured people for purely personal and/or political reasons. . .

I don't think you're looking into it deeply enough, Happy. To make Islamoterrorism go extinct, you need to eliminate all of its breeding grounds, which means all of the non-democracies in the Arabic-speaking world, and then further, in all the Islamic world. A large task, true, but not necessarily impossible, except to the mind that finds freedom too great a strain. Iraq was one such breeding ground, and the case of al-Zarqawi getting surgery from Saddam's Iraq, connected to al-Qaeda quite closely enough for me. And what country was it that harbored Carlos the Jackal, before snuffing him just before the 2003 invasion in case he inconvenienced somebody like Saddam by talking? Saddam's Iraq was in it up to their collective neck, people, and from first principles, not because we shot at them. We'd not have shot at them if they hadn't been in it already.

To amplify: there's no particular wrong in taking the weakest dictatorship down first, and it's already been shown ad nauseam that if our Middle East policy were solely about oil, such a policy would have been singularly ill served by our giving the Rumaila oilfield right back to Iraq just as soon as we could walk our boots and roll our tanks off it.

We want these nations to stop behaving like shitheads, and since we don't particularly wish to exterminate all their inhabitants, democratization sounds like the best bet. Will these democracies precisely resemble the US? Don't bet on it; these will always have an Arab accent to them, or their populaces will choke on them -- and go back to some shitheaded manner of society. I'd call that unacceptable, wouldn't you?

Why, that's what the US has been doing for decades! Good point. We do need to work on improving our democracy.

Monkey, that's a damned dishonest spin to put on our effort to fight against tyrannies. Just because we temporarily fail to fight against one tyrant does not make illegitimate removing and hanging another, and you know that perfectly well. I mean, how could it? The above example of leftist-think is a good example of just why I am no sort of leftist: their thoughts are stupid, and they do not satisfy. Also, I'm too old, and have grown up too far, to be a leftist, or be taken in by their cant, or their can'ts.

Level with me, can't you? Isn't this less because its being done at all than it is because it's a Republican doing it? The Democrats haven't presented a President capable of getting this done since Johnson, and he blew it. The record of the last two generations shows the Republicans, on getting this kind of chance, don't blow it. Who's got the winning record here?

I posit myself as a fairly neutral observer of this partisan wrassle, being of the Libertarian persuasion.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

I don't think you're looking into it deeply enough, Happy. To make Islamoterrorism go extinct, you need to eliminate all of its breeding grounds, which means all of the non-democracies in the Arabic-speaking world, and then further, in all the Islamic world.

Actually, the terrorist breeding-grounds are every country in the world. Pre-war Iraq wasn't much (if at all) worse than average in that regard, and it was lower than pretty much all of its neighbors.

Monkey, that's a damned dishonest spin to put on our effort to fight against tyrannies. Just because we temporarily fail to fight against one tyrant does not make illegitimate removing and hanging another, and you know that perfectly well.

Did I say anything about temporarily failing to fight? The US has actively supported tyrannies and terrorist organization both publically and behind the scenes for decades.

Level with me, can't you? Isn't this less because its being done at all than it is because it's a Republican doing it?

No.

The Democrats haven't presented a President capable of getting this done since Johnson, and he blew it. The record of the last two generations shows the Republicans, on getting this kind of chance, don't blow it. Who's got the winning record here?

Clinton, I guess, by your definition. Bush I left Saddam in power, and the current Bush is putting the Sharia Law people in power in Iraq and Afghanistan. The war Clinton was involved in was successful, had no US casualties, and didn't trash the country involved.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

I proudly bear two awards Navy Expeditionary Medal, as I've said before -- stupid of you to forget, isn't it? I've got nine years' more military service than you do, Marichiko, in the United States Navy. I served in the Naval Security Group and made Cryptologic Technician (Interpretive) First Class -- I made my living speaking, reading, and writing Russian. My first award of the Navy Expeditionary was for service in support of the Iranian hostage rescue mission, the second for secretive doings off the shore of a then-hostile nation, further north.

So I'm not going to crawl back into anywhere, you squealing little lightweight. You haven't done any of this, and I've got your number: you've got a flapping jaw and a foolish hatred for the United States and that's all, unless you count a correspondingly foolish love for tyrants as an asset. I wouldn't.

You actually show a ray of hope in that you "don't need to bust a gut." Good: stop doing what you don't need to, then. This will help you be something other than purblind and immature. I'd rather deal with a better Marichiko than the one I'm seeing.