Iran creates international panic
Iran creates international panic after claiming US plane violated airspace
An Iranian news agency sparked fears of an international standoff and left the Pentagon scrambling to identify its planes today after it reported that a US jet had strayed into its territory and been forced to land.
The semi-official Fars News Agency this afternoon said that five US military officials and three civilians were interrogated at an unnamed Iranian airport after accidentally straying into the Islamic Republic's airspace.
They were released after it was established that the plane had not entered the territory intentionally, the agency said, adding that it did not know when the incident had happened.
After hastily investigating the claims, however, the Pentagon poured scorn on them.
The US said that all of its planes in the Middle East had been identified and none had recently been missing or involved in any incident.
"According to the combined air operations centre, all our aircraft are accounted for and we have no reports of any aircraft landing in Iran," US Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Ryder said.
As the story unfolded, a senior Iranian military official told Iranian state television’s Arabic-language channel Al-Alam that what was said to be a military jet was, in fact, a private Hungarian business aircraft and that no Americans were on board. It added that the incident dated back to September 30.
"The airplane is now being confirmed as a light transport plane with no Americans onboard," US military spokesman Lieutenant David Russell said.
They can't really be that stoopit - can they? If not, what are they up to?
Yes, of course they can be that stupid. Stupid enough to publish before verifying the facts. Certainly. Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
As for the putative title of the original article? Yes, I believe they could conceivably choose to and succeed at forcing down a US aircraft under some circumstances. I think it would be a very high stakes gamble, but that is so far into hypothetical land, that practically any set of circumstances is equally unlikely. Go on, imagine anything.
Real world, very, very unlikely. Possible, but highly unlikely.
They're unhappy about oil falling below $90/bbl.
Iran is concerned that the deepening global financial crisis is having a bigger impact on oil demand growth than previously expected, the Islamic Republic's OPEC governor said on Tuesday.
It was too early to say if the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) would have to cut production at its December meeting to match lower demand growth, Muhammad Ali Khatibi told Reuters in an interview.
"We are worried about demand," Khatibi said. "The financial crisis is deeper than we expected and this is definitely influencing world oil demand."
This is the same circus that pshopped their own missile launches, right?
And we know how that turned out, right? There's a vast credibility gap here, at least in terms of my receptivity to their claims.
Remember, the Iranians were willing to take prisoner a bunch of British naval personnel who were in disputed waters, and hold them for a while.
Do not underestimate the recklessness of people who believe a their actions are endorsed by a higher power.
They don't have enough sex in their culture, so they need something else to occupy their time.
Do not underestimate the recklessness of people who believe a their actions are endorsed by a higher power.
Like the Bushes?
Like the Bushes?
I almost put "This applies to both sides of the fence". I see I didn't need to.
See, peeps, Classicman isn't a republibot after all.
Many if not most people in the Middle East don't equate cause and effect the way that we do here in the West. This coupled with a cultural over powering need to always be on top, while never loosing face....leads to what we would call lying. I don't usually believe at least 75% of what I hear on first meeting anyone from the Middle East. This might go down to 65% after building a little trust.
Also, the Middle East is where 1+1=Banana.
Also, the Middle East is where 1+1=Banana.
bwahahahahahaha!
We know the story is bullshit, but the audience it was intended to impress, does not... and never will. :headshake
This may be the fundamental reason why so many Arab states are failed states. Impaired integrity on the one hand, mass dumbth on the other.
They don't have enough sex in their culture, so they need something else to occupy their time.
No wonder they claimed that their airspace was "violated".
This may be the fundamental reason why so many Arab states are failed states. Impaired integrity on the one hand, mass dumbth on the other.
Yeah, because a history of western interventions in their cultural and political development has nothing to do with it.
I see you have bought into the racist, bigotted view of Arabs as dishonourable, untrustworthy, uneducated crafty bastards. Do you also not like the way they smell?
How can you possibly look at an entire nation and come to the conclusion they are stupid en masse?
Oh and Kingswood: lol.
Dana you forgot to mention the towels
Oh sorry, yes. They wear towels.
On their heads. And around their waists when they get out of the shower. Wait, why don't they just use the one on the head. Hmmmm.... so many posibilities.
Dana you forgot to mention the towels
Oh sorry, yes. They wear towels.
No no no, they are not towels, they are sheets, little sheets.
Not towelheads, little sheetheads. :p
Yeah, because a history of western interventions in their cultural and political development has nothing to do with it.
I see you have bought into the racist, bigotted view of Arabs as dishonourable, untrustworthy, uneducated crafty bastards. Do you also not like the way they smell?
Not in the slightest. Your [perceived, anyway] IQ would climb if you were to quit attributing bigotry to me at the faintest homeopathic shadow of an excuse.
Now then, Miss Smartypants: how many of the Arab states are failed or failing states? Tot up, if you like, the Third-World wrecks. Do you need more than two fingers to number the really successful states in Araby? My conclusion, I think, has some substance behind it.
Turkey, technically and in some measure culturally, wouldn't be in Araby. Persia, another non-Arab state, has a strong sense of nationhood and cultural integrity that keeps it in one piece and will allow it considerable ability to rebound once the mullahcracy is removed, however forcibly or peaceably.
I think the ultimate source of the infection is they were at one time all provinces of the Ottoman Empire, and fairly recently at that. The Ottomans would have found strong home-rule cultures very much not in their imperial interest, and yes, I think there is that in Arab culture that undermines economic dynamism, so there you have a double whammy jinxing things.
