Your American Masters
I've been reading some online newspapers today--UK's the Guardian and the London Times, a couple of papers from Israel and Lebanon and I've come to this disheartening conclusion: Everybody sees the US as the Evil Master--even Israel, even England. You should read some of the comments on these papers blogs to get a good sense of no matter what the US does, it is wrong, evil, manipulative, trying to keep them down, etc, etc. NO MATTER WHAT WE DO! If we send humanitarian aid, we are being braggarts, if we don't-we're selfish bastards. To me, it looks like the only way to win a war is the way it was done in WWII. These PC wars do nothing but grow the extremist population. Israel thinks we've been defeated in Iraq and want them to finish the job we couldn't by "getting" them to fight Hezbollah! Lordy, lordy...
... no matter what the US does, it is wrong, evil, manipulative, trying to keep them down, etc, etc. ...
That's only policies initiated by conservative republican fundamentalist Christians.:eek: There's a theory that we take the hit for everything because we're the only remaining superpower. Who knows?
This is a good reason to be isolationist. We should become self-sufficient and remove ourselves from the world scene. Perhaps then we'll be more appreciated.
Not all the newspapers in the UK are so leftist...just a lot of them. Read Google News for a while and you begin to find out who's who.
I say it all the time, we are "evil" when we "police the world" and then we are "evil" when we "refuse to police the world". They don't know what they want other than someone who is not afraid to make a decision to blame.
It's called envy, see the following.
Again, as always, don't use our jack, don't take our aid, don't use our technology (in any field), don't ask us to bail your ass out of any situation, don't come here for heart, brain surgery, vacation or retirement or send your kids to school here, don't come here to work so you can buy a home in your broke-ass country instead of staying there an fixing it yourself.... don't, don't, don't do shit with the US... THEN you won't have shit to complain about.
It's easy.
Its lonely at the top. But eventually, it'll be someone else's turn and the world will long for the good old days of being America's beyotch.
To me, it looks like the only way to win a war is the way it was done in WWII.
We can't do that unless we're fighting a country, an army, with uniforms, and little civilian involvement. That doesn't happen anymore. :headshake
If it did, we'd have Gulf War I again. Even wackos know better than to tug on Superman's cape.
Or spit into the wind.
Or pull the mask off the ol' Lone Ranger.
As Beestie put it, sooner or later someone else will be the super power and then everyone will forget the US just like they did the British and French and the Greeks and the Romans and...and...and...so don't stress out too much.
I'm just glad little old Australia wont ever have to worry about being in that position. :)
Of course we're still picking up after the British...
Of course we're still picking up after the British...
And the French...
As Beestie put it, sooner or later someone else will be the super power and then everyone will forget the US just like they did the British and French and the Greeks and the Romans and...and...and...so don't stress out too much.
I'm just glad little old Australia wont ever have to worry about being in that position. :)
Who's your pick, Aliantha? Iran? China?
And no faith in your home team? For shame.
forget the US just like they did the British and French and the Greeks and the Romans and...and...and...
So long as your interested in history, let's not forget that after the Huns and Visigoths and all those other lovely people conqured Rome and the surrounding civilizations that the European world was plunged into 1,000 years of darkness. And life was nasty, brutish and short. Yay!
Brianna...I'd lay odds on China. Seems to me they're biding their time the last couple of decades.
They'll come into power as a developing nation and leave it as a decaying one...just as most of the powers in the past have.
But what would I know?
I live in a country where there's less than 25 million residents. Very small in comparison to most others...cept New Zealand, and we all know they don't count. ;) The population would have to explode for us to even have the man power to rule the world, let alone the guts and mustard required to do so. Don't get me wrong though, I think my country is the best in the world and I pity you all for not living here. You just don't know what you're missing. :)
I know what we're not missing....water. :smack:
Well, when you live in a country that's over 70% desert, water is always going to be in short supply. ;)
I fully support the U.S.A. and always have. :-) I support the fight against oppressors and dictators and tyrants and murderers and fanatics. Trying to imagine how anyone can support the "bad guys" and it just blows me away. I suppose it's due to poverty and no education and brain washing. But you would think they would want in their hearts for themselves and their familes...the standard of living the west has. And if they would stop fighting and hating and become peaceful and democratic it's doable. WTF? How do you reach them and get them to see the good possibilities that exists for friendship and trade and tourism and cultural exchange, etc etc????????
