What good do you see in it all?

Your analogy just won't fly, SM. A closer one to the current Iraqui reality would be more as follows: Bush becomes dictator and the scenario you describe unfolds itself, but instead of the Brits coming to our rescue, its the Chinese. Now we are not only reeling from the horrors of the recent Bush dictatorship, we are trying to deal with the invasion of a people who do not speak our language, are ethnically different than most of us, and who want to impose a system of government that we have no experience with and find threatening at best. On top of that, none of these Chinese are Christian. They seem to be some strange blend of atheist communists crossed with a wierd oriental belief in Confuscianism which most of us know nothing about. There is a more true parallel of what's going on in the Mid-East today.

[Happy Monkey]

To be pedantic, very few are Christian, not none.

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

To be pedantic, very few are Christian, not none.

Whatever. Picky, Picky, Picky. What? Did you turn into Morris the Cat this evening?

[Undertoad]

If you're quibbling over whether SM's story could be a possible future, you've already missed his main point.

I'm not going to point out the point again because I couldn't do it as eloquently as SM and have you all miss it once again. It would be heartbreaking and cause me to post less in the future.

[jane_says]

So, unless I'm being whooshed, here, Undertoad, you're saying that debating using straw men, impossible hypotheticals, and a "if you have to ask, you'll never know" attitude are encouraged here?

[Happy Monkey]

Please note: My quibbling is intended to be equally applicable to the situation in Iraq and SM's hypothetical. That is also true for my nitpick on marichiko's Chinese analogy - there are a few Muslim US soldiers in Iraq.

Originally Posted by Undertoad

If you're quibbling over whether SM's story could be a possible future, you've already missed his main point.

I'm not going to point out the point again because I couldn't do it as eloquently as SM and have you all miss it once again. It would be heartbreaking and cause me to post less in the future.

My quarrel with SM's little fable is not concerning any potential that it might occur, rather I question its usefulness as an analogy. Why don't you read what I wrote, UT?

[Undertoad]

I did, but I'm still trying to figure out the part where you justify beheading the Chinese.

[jane_says]

So, then, Undertoad, like I was saying - what sort of logic did you find in smooth's scenario that the rest of us have missed? I honestly thought you were joking at first with your "I could tell you mere mortals, but since it's so apparent to anyone who can read, I won't" response.

I'll have to go dig up my secret decoder ring, I guess.

[Undertoad]

Sorry, thought you were against straw man arguments.

SM gave you an alternate history - any alternate history, really, to try to work out where the beheadings you don't quite advocate deserve the status of being not-quite-advocated-for. And the beheadings were still abominable.

[jane_says]

Show me where I used a straw man. Need a dictionary?

Smooth gave nothing akin to a history - he gave an impossible, laughable hypothetical work of poor quality, alarmist fiction. I call bullshit as to my "not quite advocating" beheadings. I fully condemn them. I merely offered reasons as to why the beheaders might feel them justified. Reminds me of what my father used to say about fisherman who wanted to kill all the Great Whites because of the surfers and swimmers who die occasionally in the ocean - hey, don't go in the water. That's where they live. Same thing applies here. Don't want to get your head lopped off by Muslim extremists? Don't invade their territory, toots.

And yes, the beheadings were abominable. But no less no than Allied troops killing the innocent in and around Iraq. Unlike with my far-fetched shark analogy, where the hell were the people our military has killed supposed to go? How were they supposed to stay out of the way of our "liberation"? Everyone who's been beheaded has made a CHOICE to be there, fully knowing that they are going into the line of fire. Contractor, medic, general or otherwise, they made an informed, conscious decision to be there. The people who live there have no such choice.

And make no mistake about it, the vast majority of people the US is holding in various prisons due to this clusterf*ck are civilians, and quite a few are children. THAT's an abomination, guy, and not a straw man in sight.

Originally Posted by Undertoad

I did, but I'm still trying to figure out the part where you justify beheading the Chinese.

You are mixing me up with Jane, UT. I also think you're having a little fun with us. I hear you and Hubris Boy are forming a mutual admiration society.

Personally, I'm not trying to justify ANY beheadings, whether real or hypothetical. Jane's point and mine is just that it can be an interesting exercise to turn the thing around and try to view it from a different perspective. You can't tell me that you wouldn't feel slightly annoyed if the Chinese over-ran the US?

[Undertoad]

I'm sure you mean "if they liberated the US" since you are interested in accurate analogy.

I'm sure that you and I would feel the same about it: grateful, and pissed as hell at anyone who made their work more difficult, since they were attempting to improve my life and my chances at a successful and free society.

[lumberjim]

[Pie]

I guess my personal take on the "Chinese invasion" would be this: If you're going my way, I'll work with you. As soon as your purposes don't serve mine, I'll ditch you. If your direction is more than 90 degrees from mine, I'll fight you.

Seems a bit like what the Iraqis are doing, afaict.

Mari, I think you were right on with the redirection from Brit to Chinese. The cultural/governmental/religious factors play a huge role here. If the drive to unseat Saddam had come from within the Arab world, most of this negative fallout would never have happened.

- Pie