None of these observations are unfair, AFAIK.
How can you possibly look at an entire nation and come to the conclusion they are stupid en masse?
I look at their actions. Stupid governments make stupid messes. That, my too readily patronizable girl, is how I figure 'em for a suboptimal lot.
I look at their actions. Stupid governments make stupid messes. That, my too readily patronizable girl, is how I figure 'em for a suboptimal lot.
Do I really need to say the punchline?
I suppose that would be good sportsmanship.
I look at their actions. Stupid governments make stupid messes. That is how I figure 'em for a suboptimal lot.
Wonder how many others have applied this to America, er have been for the last few years anyway.
Wonder how many others have applied this to America, er have been for the last few years anyway.
{sarc}Yea, well at least we don't wear towel animals on our heads! We wear Cowboy Hats! {/sarc}
They are not towels,
damnit.:eyebrow:
Ok, ok, but you could use them like towels. I mean in the traditional sense. After a bath or a shower. Wait, they don't take showers. They smell. Maybe we could teach them to take a bath every now and again.
Ok, ok, but you could use them like towels. I mean in the traditional sense. After a bath or a shower. Wait, they don't take showers. They smell. Maybe we could teach them to take a bath every now and again.
Even, or maybe especially, as a joke, I'm finding this thread to be bigoted.
Forgot the sarc tag on that one. Lighten up.
Forgot the sarc tag on that one. Lighten up.
Even with the sarc tag...
yabbut those damn brit girls started it : points finger :
Yup we did. That we did. Indeedy deedy do.
Yup we did. That we did. Indeedy deedy do.
Stop raging on the towel heads you animals!
Excuse me? The actions of this Administration in removing tyrants and sponsoring democracy to replace tyranny cannot be regarded as stupid by anyone who isn't a fascist sympathizer. I have no fascist sympathies whatsoever, thus I support nondemocracies' destruction. Ladies and gentlemen, where but from nondemocracies do the world's troubles come from? We democracies end up obliged to clean up the mess, lest an infection of the global body politic result.
Anyone of sense would do likewise. Others will pretend to me their fascistic, undemocratic sympathies are somehow the road of virtue, but their pretenses are hollow, rotten, pustulent, and thrice foredoomed. Support the Iraq war or be a fascist idiot -- or a fascists' buttmonkey. These are the real choices. Support any war against a nondemocracy, provided the war is aimed at its removal, which is exactly the case in both the Iraqi and Afghan theaters of war, and you are really an apostle of democracy.
Now then, Miss Smartypants: how many of the Arab states are failed or failing states? Tot up, if you like, the Third-World wrecks. Do you need more than two fingers to number the really successful states in Araby?
I note a certain reluctance to address this point on DanaC's part. Anyone else reluctant?
I think you need to clarify how you define a successful state UG.
Democratic social organization, prosperity, large middle class, and above all the greatest degree of liberty consistent with ordered life... the United States or Australia are by no means the worst examples to resemble.
That should clear it up.
I don't know of any arab nations which would resemble Australian lifestyle, and I suspect not US either.
I don't happen to agree with your definition though. In fact, I'm not sure that I believe there are any truly successful states. Every state on the planet has its own set of issues and problems. I believe that your particular perspective of those problems can cause you to have a particularly warped view of whether or not a state is successful or not.
Stop raging on the towel heads you animals!
Are you announcing a towlie-ban?
[SIZE="1"][COLOR="LemonChiffon"]
Ok I stole that from Southpark[/COLOR][/SIZE]
Excuse me? The actions of this Administration in removing tyrants and sponsoring democracy to replace tyranny cannot be regarded as stupid by anyone who isn't a fascist sympathizer.
*snort* Gimme a break.
No I shall not. Either kill undemocracy and end its evils and oppressions, or get the fuck off my Earth for being lacking in good qualities. Sounds binary of me, to be sure, but I accept a continuum in politics -- continua are the essence of politics anyway. Still, the good men uproot evils, and the bad men just leave them to thrive. Where do you stand?
Honest to Pete, Dar, I hold you to a standard worth living by, and you object?? WTF, son?
Honest to Pete, Dar, I hold you to a standard worth living by, and you object?? WTF, son?
Arrogant? Or merely pompous?
You want to know where I stand?
I stand with reason and rationality. I stand with honesty and fair play.
I believe that as individuals and as a country, we should treat others as we would like to be treated. I believe that diplomacy should be exercised to the furthest degree before starting a war. I believe that wars should not be started on a single piece of evidence.
I believe that the single piece of evidence for WMD was just a convenient excuse for W. to show up his dad. I believe the Iraqi war was a lame-brained mistake, just as I did before we sent a single troop over. I believe that tyranny had nothing to do with our invasion of Iraq.
I believe that the US is a great country, but it won't stay great if its citizens do not speak up when their country has gone wrong.
And I believe you have wandered into la-la land and I do not care to go. You have drunk your own kool-aid and have begun to believe your own propaganda.
Peddle your hallucinations elsewhere.
I am only appalled at the use of the unword, undemocracy. It hurts......:)
I wonder what happened to UG. He's acting bent. Ug cool it!! Jesus...
unword!...lol. Oh I like that. I do. That's brilliant.