The need to wake up. Drop leaflets on them every day in their own language reaching out to their intellectual and logical side, and not the emotional freaking out side.
They also need a sense of humour!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I fully support the U.S.A. and always have. :-)
I must say, this sentiment is not at all usual from our foreign friends. Thanks! For the record, despite what I say about Frogs (my mother is one) I like Canada.
I think a lot of the hatred is because they see the Western world as evil, godless (or, Mohammed-less) demons who can't keep women in their place.
Middle Eastern men think Western women are all whores and Western men are castrated ninnies and they can't figure out how a bunch of whores and ninnies are winning the game.
...I'd lay odds on China. Seems to me they're biding their time the last couple of decades.
yeah, but do you see how they treat their
dogs?
I live in a country where there's less than 25 million residents. Very small...
Oh, come on. Great Britian is small and they ruled the world, baby! They've never gotten over that, apparently.
Well, when you live in a country that's over 70% desert, water is always going to be in short supply.
Yes, it's the same on the west coast of the US. Beautiful along the coast, but as you go inland water starts to get scarce.
From what I've seen of Australia, in pictures/TV/internet, parts of the country are incredibly beautiful.
The people are nice too. I guess being on the bottom of the world, you spend so much time trying to keep from falling off, you're too busy to give anybody any grief. :lol:
Just kidding....I guess this is the top of the world because people up here wrote the description.
New Zealand looks beautiful, too, but I think I'd get damn sick of climbing hills.
Middle Eastern men think Western women are all whores and Western men are castrated ninnies and they can't figure out how a bunch of whores and ninnies are winning the game.
They're wrong? :bolt:
Middle Eastern men think Western women are all whores and Western men are castrated ninnies and they can't figure out how a bunch of whores and ninnies are winning the game.
This is exactly right, I think.
It's not just that Israel is full of Jooos. It's that it's massively successful.
This is totally unacceptable to the average *intelligent* Arab Muslim because Allah is supposed to kick their ass nine different ways. It isn't supposed to turn out like this, where the Muslims are undeveloped and backwards and, where there isn't oil, desperately poor. But these cultures have several points wrong on Ralph Peters' seven signs of uncompetitive states:[LIST]
[*]Restrictions on the free flow of information.
[*]The subjugation of women.
[*]Inability to accept responsibility for individual or collective failure.
[*]The extended family or clan as the basic unit of social organization.
[*]Domination by a restrictive religion.
[*]A low valuation of education.
[*]Low prestige assigned to work[/LIST]We are heretical to them.
where i first read that
The Q'uran also tells them that their nations should be powerful and important, and there was a time when it was true. The golden age of the Islamic empire was glorious. It also ended 600 years ago, and these days the reality is that the only reason that Saudi Arabia isn't a terribly impoverished third world nation is that it's sitting on reserves of oil. But among the Islamic nations, the only ones who have managed to succeed at anything other than selling natural resources have been those which have adopted western ways, western technology, western attitudes. The more devoutly Islamic a nation is, the more it seems to be a failure in all other ways. To be devout should mean being strong, but it seems to make them weak. It's almost as if the Q'uran was wrong – but the Q'uran cannot be wrong; it's the word of God.
So we (you and I) are a living, walking, talking heresy. We're not even trying to spread our culture to the Islamic nations; it just happens on its own because, quite frankly, they are not very fun places to live. Irrespective of whether a devout Islamic life might be good for the soul, it's boring and unpleasant for the body and mind. The people there prefer our lifestyle; they eagerly seek it out. We seem to have no interest at all in their culture, however, except as an intellectual curiosity. There's zero chance of American women adopting the abaya, for example.
Indeed, it's our women who are the worst problem of all. They insist on being equal to men, and most of our men like it that way. They drive cars. They walk alone in the city. They go where they want, and they wear whatever they feel like. They show immorally large amounts of skin (i.e. their elbows and knees) and walk around with their heads uncovered. Many of them live alone, and have jobs and careers. They bear arms; they serve in our military; and many of them are officers and give orders to men. This is unholy; God tells the Islamic extremist that women must be subservient to men at all times.
And the women of the Islamic world want the same, and it scares the men running al Qaeda. And it's important to note that they are all men. Our culture attracts their young, and it attracts their women of all age. It even attracts some of the older men. Islam is losing the war for the Arab mind.
The extremists wish a return to the glory of Islamic dominance of the world, because it is what God told them would happen. And every year that passes makes this seem less and less likely, as the Islamic nations fall further and further behind the west in nearly every way that can be measured. 600 years ago, Islam was a great and glorious culture, but 600 years ago there was no humanist, liberal democracy combined with capitalism and science. Now those things exist, and no nation combines them better than we in America; and in every possible way that can be objectively measured, secular liberal democracy and capitalism and science are kicking Islamic culture's ass.
They're being buried, and we don't even seem to be doing it deliberately. We are so much more powerful, and our culture so much more vital and vibrant, that we don't even notice theirs.
They call us devils, because they truly see us as evil. We are the embodiment of the forces fighting against God and Islam, and we're winning. We win in terms of economic might; in terms of military power; in all forms of temporal power in fact. And we're winning the fight for minds and souls; our ideas are infecting the Arabs even in Holy Saudi Arabia, the very core of Islam, home of the two Mosques. We profane their faith just by breathing.
where i first read that
Yes, I was reminded of Denbeste when I read
this this morning.
Wright draws a fascinating picture of Sayyid Qutb, the font of modern Islamic fundamentalism, a frail, middle-aged writer who found himself, as a visitor to the United States and a student at Colorado State College of Education in Greeley in the 1940’s, overwhelmed by the unbridled splendor and godlessness of modern America. And by the sex: like so many others who followed him, Qutb seemed simultaneously drawn to and repelled by American women, so free and unselfconscious in their sexuality. The result is a kind of delirium:
“A girl looks at you, appearing as if she were an enchanting nymph or an escaped mermaid,” Qutb wrote, “but as she approaches, you sense only the screaming instinct inside her, and you can smell her burning body, not the scent of perfume, but flesh, only flesh. Tasty flesh, truly, but flesh nonetheless.”
It wasn’t much later that Qutb began writing elaborate rationalizations for killing non-Muslims and waging war against the West. Years later, Atta expressed a similar mix of obsession and disgust for women. Indeed, anyone who has spent time in the Middle East will recognize such tortured emotions.
WRIGHT shows, correctly, that at the root of Islamic militancy — its anger, its antimodernity, its justifications for murder — lies a feeling of intense humiliation. Islam plays a role in this, with its straitjacketed and all-encompassing worldview. But whether the militant hails from a middle-class family or an impoverished one, is intensely religious or a “theological amateur,” as Wright calls bin Laden and his cohort, he springs almost invariably from an ossified society with an autocratic government that is unable to provide any reason to believe in the future. Islam offers dignity, even in — especially in — death. Living in the West, Atta and the others felt these things more acutely, not less. As Wright notes:
“Their motivations varied, but they had in common a belief that Islam — pure and primitive, unmitigated by modernity and uncompromised by politics — would cure the wounds that socialism or Arab nationalism had failed to heal. They were angry but powerless in their own countries.
Long about now some "progressive" should chime in with a guilt-ridden whine about how this is
our fault...
I wholeheartedly agree that Australia is a beautiful place. Spectacular even. On the other hand, most countries in the world have beauty for the viewing if you're willing to look for it.
What I like the most is the casual lifestyle and the attitude of the people. It's different to any you'd find anywhere else in the world. Maybe that's why so many people want to come here and visit. I don't know. I'm pretty selfish about Australia though. Sometimes I wish there were less tourists. They really can be a pain in the arse. :)
Brianna...I don't think we have enough catholics in this country. At the moment, the government is trying to encourage people to breed, but they're not having that much success. Their slogan is, "One for Mum, One for Dad and one for the country". I don't ever think we'll have the population to take over the world. :(
Aliantha, change that frown to a smile. and be thankful you can't take over the world. You don't want it.....it sucks. ;)
Its lonely at the top. But eventually, it'll be someone else's turn and the world will long for the good old days of being America's beyotch.