Not an un-word, Cicero... merely an inchoate unwillingness to accept it, and I'd say that's a problem you need to fix. Attaching prefixes is by no means illegitimate, as any seventh grade English teacher could confirm for you.
Dar, frankly, your reply contradicts itself from one paragraph to another. You say you're for reason, rationality, honesty and fair play, yet you want to object to the removal of rulerships and societies that refuse to do any of these things -- and are not these things what you are saying? Can't have it both ways, Dar old son.
Recognizing that, I don't have it both ways.
Our problems from foreign parts do not stem from democracies or constitutional monarchies. They come from one kind of source -- places where the rule of men supercedes the rule of law. Can you think of any place that gives us trouble that isn't that way? We don't shoot at democracies, nor they at us. For over a century, every fight we've fought has been against undemocracies. Every single one. I'd say we're in the habit.
You think you're going to show we're doing something else? Man, you've got a pile of work ahead of you, and even if you manage it, it's likely I can make one observation about your giant, antidemocratic effort that will pull the whole construct down like a Jenga tower.
For instance, it's clear you still believe we "rushed into war" in the Iraq campaign. I guess the only way you can sustain that belief is if you read no recent history whatsoever, at any time, for the remainder of your life. I dunno; reading history makes a pretty good hobby, it seems to me. The eighteen-month span of September 2001 to March 2003 hardly looks like anybody was in a big hurry to war, and there were all those UN Resolutions both passed and sought, plus Saddam's government's pattern of guilty behavior. The Ba'athist neofascists don't seem to have been smart enough to run a country... nondemocracies don't select for clearheaded intelligence the way democracies do.
The guy who believes the Iraq campaign in the overall GWOT was a lamebrained mistake is a man without any strategic understanding. We are undermining the whole terrorist bully-the-West rationale, by handing them defeat upon defeat, and having the backs of the peoples who are turning slowly but steadily against the Taliban and their brutality, against the shitheads and their terrorism. With every Muslim head they lop off, they chop away their own support. Since the Taliban are so generally recognized as mean shitheads, which is better: defeat them this year, or defeat them forty years from now? Should one put up with mean shitheads for the span of a generation?
I say this year is best. Vigorous elimination of the radical anti-Americans is not only good for us specifically, but is generally good for all of humanity, as a moment's thought will show you. Had you really, honestly never thought about it that way?
If there is any wrongness in removing undemocracy and replacing it with democracy, absolutely no one has been able to explain it. Dar, I'll be frank: a few people on this very Cellar have tried. None have been convincing, all of them were in error. They ended up trying to defend oppression, and failing to liberate the oppressed. This is a particular failing of the Left and the left-of-center, to the point where it is clear these people wouldn't recognize goodness or righteousness if it bit their leg off. The Left whores for oppression and undemocracy, and for that reason it should be abandoned by every human on earth, and left solely the province of the utterly inhuman, who then get jailed and executed for their other heinous crimes.
I await your intellectually dishonest reply, and will in rebutting it show you a better path than has hitherto satisfied you.
Iran was a democracy... until we stepped in. :p
absolutely no one has been able to explain it
or if they did, you ignored it and went about your business, whistling past the graveyard.
Undertoad, there are no explanations. Examine the sentences I wrote after that one for their truth.
UG, there are explanations. Examine the post I wrote for its truth.
An explanation that does not work and is based upon nothing is no explanation. I fight with radar about this all the time, UT, and I win a lot.
The idiots are trying to get me, a moral being, to accept tyrannies. That shall not happen. Instead, the idiots are going to supervene their unfortunate condition by taking the view of tyranny I do: that it should be made extinct, and that killing tyrants off should happen daily if not hourly, on the commonsensical assumption that the dead tyrants are the ones least likely to.
I'd say you should be recalled to what led you to a libertarian philosophy in the first place. I fear you're going foggy, not getting it any more.
http://cellar.org/showthread.php?p=479090&post479090
UG: It is, after all, hardly unlibertarian to remove libertarianism's most determined foes, or democratic republicanism's as an intermediate step in the development of a more libertarian society in a country that not only could use it, but is probably incapable of being run any other way, between geography and psychology.
UT: That, UG, depends on whether what ends up there is a Democratic Republic. Most pundits say it won't. Does that change your usual?
UG: (no reply)
So here's the reply, then: accurate, however delayed. All you need do is continue removing any foes of libertarianism that present themselves. Whether by conversion or by gunfire, the absence of antidemocrats is very much a good thing, is it not?
The pundits simply point out a difficulty that could transpire. Well and good; why shouldn't they? Shrinking the Non-Integrating Gap, refusing to brook rivals to the rule of just enough law to keep things orderly while preserving maximal freedom of action, maximizing connectivity in the flow of people, finance, ideas, and general security -- these are the things that are necessary to reducing the world's misery. There are misguided people on the one hand and highly motivated sociopaths on another who will resist this kind of progress. It's a fact people will fight like mad dogs for power -- whether they actually can have it or only think they do seems to make no difference. So, yeah; expect troubles on the way, to put it mildly.
So, there you have it: no, it doesn't change my usual. I like liberty. I've seen with my own eyes what trammeling liberties does, and I coolly and cordially detest that. I'm ready to kill over liberty, though I know killing feels terrible. Always have been ready, nonetheless. Can you show that kind of commitment? Should you come up with an excuse for not?