The world already longs for the good old days when being at the top meant America had so many friends. Of course that meant Americans first learned the perspectives of the world rather than preach to the world what was right and wrong. Become so anti-American as to even believe we can impose democracy on all others.
Remember the good old days when America believed in containment? When we learned before declaring 'right and wrong', then a world was 70% pro-American. It is now less than 15% so.
Most readers here did not exist during Vietnam - when again, respect for America was so low. Of course it was. Americans were also back then so ignorant as to demand what is right and wrong rather than first learn facts. Americans would even lie to themselves rather than admit the Vietnam reality.
A little test for each lurker. Was America the good guy or the bad guy in Vietnam? If you still say Americans were the good guys, then you have no grasp of reality and history. Tragedy of Vietnam is how good people can do so much evil. Only a classic anti-American ignores why American were the bad guys.
Vietnam War is a classic example of how Americans were so righteous as to murder those who had even been America's closest allies. If you did not yet learn basic history - such as a Ho Chi Minh that desperately wanted to become a protectorate of the US - then you never learned how anti-American we became back then. We blindly believed lies. Many today are so anti-American as to still believe those Vietnam era lies - such as the Domino Theory. Vietnam is a benchmark. If you learned about Vietnam, then you learned why America became so anti-American. A true patriot learns from history. Only anti-Americans deny it.
'Terrorists are lurking everywhere' is only preached in a righteous America. Mostly among George Jr supporters. ‘Terrorism everywhere’ is more fodder for Armageddon. Only 'evil people' want Armageddon. No wonder the world has become so worried. So many who want Armageddon also proclaim they are ‘god’s chosen’ people.
Among good people are not issues in black and white. Good people see the world in perspective. Perspective was always difficult for anti-American types who are so righteous. When Americans were instead honest, then Americans were 70% popular. Being at the top meant friends everywhere. Neither the world nor god likes a country lead by liars. Welcome to an America that only wants enemies – ‘terrorist are lurking everywhere’. It is only lonely at the top when we are anti-American - and even hype lies to invent enemies. No wonder the world is no longer so friendly. Everytime it gets lonely at the top, America was the problem. Again, learn from history.
Of course that meant Americans first learned the perspectives of the world rather than preach to the world what was right and wrong. .. Was America the good guy or the bad guy in Vietnam? If you still say Americans were the good guys, then you have no grasp of reality and history.
So...even though you're old enough to remeber Vietnam, you still haven't learned this lesson. :-)
What lesson is that then?
What lesson is that then?
Ipse dixit.
...first learned the perspectives of the world rather than preach to the world what was right and wrong...
I like Australians and I like Australia. Very much. It is, however, socially British-colonially stuffy. You can taste that in the air even over in WA, Perth and Fremantle -- I got over there by submarine once, about 1983. While Australia and America are much alike in that they have a fundamentally English/British culture laid upon a larger, drier, hotter place than the UK is, America has a freewheeling quality that Australia lacks -- a quality I found that I missed in the otherwise delightful Australian experience.
I imagine Australians coming up here, and being ritually shown the Big Dipper and the Pole Star on the first clear night just as Americans tend to ask to see the Southern Cross, wouldn't find it too difficult to adapt, though.
UG...I can only guess from your post that you spent time with the wrong people over here. There's very few Australians who I would describe as stuffy or british-colonial.
Maybe you missed the heart of Australia and only scratched the surface.
You should come again some time and try out the real australia (east coast) instead of those stuffy WAers (who're mostly from South Africa and other off continent sites). Did you at least make it to Freo when you were in WA?
I've only been to Caaaaaayanes (Cairns) and Port Douglas, but that's enough for me... I'm in love. I honestly want to move to Austrailia when I grow up, though mah girl wants to go to New Zealand...
I honestly want to move to Austrailia when I grow up, though mah girl wants to go to New Zealand...
Both are very nice. I'd rather vacation in New Zealand and work in Australia.
Well... there was the Leading WREN that invited a couple of us over for spaghetti one evening... and the elderly lady who asked me to show her what a US penny looked like, saying, "I'm sure you must think this terribly ignorant of me..." (the sort of behavior inveighed against as "the Australian cultural cringe" in books of the time), and the schoolboys who asked us what we thought of Australian beer (it's darn good). It was my first exposure to Australian table wines -- the Monty Python sketch was later for me.