So here's the reply, then: accurate, however delayed. All you need do is continue removing any foes of libertarianism that present themselves. Whether by conversion or by gunfire, the absence of antidemocrats is very much a good thing, is it not?
The proof is in the results, sir, is it not? If after five years you have killed every antidemocrat you can locate, and still Democracy has not taken hold, surely you must now wonder whether the kill/convert recipe works.
What we notice is that, now, only our promise to depart quickens the rule of law in Iraq. We notice that this was not a part of your recipe and that you fight it tooth and nail.
I'm ready to kill over liberty, though I know killing feels terrible. Always have been ready, nonetheless. Can you show that kind of commitment? Should you come up with an excuse for not?
Certainly. If you kill in the name of liberty, and liberty does not result, you are now a murderer, and you haven't furthered the human race one iota.
In killing for no result, by definition you become the tyrant you hate so well.
Explain to me the difference, Urbane, between adopting a kill or convert strategy to enforce freedom and democracy, and kill or convert to enforce God's saving Grace?
the UG doctrine:
point a really really big gun at the head of an 'undemocratic' government.
blow away the undemocratic government.
when another dictatorship fills the power vacuum, repeat.
when no more dictators rise up, and anarchy reigns like in somalia, call it a success for democracy and leave.
when a dictatorship comes again after you leave, return to step 1.
Explain to me the difference, Urbane, between adopting a kill or convert strategy to enforce freedom and democracy, and kill or convert to enforce God's saving Grace?
If you think there
should be a difference, I guess you're just not thinking like I do, and thus are not much of a disciple of liberty at heart, are you really? I'm brave enough to be the real deal, and let the dead fascists fall where they may.
If there's a deficiency in the West, it is the
lack of such an attitude -- far, far too solicitous of a tyrant's tender feelings.
I keep telling those without ears to hear that the dead tyrants are the tyrants least likely to, and this bit of ordinary horse sense quite escapes the unenlightened. In essence, they assign something else greater importance than human liberty, and that is simply crazed.
I'll sum up, DanaC, by reminding you that democracy is not a superstition. You live by it, I live by it, Undertoad lives by it, plenty of foreigners die for lack of it, and none of us thinks they should, not really.
Ibram, you're being careful not to understand the whole program: you left out the part about actually nurturing local democracy, so you could erect a strawman caricature and feel good about knocking it down. The thoroughly unenlightened caricature me a lot; I remain unimpressed.
We notice that this was not a part of your recipe and that you fight it tooth and nail.
What??
UT, you have no reason for that idea. It certainly didn't come from me. I'm not fighting it at all. Did you honestly believe I thought there was only a military solution to the Iraq campaign? You can't show anything in my posts saying that, merely a good deal directed against the people who think we oughtn't to be shooting America-haters and Democracy-despisers because we might, you know, offend them. I've never let such loser-think contaminate my love for deposing tyranny, and I recommend the same course for you.
I think the flaw in your argument is that you're assuming you can't get results by vitiating tyranny's human resources. Where is that written? How well is that thought out? All of World War Two is evidence against your view, and just what is different now, down at the fundamentals? Are we not still shooting at unfreedom and its makers?
Did we ever become Nazis in killing Nazis and other Germans? Did we ever become Communists in killing North Koreans, Chinese, and North Vietnamese and Viet Cong?
Specious, sir, wholly specious. If you're not in the habit of tyranny yourself, you're unlikely to replant tyranny after you've cut it down -- that is a description of America that beats the shit out of the ideas current among the likes of MoveOn.Org. Nor, frankly, does this show up in any of the places we've been fighting -- we've been outlasted by people who did predictably plant tyranny. That they suffered a crop failure wasn't thanks to us -- we stayed the hell out of Vietnam until well after they began to wise up and abandon Communism and its undemocracy.
We notice that only promising to depart Iraq has quickened the rule of law there.
You have been against departing or setting a timetable.
Do you deny this.
I think the flaw in your argument
You think? In other words, you don't know of a flaw. Nice!
:idea: UG is L Ron Hubbard.
No fuckin' way. L. Ron Hubbard is not only dead, but I'm both a nicer guy and a better writer.
We notice that only promising to depart Iraq has quickened the rule of law there.
So you're going to imagine I've got a problem with getting the job done by whatever the effectual means is? Dream on, if you want to stay that silly.
You have been against departing or setting a timetable.
Do you deny this.
I deny ever having been against departing, and a careful reading of my posts will prove my denial beyond doubt. You're in too goddamn big a hurry to find evil right where evil isn't, Undertoad, and that's a mug's game when you try it with me. The right wing is not evil, and only pseudosophisticates can sustain a belief that right equals evil. Don't be those guys. They have shallow minds.
The "timetable" idea is designed to make us lose the war -- without obliging our undemocratic enemies to manage to win it. Foolishness, no? Certainly antidemocratic, and thus propounded only by the awfulest of tyranny lovers and the most brainless of boobies. Take no advice from these, the unwise.
Plus, L. Ron preferred pills to fine food.
I still can't figure out how UG eats what he eats, and still thinks what he thinks. It makes no sense.
You're in too goddamn big a hurry to find evil right where evil isn't, Undertoad, and that's a mug's game when you try it with me. The right wing is not evil, and only pseudosophisticates can sustain a belief that right equals evil. Don't be those guys. They have shallow minds.
Irony Alert. Irony Alert.