The social stuffiness seems less a thing of individual Australians than of something in the atmosphere. Singapore has the identical feel -- and it too was a British colony. I didn't pick this up in Kenya, perhaps because the social effect of the strongman rulership of Daniel Arap Moi overlaid it too much.
The WA'ers told us the people from The Big Smoke were the stuffy ones. At this point an American might lift an eyebrow and wonder aloud about "a failure to communicate (broad Cool Hand Luke reference)."
Fremantle (was that "Freo?") struck me as a small navy town, most notable for its port facilities and underused submarine base, which is handy for US nuke boats making a port call during operations in the IO, as our submariners abbreviate the Indian Ocean. Come to think of it, I spent most of my at-sea time in the Navy somewhere in the Indian Ocean.
I say it all the time, we are "evil" when we "police the world" and then we are "evil" when we "refuse to police the world". They don't know what they want other than someone who is not afraid to make a decision to blame.
I know what we don't want. We don't want a bent copper.
When a collectivist starts using first person plural, be very, very careful...:-)
I've known a few bent coppers in my time.
UG...I just don't know what sort of blinders you must have had on when you came here, but I guess it doesn't matter.
Sorry you missed the best part of the country here.
Maybe the people he met there didn't like him? :whip:
Sounds like the old birds did. :)
Yes.:thumb2:
Probably because he's a throwback to the Teddy Roosevelt era.
They liked me fine. What you two are doing is known to psychology as "projection," which has a way of seldom being valid.
Don't indulge in it myself.
What's up your klacker today UG?
I object to people being idiots, on principle -- particularly if they are not quite idiots to begin with. Do you mind, Aliantha?
That's funny, we feel the same way. :eyebrow:
Object away UG. I'm not going to change me for you mate, so get over it or move on.
Perhaps if you remove the broomstick from your arse you may not feel quite so objectionable all the time.
I don't think there's much chance of UG changing, Aliantha....not even the broomstick. :lol:
:) That's a shame for him, and bad luck for the rest of us.
So you're telling me that out of ego, you'd prefer to remain an idiot, or simulate one rather too precisely, just for fun?
I have different hobbies that I think are more worthwhile.
Why don't you go do them then? :)
'Cos I'd rather guilt-trip you, of course! :p
Hmmm...what are you making me feel guilty about?
Probably because he's a throwback to the Teddy Roosevelt era.
Why Bruce, anyone would think you have a jaundiced view of this. But which is likely to be better: throwing back to a two-term President who was the only Medal of Honor winner among forty-three, or throwing back to a vitiated Democrat like Jimmy Carter? I know who I'd pick, because I suppose an assertive foreign policy keeps the troublemakers, the non-democracies and their proxies and lackeys, thoroughly frightened of what an aroused Republic could do. Keep the anti-freedom types emasculated as well as eviscerated. They shouldn't be breeding anyway, not if you want a decent world. Those who would let them grow instead are being neither wise nor sophisticated. More nearly, these have the minds of slaves.
So, Aliantha, somehow you didn't read post #51?
Don't encourage me to sneer at you for a blockhead. It is unrewarding to simulate idiocy unless you are a professional comedian -- then it can be lucrative.
lol...well if your sneer is as good as Elvis' then I wouldn't mind too much...or even JD's come to think of it.
Maybe I should consider a career in comedy. Obviously I'm not entertaining you with my intellect. :)
Keep the anti-freedom types emasculated as well as eviscerated
You mean like Saudi Arabia or Pakistan?
Or were you referring to Iran? That
must be it, since they're rolling over like submissive dogs to our overwhelming foreign "policy".
And now Ladies & Gentlemen...LIVE...from the Reichstag........
Why blah blah blah yada yada yada
:rolleyes:
Maybe I should consider a career in comedy. Obviously I'm not entertaining you with my intellect. :)
Well, not that way, you're not. <shrug>
Neither you nor Bruce. I'm disappointed, rather, with Bruce. He's usually in better form, and usually able to acknowledge that I can't be confused with a Fascist.