Iran was a democracy... until we stepped in. :p
Ummmm, I don't think that is historically correct. I do believe it was a constitutional monarchy and in Iran's case they would have had a hereditary monarchy, with the Shahs family dominating the power base. We probably prevented them from forming some form of democratic model by propping up the Shah for so many years.
Dr Mohammad Mossadegh brought democracy to Iran, but stepped on the toes of the Brit oil interests. They were unsuccessful in ousting him, so they turned to the CIA to come up with operation TP/Ajax, I think it was, to overthrow Mossadegh violently and regain control of the oil.
So where's our oil. Bastids.. :D
The damn Brits took it. :eyebrow:
Damm Bastid Brits! Give us our oil back. Hosers! :apistola:
~snip~ the most brainless of boobies. Take no advice from these, the unwise.
UG said boobies
I deny ever having been against departing, and a careful reading of my posts will prove my denial beyond doubt.
You forgot what thread you're in. #54 and #55:
UG: It is, after all, hardly unlibertarian to remove libertarianism's most determined foes, or democratic republicanism's as an intermediate step in the development of a more libertarian society in a country that not only could use it, but is probably incapable of being run any other way, between geography and psychology.
UT: That, UG, depends on whether what ends up there is a Democratic Republic. Most pundits say it won't. Does that change your usual?
UG: All you need do is continue removing any foes of libertarianism that present themselves. Whether by conversion or by gunfire, the absence of antidemocrats is very much a good thing, is it not?
Oh dear. A careful reading of your post #55 says that
ALL you need to do is kill and convert. Departing? Not part of the UG recipe. That's what we're talking about here and YOU stated what your approach was and it most certainly didn't include Departing. IN THIS VERY THREAD.
And so we are back to square one. Not only pundits, but major figures in both the outgoing and incoming administration now say that the end game in Iraq is not a Democratic Republic. Does this change anything for you? It isn't working, do you have another idea or something?
The "timetable" idea is designed to make us lose the war -- without obliging our undemocratic enemies to manage to win it. Foolishness, no? Certainly antidemocratic,
The "timetable" idea is what convinced the Iraqis that we were not in an indeterminate occupation, which in turn convinced them to step up.
Yay! We got a new superpower just in time for Great Depression II and WWIII.
Irony Alert. Irony Alert.
The filings -- they're completely nonmagnetic!
So we should, uh, cancel that alert?
So I didn't mention "departing?" So sue me, if you're that desperate. Enjoy all the straw you can grab at, if that's what blows your kilt up. But you're still being silly, and amassing a kiltful of straw won't help.
Frankly, I'd assumed it would go without mentioning. When we get done, how much call is there to remain forever and ever in saecula saeculorum? I'd have to say not much. Nor have I ever said this would be "all you need to do," as a more careful reading of my posts than you gave would show you. The process of conversion is never confined to merely killing off conversion's best-armed enemies; one still has to do the actual converting. The conversion is undeniably helped along by raising the stakes of unsuccessful conversion to a matter of life and death, though. In things of this kind, it's helpful to have unfortunate negative examples to exhibit. We won't get a lot of the desired conversion done if we lose the fight. So acting in opposition to actually winning the fight strikes me as either boneheaded or myopic, when it's not actively fascist.
No one with a level head around here has ever mistaken me for a fascist. I don't think any of my opposition have even run afoul of Godwin's Law arguing with me. The people mistaking me for a bonehead have uniformly come out looking pretty pachycephalosaurian themselves, and I'm only physically myopic.
No one with a level head around here has ever mistaken me for a fascist.
Damn right they weren't mistaken.
Damn right they weren't mistaken.
*chuckles*
So I didn't mention "departing?" So sue me, if you're that desperate.
No, you didn't, and no you don't get to slip-slide out of this one so quickly. Because:
Nor have I ever said this would be "all you need to do," as a more careful reading of my posts than you gave would show you.
Well yeah, you did...
All you need do is continue removing any foes of libertarianism that present themselves.
It's in the goddamn thread.
Again, it's right in the goddamn thread.
You wrote it in this goddamn thread. 12 days ago. Post #55.
It was you who wrote it, and I have now quoted you writing it, twice. So it has now appeared three times, attributed to you, because you wrote it, in this goddamn thread.
Do you want to talk about careful reading of your posts again? In THIS goddamn thread? Try carefully reading your own goddamn posts!
We won't get a lot of the desired conversion done if we lose the fight. So acting in opposition to actually winning the fight strikes me as either boneheaded or myopic, when it's not actively fascist.
But again, we have not lost the fight and we STILL don't know the outcome.
Don't you get this? Why don't you comprehend? Your plan HAS been implemented. We HAVE killed and we HAVE converted and we DID NOT walk away and we DID NOT implement a timetable and we DID NOT lose...
...and we STILL don't know the outcome; and most people in the know do not predict Democratic Republic. It could happen, and one wants to be optimistic, but we STILL don't know the outcome. Five and a half years in.
So are you trying to tell me to be of little faith in democracy or republics? Don't try that one. So what if it's taking years? Insurgency fights always do. Right now, you've shown me you know the cost of everything -- but do you know the value of anything? That's the part I pay attention to. Makes it worthwhile.
Meanwhile, is there any worthwhile reason for keeping unreconstructed fascists alive, antiglobalists alive, anti-Americans alive? These people are mankind's enemies, are they not? Have they not both shown and explicitly declared themselves nothing less? We democrats have put up with far too much totalitarian abuse, and it is time we removed the power to abuse from every totalitarian. This is most efficiently done by killing them, for they conspicuously do not respond to the moral force of a good example. They respond much more positively to the force of a bullet transecting their skulls. It's all good. I don't complain. I rejoice, and I believe you should too.
Right now, you've shown me you know the cost of everything -- but do you know the value of anything?
Yes. Tip Mug-hitting dwellars pay for the COST of this discussion; your posts add absolutely no VALUE to it.
~
pause for hall of fame editing :D
~
Rhetorical fluff aside (although when we remove the rhetorical fluff from your posts, they're empty), let's review so we can think in a straight line:
UG: It is, after all, hardly unlibertarian to remove libertarianism's most determined foes, or democratic republicanism's as an intermediate step in the development of a more libertarian society in a country that not only could use it, but is probably incapable of being run any other way, between geography and psychology.
UT: That, UG, depends on whether what ends up there is a Democratic Republic. Most pundits say it won't. Does that change your usual?
UG: All you need do is continue removing any foes of libertarianism that present themselves. Whether by conversion or by gunfire, the absence of antidemocrats is very much a good thing, is it not?
UT: But it looks like the biggest thing to quicken the rule of law in Iraq was announcing that we might stop doing that.
UG: I'm in favor of anything that works.
UT: OK, well what we've done so far hasn't created Democracy.
UG: We haven't been doing it long enough.
UT: So you're not in favor of leaving...
UG: No! You can't point to anywhere that I said that! I said that the only thing that will work is killing and conversion, with a heavy emphasis on the killing.
UT: So although threatening to leave worked a little, killing and converting people for five and a half years kinda hasn't worked, and you are in favor of anything that will work, you want to continue to kill and convert people and not leave, although you angrily point out that nobody can find you saying you didn't want to leave.
UG: Yes. Keep killing and converting. What little faith you have.
Whoah....waitaminute...so now we're not just refusing to suffer fascists to live, but antiglobalists too?
And since when were antiAmericans enemies to mankind? They're enemies to America...at a push one might even say they are enemies to the friends and allies of America. But America does not equate to humanity, no more than does Zimbabwe, Britain, Canada or Bangladesh.
You are the most powerful nation on earth, but you are still a nation. You exist within your borders and within the range of your influence; you have specific needs and goals that are at times in competition or conflict with the needs and goals of other nations. Your cause is not humanity's cause, it is America's cause. Fortunately there are times when America's cause and humanity's cause coincide, but they are not synonymous.
Frankly, DanaC, in that the anti-Americans are reliably antidemocracy too, yes: anti-Americanism is a good sign that you're dealing with mankind's enemies. We are, after all, the single most rampantly successful, most fully workably capitalist, republican democracy on the face of the Earth.
Do not our present foes raven to destroy this prodigy? They do.
And our present foes -- what is their character? They carbomb a lot of their coreligionists, purportedly on the grounds that the people they hit aren't Muslim enough. They're all about the killings, all about nonconnectivity to the rest of the globe, that They, that awful redhanded They, may enjoy a position of privilege. It all looks fucking sociopathic from here.
It really seems quite synonymous enough for me. Where were you finding a present difference again? America is, overall, in the habit of aligning her cause with humanity's cause. This is too seldom overtly stated, probably because the world's pseudosophisticates would sneer. The pseudies frankly should get the hell back under their rocks if they cannot grow something recognizable as wisdom. We meanwhile should remain wholly insensitive to their concerns, which always add up to "Leave totalitarians be, or they might get mad."
We want them mad. Then they present a clear and present danger, and may be destroyed with unanimity rather than carping, separate peaces, and inefficiency.
You sound, DanaC, as if you believe we have no right to propagate the right. This is exactly what is so wrong with the Left. They despise morality and uphold tyranny, excessive rule. Is not an excess of rule an essential core belief of your own Party? Not that you're allowed to imagine it as an excess -- but the outside view is that an excess is all it is, and for that matter all it can be.
Absolutely everyone on the planet has the right to propagate the right. Nobody has the right to propagate the wrong.
Well, UT, I still don't see that you have a moral position. You're not willing to win a war against fascistic schmucks who would as readily behead you as they would me (and really, would they care about our little differences?) -- in that you seem to withhold approval of anything that is actually likely to win the fight these other people have started. Is this not so? Were it not so, I submit you would sound rather more like me than you do.
But all I see you doing is complaining eloquently about our trying to win -- why, the sheer effrontry of us! I do not see you outlining a better strategy that will get the war won. Really, UT, that is the kind of shit tw pulls, and I rip him a new asshole regularly for it. Surely you can do better?
It is but horse sense that if mankind is presented with an enemy, mankind should remove the enemy. Arguments against this are futile and immoral, and I do not make such. What invertebrate does not strike against tyranny, oppression, poverty -- the whole complex of symptoms of misgovernance and absence of capitalism? I am vertebrate; what, sir, are you?
This is not empty rhetoric: this is a lifestyle and a philosophy of life. I'd bet it's a real improvement over whatever you're using. It fulfils me more than that whatever-else that you'd prefer I did -- that you might be the more comfortable in the good things you're not doing.