Now Headsplice, why would you think I'd cite any of those as examples of what we might conveniently call E & E? Citing some failures to E & E hardly invalidates actually implementing such a policy, now does it?
Oh goodness, I didn't mean to imply you were a fascist....heavens, no.
I was just pointing out you have the same zeal and determination, to impose your views on the whole World, with as much force as necessary to grind any objections into the dirt with your jackboot, but not a fascist.
Lets see now, the difference is........hmm....:smack:
Of course citing failures isn't a reason to invalidate a particular policy. Nothing works 100%. However, I'd like you to show me when E&E (a.k.a., American Foreign Policy at the mo) actually works. A single example. In any of the past five years.
... But which is likely to be better: throwing back to a two-term President who was the only Medal of Honor winner among forty-three, or throwing back to a vitiated Democrat like Jimmy Carter?...
In the interest of full disclosure self-promoting imperialist TR was refused the Congressional Medal of Honor back when he lobbied for it, but was granted the medal by Bill Clinton.
Why pick five years when you could as easily pick a hundred? Note that every single fight we've been in these last fivescore years and more has been on behalf of the greater freedom against the greater tyranny. Democracy's greater virtue did not come to an end in August 1945, I'll have you remember.
Horse crap. You've got WW2 definitely in your camp. You've got Korea, Panama, and Grenada as iffy. You've got the Spanish-American war, Vietnam, Gulf War I and II (show me the functioning democracy as a result of either of those conflicts) and Afghanistan (it's falling apart b/c we left too soon) as firmly against.
And I chose those five years because all the good will that we had in the world (in both political capital from being, you know, diplomatic for the past half-century, and from after 9/11 (when there were pro-US demonstrations in Tehran, for crap's sake) has been completely wasted by the policy of E&E.
Tell me again how killing and humiliation is supposed to spread (American) democracy?
You kill democracy's enemies that they may not impede democracy: dead oppressors are singularly ineffectual at it, or had you noticed? Where's the objection to this? Only in pacifism, and pacifism isn't a sustainable philosophy: either the pacifism or the pacifist must perish under attack, as may be demonstrated by pacifists hoisting the Jolly Roger under sufficient provocation: pacifism isn't exactly in play in spitting on soldiers and calling them baby-killers, or beating them savagely on the streets.
You discredit the antidemocrats' ideas that they may have nothing to impede democracy with. If they are humiliated, it is no more than they deserve, and indeed, far less: because I've seen what un-democracy does, I want antidemocrats exterminated. When the world is all democracies, it will be a far better world. Let the unenlightened of the world beware the wrath of democracy aroused.
You seem unaware that we still have our military presence in Afghanistan. The local liberaloid weekly meticulously notes the US casualties in both Irag and Afghanistan, and we're still taking casualties in Afghanistan, rest assured.
And try telling me, if you please, how a wimpy, unreal Jimmy Carter/Bill Clinton style of foreign policy "is supposed to spread... democracy?" And why are you comfortable with it?
And try telling me, if you please, how a wimpy, unreal Jimmy Carter/Bill Clinton style of foreign policy "is supposed to spread... democracy?" And why are you comfortable with it?
Well, for starters, by not replacing dictatorships with military rulership (yes, RULERSHIP) that they have no say in and control over?
And try telling me, if you please, how a wimpy, unreal Jimmy Carter/Bill Clinton style of foreign policy "is supposed to spread... democracy?" And why are you comfortable with it?
Howz the democracy going in Iraq and Afghanistan anywayz?
About as well as your spelling.:rolleyes:
wots wrong wiz my zpelling?
I'm sure Maggie will tell you. ;)
1)You kill democracy's enemies that they may not impede democracy: dead oppressors are singularly ineffectual at it, or had you noticed?
2)You discredit the antidemocrats' ideas that they may have nothing to impede democracy with. If they are humiliated, it is no more than they deserve, and indeed, far less: because I've seen what un-democracy does, I want antidemocrats exterminated. When the world is all democracies, it will be a far better world. Let the unenlightened of the world beware the wrath of democracy aroused.
3)You seem unaware that we still have our military presence in Afghanistan. The local liberaloid weekly meticulously notes the US casualties in both Irag and Afghanistan, and we're still taking casualties in Afghanistan, rest assured.