That's OK, we were talking about you, not me. My original complaint was in #50:
[quote=UG]absolutely no one has been able to explain it
or if they did, you ignored it and went about your business, whistling past the graveyard.[/quote]
The "it" referred to is "If there is any wrongness in removing undemocracy and replacing it with democracy", a sentence that bears a lot of ugly weight without clearly defining "wrongness", "removing", "replacing" and "democracy". Especially the latter since the US is not a Democracy, a point which I attempted to fix by replacing it with "Democratic Republic" in my posts. (You're welcome.)
My real goal was to point out that you have whiffed past my objections several times without comment. We've come a long way in this thread, so, nicely done.
It is but horse sense that if mankind is presented with an enemy, mankind should remove the enemy.
This foreign policy stuff, it does not work like you imagine it does. That's OK. It's hard, and it's so rarely considered by libertarians. That last point should be a point of great shame.
Let's go with the absolute master of the pithy war quote, Sun Tzu.
[FONT=Garamond][SIZE=3][COLOR=DarkRed]
[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Garamond][SIZE=3][COLOR=DarkRed]To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the supreme of excellence. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the supreme excellence.[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Garamond]
[/FONT]
There ya go. Nobody has been able to explain it? The original student of war did it... in two sentences.
[FONT=Garamond][SIZE=3][COLOR=DarkRed]
[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Garamond][SIZE=5][COLOR=DarkRed]To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the supreme of excellence. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the supreme excellence.[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Garamond]
[/FONT]
Impressive quote and a spectaculor rebuttal.And one I agree with -- but where do you get the idea that we have the option to so subdue the enemy? They have been bloodily fighting with us since 1983. You should be awake to this, yet you aren't, or you wouldn't say what you did. The time for subdual without fighting has clearly long passed.
Why you both have such a problem with trying to win remains unexplained. You've got to have real, not specious, reasons to think as you do, if you want to think clearly. Seems to me you remain mired in the specious.
The "it" referred to is "If there is any wrongness in removing undemocracy and replacing it with democracy", a sentence that bears a lot of ugly weight without clearly defining "wrongness", "removing", "replacing" and "democracy". Especially the latter since the US is not a Democracy, a point which I attempted to fix by replacing it with "Democratic Republic" in my posts. (You're welcome.)
Mankind's whole hope of a better political life, and you call it an "ugly weight?" This is how the Left disguises its totalitarian inclinations, and they have, it appears, wholly played you for an all-day sucker.
Funny thing to happen to a libertarian, I must say. Good thing it doesn't happen to me.
I keep seeing how leftism makes men foolish. You should turn from it to be wise. The darkness of their reasoning, their want of enlightenment, their lack of democratic enthusiasm... not for me. The real brains all seem to be center and right.
I am using the bare word "democracy" in a nontechnical sense, for the convenience of not having to trot out a pedantic paragraph. Kindly quit bandying words with me -- it is and shall be an utter waste of time, and I'm going to ignore any repetitions. You are at liberty to choke on them -- but I recommend some other activity as being more constructive and enlightening.
My idea of republican democracy is likely indistinguishable from yours, despite any tergiversation on your end.
If we're gonna be killin' 'em kemosabe, it will be very critical to get the definition right.
No consideration of the Sun Tzu quote? Iraq was low on the list of undemocracies; the top of the list is China. Over 5 years into Iraq it's not a Democracy yet; China has 47 times the population of Iraq. In fact China has twice the population of the US and EU combined. So your permanent state of war against undemocracy isn't going to go like you think it will.
That sums up what I think is the (main) flaw in UG's position.
Ridding the world of tyranny, totalitarianism, injustice, etc is indeed an excellent aim. Military force is simply not a viable way to achieve this.
To invade, defeat, occupy, rebuild, democratize, and return to local control tyrannous nations by military force is an enormous and difficult task. Ten years per country is a bare minimum. Look how badly strained our resources are trying to do it just in Iraq (task underway, outcome uncertain) and Afghanistan (task underway, outcome very dubious).
And when we move on to the next one, the ones we have just left may well go wobbly and need help again.
To do this for the whole world? Russia? China? All the democratic nations together do not have the resources to achieve it.
It just can't be done with guns. Now, schools, THAT is in with a chance. Why do parents send their sons to extremist madrassas? Because that is the only education available. A few thousand reasonably funded secular schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan would do more to defeat AQ than the equivalent resources of military force.
Mind you, those schools will need guarding. AQ aren't stupid, and they would understand the threat it would pose.
Ridding the world of tyranny, totalitarianism, injustice, etc is indeed an excellent aim. Military force is simply not a viable way to achieve this.
When the only tool you understand is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
[SIZE="1"]--Maslow (Paraphrased)[/SIZE]
Now really, just why do you think I wouldn't be onboard with the education angle? Where have I poormouthed that? I think I've mentioned before that education, particularly of girls and women, shrinks the Non-Integrating Gap.
Still, you're going to want to keep the slavemakers intimidated, and there's nothing like the smell of corpses for that. Those who will not negotiate and show reasonableness must be removed, and without let or hindrance. Or for that matter, complaint. Kindly stop bitching about bad people dying! I'm taking a more holistic approach than it appears I'm credited for.
The 'education angle'? All the emphasis you place on the slaughter of those who stand in the way of your democratic utopia and yet education is merely an angle?
We are the slavemakers; our markets and our protectionist subsidies, our violent history and the maps we redrew, our shameless self-interests played on a global scale.
DanaC, your snit is wholly unjustified and it doesn't become you. And it doesn't exactly accord with recent and not so recent history either.
Those who stand in the way of increased democracy value something higher than human liberty, don't they? Like their own excesses of power -- the same old oppressions of too much government, with the same old stultifying disadvantages. No human being should oppose their removal, yet I get far too much inhuman opposition on this very point from people smart enough to know better. And they don't. That's antidemocratic and it is simply disgusting. I do not suffer from such moral blindness, and you could take a good lesson from me. Nothing wrong, you know, with taking a lesson from the enlightened, the pro-human.
It's all angles -- strategies and tactics and stratagems -- including fighting and killing the shitheads like the lot in Bombay (yes, I'm using the old spelling -- try and make something of it). We liberate and have done liberation for a century. We the English-speaking world are in the van in this. You however are living under the malign influence of a bad religion, socialism with leftism, and your religion's articles of faith suck too much.
Because of this eviscerating, emasculating suckage that you think I ought to accept and believe in, you yourself don't want our enemies afraid to kill us. You call that impressive? Do you even call that adequate? Does it even reach "below standard?" Really, DanaC, your leftist mode of thinking is too easy to savage and to dismiss.
Try applying it to the period 1939-1945 and consider what would have been the likely result.
Do you want to kill her, or educate her?
And how do you make that choice?
One notices that it seems to take a ridiculously large government to do what you want to do.
How does that go?
And He said to them, "No doubt you will quote this proverb to Me, 'Physician, heal yourself! Whatever we heard was done at Berlin, do here in your hometown as well.'"
Do you want to kill her, or educate her?
And how do you make that choice?
One notices that it seems to take a ridiculously large government to do what you want to do.
Leftist stupidity is nothing if not annoying. It seems to spring from the limited mentality needed to stay leftist.
I do not accept those limits upon my thinking -- and I'm not hogging all that ambition to myself. I think therefore that I'm walking a better road than Dana's. I'll get around to composing a little essay on whether I'm walking a better road than you are soon.
How do I make that choice? Fuck, UT, how do I
not make that choice? I am not afraid to be a moral being, and all the less so for anyone telling me I should be. That's not out of pointless contrariness, but ultimately out of understanding that moral relativism is altogether hopeless at telling good from bad. So I dropped moral relativism many years ago and will not take it up again. It's the last refuge of the pseudosophisticate.
As for government size, I'm not quite sure what you're getting at. What was it you think I wanted done that would take gigantism?
Do you want to kill her, or educate her? How do you decide?
From the
BBC:
Court orders Iranian man blinded
A court in Iran has ruled that a man who blinded a woman with acid after she spurned his marriage proposals will also be blinded with acid.
The ruling was reported in Iranian newspapers on Thursday.
The punishment is legal under the Islamic Sharia code of qias or equivalence, which allows retribution for violent crimes.
The court also ordered the attacker, 27-year-old Majid Movahedi, to pay compensation to the victim.
The acid attack took place in 2004. The victim, Ameneh Bahrami, went to Spain for surgery to reconstruct her face but efforts to restore her sight failed.
The ruling was a response to her plea to the court in the Iranian capital Tehran for retribution.
"Ever since I was subject to acid being thrown on my face, I have a constant feeling of being in danger," she told the court.
Ms Bahrami also said that Movahedi had also threatened to kill her.
The headline made me think WTFFF?, but the story makes me a little more ambivalent about it.
ETA: Maybe his defense in court was "But your honour, she just said she didn't want to see me anymore..." :devil:
Damm, those humane Iranians! We should welcome their way of life with open arms.
www.thethirdjihad.comHey, at least they acknowledged that what he did was wrong and deserving of punishment. I honestly would have expected them to give him a slap on the wrist--or hell, maybe even follow Somalia's example and kill the girl for daring to show her face in the presence of acid.
An eye for an eye and all that...
Do you want to kill her, or educate her? How do you decide?
For the record, why do you think you should ask me if I'm choosing between the two?
What I seek for DanaC is an epiphany. I don't think she'd find anything less to be persuasive. Incidentally, I seek that epiphany for you also.
It would make you both better.
Now whether this epiphany may arrive through correspondence and discussion or only at the hour of her death, I cannot tell. I don't know.
Personally, I like UT just the way he is. He's a very kind-hearted man who does a lot for others and has gone above and beyond several times to help me. He is well liked and well grounded. I don't think any epiphany is needed.
Dana, well I haven't had as much interaction with her, and although she and I disagree about many ... well most everything except poetry, I think shes a good egg too.
But thats just my opinion
For the record, why do you think you should ask me if I'm choosing between the two?
Because
All you need do is continue removing any foes of libertarianism that present themselves. Whether by conversion or by gunfire,
Conversion or gunfire.
So why add epiphany to the list? Remember that the key question is
If there is any wrongness in removing undemocracy and replacing it with democracy, absolutely no one has been able to explain it.
If you are adding epiphany, you might have found your own explanation. Is there something wrong with killing or converting Dana? You've never suggested so:
Either kill undemocracy and end its evils and oppressions, or get the fuck off my Earth for being lacking in good qualities. Sounds binary of me, to be sure, but I accept a continuum in politics -- continua are the essence of politics anyway. Still, the good men uproot evils, and the bad men just leave them to thrive. Where do you stand?
If you're not killing or converting Dana, where do
you stand?