1)So the only way to spread democracy is to kill people, right? You do understand that you sound like the Socialist/Communist revolutionaries of the 1960's and 70's who believed they could jumpstart a S/C revolution with some explosives. Yeah, that worked really well. For a more concrete example...how well is democracy spreading in Iraq? Oh yeah...that civil war bit...right, right.
2)What the hell are you talking about? Kindly define your antecedent. What does 'you' refer to?
3)Yeah, I know there are still casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. But we were talking about spreading democracy with cluster bombs. How well is that working, again? How much of Afghanistan does the Taliban control these days?
I haven't heard the Taliban is having much success at controlling anything in Afghanistan. The Afghan government, admittedly such as it is, isn't giving up without a fight and neither are the international forces there. This leaves the Taliban with pressing problems of survival that don't leave much available for the problems of control -- which are large in Afghanistan in any case, as a particularly ornery independence of mindset is as Afghan as the day is long. Shooting at uninvited foreigners is an even more prevalent national sport than that mounted game with a dead goat.
Do you really think you can morally support the idea that democracy's -- thus mankind's -- enemies should be thought of as people? People are who they hurt. Should they not be prevented? Face it, bub: I'm more pro-democracy and pro-human than you are. Today, anyway. Pull up your socks.
Surely you've heard of the "impersonal you" from English class? I know I have. Is your English somewhat deficient, or are you merely quibbling just to show you can quibble? I can think of better hobbies -- give hand bookbinding a thought. I mean not only this forum's readership in general, but myself, and you personally, head slice. Don't be wanking while democracy's enemies fuck up the planet.
It is unlikely that any government will ever 'control' Afghanistan. At least not in the near future. Have a look into the history of the country and you'll see why. The country has never been unified under one leader and has always been subject to corruption and any number of other nasty words used to describe these sorts of situations. Suggesting that Afghanistan is one country is like suggesting that all indigenous Americans are from the same tribe. Afghanistan is a just a land mass which is inhabited by different tribes who've been forced by outside rule or inner terrorism to adhere to the same rules. This has been a failure of immense proportions throughout history. I don't know why anyone thinks they have the power to change that.
Any chance someone will try just denationalizing the whole zone and breaking it down into little pieces? Each section (lets say there are 300 of them) could elect a local council to deal with basic issues pertaining to that area, much like a village government. That way you could get by with only a handful of
laws designed to stop power players in each peice from lumping them all back together again, such as saying that no contract can be made which includes more than 10 zones. Very rough idea, but the gist is to revert government back to the way it was 1700 years ago. If most of the country lives the same way they did back then, why update the government? Just zone off comercial areas and keep everyone separate. Add to this if you want, just musing.
9th, I suppose if that were to happen, then there would be tribal wars just as there has been historically, and one will fight to have more power than the next. Arguments will happen over boundaries etc. It'd be nice if what you've suggested could occur peacefully, but history suggests that if the people of the area couldn't live peacefully that way in the past, what has changed to make it happen now? Is it possible that a democratic process managed by an outside party (perhaps the UN for what it's worth) could facilitate such a thing? Personally, I doubt it. My faith in democratic processes with regard to international events is fairly non-existant at this point. In saying that though, now that events are in motion, the only way to move is forward.
Do you really think you can morally support the idea that democracy's -- thus mankind's -- enemies should be thought of as people?
Well, here we are. That magical point where we come up with a label to stop thinking of a group of people as human beings. It's worked so well for Nazis, various other fascists, and any number of murdering Communist bastards from Stalin to Pol Pot.:mad:
Of course, when we start lining them up against the wall and shooting them, we'll be doing it for Democracy, which makes us the
good guys.:eyebrow:
domcracy is a relatively new concept to mankind. I'd be cautious about suggesting that anyone who isn't from a democratic nation isn't human. I'd even go so far as to say that democracy is the cause of just as much strife as any other form or government.
Geez, I wish I could spell. Where's Maggie when you need her?
Maybe she can tell us what I meant by domcracy. lol
Democracy is just a form of government. It does not reflect the character of the people laboring under it.
"... a curious delusion - as if adding zeros could produce a sum." - Robert Heinlein, Glory Road - on democracy