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Hawkeye
climber
State of Mine
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 28, 2007 - 05:34pm PT
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i think he is trying to get through to you LEB....
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UncleDoug
Social climber
N. lake Tahoe
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Jun 28, 2007 - 05:46pm PT
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LEB,
You and fatty screwing around these days?
You are taking plays right out of his book.
Obfuscate the issue with claims of anger.
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Matt
Trad climber
the land where lois don't roam
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Jun 28, 2007 - 06:11pm PT
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you give yourself far too much credit.
you have not and will not change how you think.
you are a stick in the mud.
as i said above, you have decided the war is/was a mistake, not because anything in you has changed, but because you think the costs are now too great, and you though it would be a cake-walk to occupy/transform iraq ("those who are ignorant of history...").
pretty funny how you conclude that i project, yet you are oblivious to the fact that you need to blame me in order to ignore the truth in what i say about you.
carry on w/ the coyotes, toots.
(btw- i trust you recognize that i intend to deliver that cute and familiar tag w/ a note of disrespect)
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John Moosie
climber
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Jun 28, 2007 - 07:34pm PT
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Hi Lois,
By obfuscate, I think they mean that you changed the subject from being about why you believe that we could have won the war in Vietnam and all the intendant consequences of that belief.... TO.... being about how Matt communicates with you.
Nice misdirection.
Fatty thinks we should use war as a tool. He doesn't understand that it didn't work in Vietnam and it wont work in the Middle East. They have had wars for centuries and still they fight. More war wont solve that.
Lois, my belief is that you do not understand why war wont work in cases like this. Certainly countries like France were able to right themselves quickly after the Allies freed them from the Germans. That is because they had already had freedom. A freedom that they fought for and they understood.
There are lots of issues going on here and it is difficult to answer them in some short manner. Let me just try and explain why I don't think winning the war in Vietnam would have done us much good as it will not in Iraq.
If we would have won the war in Vietnam, we would have still been left with a people who were angry with us and angry with any government we installed. Just like when Russia took over other countries, we would have had to keep a large military force there. This would have drained us and would lead to our downfall. You can not force others to believe the way you do.
Imperialism does not work. Sure it does for a time. But it is very draining and eventually it leads to the downfall of any country that engages in it. The war in Iraq was based on lies. We were told that Iraq was responible for 9/11 and they wanted our help to get rid of Saddam. ( this is very simplified to try and keep this short ) While it is true that some wanted help. For the most part the average person in Iraq has not taken responibilty for his or her life and is accostumed to having someone else in charge. So what happens if we put a new government in place if the people aren't ready for it? Most likely it will fall and since the people did not fight for it, then those who are willing to fight will gain control. Who might this be? Probably the radical Imams. So how do we stop that? We would have to stay there for many many years which would drain us just like it drained Russia and drained the Roman empire.
Imperialism does not work. To create lasting change, you must work from the inside.
Lois, because I think that you and others like you do not understand why war wont work, then I believe that you and others like you in our Country will remain susceptable to another George Bush and Dick Cheney and we will keep having more wars until we learn that they do not work. Not for subjucating people and not for imperialism. Unless of course you wipe out the other side like we did with the Indians here in America.
Are you prepared to wipe out the innocent, become a terrorist, to win wars like this?
It is your lack of understanding on this issue that angers Matt. It doesn't matter if you now believe the war in Iraq is wrong if you don't understand why. Because you will be susceptable to the next George and Dick who come down the pike. What happens the next time we are attacked if you do not understand and control your fears. Will we end up with world war 3?
Fatty preaches a form of imperialism. Imperialism does not work.
Lois, right now those who want war for things like profit are beating the war drums for us to attack Iran. They are painting Irans leader as an evil person based on things like mistranslated speeches. Crowley has a good example of one. They are also highlighting anything Iran does as being evil. Things that we do also. Things that Isreal does also.
So what happens if we are attacked again and the war mongers point the finger at Iran? Will you believe them and go along with their desire for war? Or will you recognize that the same thing that happened in Vietnam and in Iraq is happening again?
Do you understand that changing your mind about Iraq is not enough? That you need to also understand why or we will keep repeating these mistakes. And the why is NOT just because George screwed up the war plan.
Please try to understand that my intent isn't to bash you. It is to wake you up so that we don't have more wars. Thanks for reading.
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jstan
climber
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Jun 28, 2007 - 08:04pm PT
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When I am angry it is usually because there is something with which I am not willing to deal. I can't say that approach has ever actually helped me. I think many of our friends here have most things very right. Even so, no one here is perfect. We don't need to be perfect. We all just need to be good enough. Right now - we are not.
I apologize for not being readable. Being readable is not important. Getting into the guts of this thing is.
What are we going to do?
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John Moosie
climber
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Jun 29, 2007 - 12:05am PT
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Lois, if you are against war then you have a funny way of showing it since you repeatedly supported the war in Iraq. That or you have a very short term memory.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Jun 29, 2007 - 12:12am PT
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What one of those whacky Iraqi's has to say on the subject
................
"The results so far have been astounding, and please allow me to say that I'm proud of the change in attitude many of my fellow Iraqis are showing. Even if numbers don't suggest so because the change is happening but it will take time-perhaps beyond September-before this change will show in numbers.
A nation is not a corporation and when we deal with a nation we are dealing with a society; a mass of people with ever changing hearts and minds and that's why numbers alone can't be enough to assess the situation—thoughtful insight and looking at the bigger image are also required.
For over a year the media and many officials were spooking us with the exaggerated ghost of civil war. I wonder what they have to say now! I think their silence is more telling than anything they would've said.
Iraqis are awakening, one very telling example can be seen in the ongoing operation in Diyala; members of the 1920 revolution brigades, once bitter enemies of the US military and Iraqi government are now assisting US and Iraqi military in fighting al-Qaeda even though the majority of the Iraqi soldiers and officers are Shia.
If the change in exclusively Sunni Anbar is good then the change in Diyala is good beyond words.
Another great example that I have personally been in touch with is taking place in a place outside Baghdad. Maybe you remember the story I told you about the area where members of our tribe live. For months unfortunate bloodletting was going on between the tribes, militias and al-Qaeda terrorists in which most of the victims were no more than innocent farmers.
Last week I learned from relatives that two groups of tribes have separately formed two "battalions" of several hundred young tribesmen each; not to fight the other sect or the US or Iraqi forces but to fight al-Qaeda. Even better this step has been taken in cooperation with the authorities in the region and the arrangement will ultimately lead to turning many of those tribal fighters into legitimate law enforcement personnel.
Despite such examples of many promising changes, we have to remain realistic and not overlook the rest of challenges. Uniting against al-Qaeda and even defeating it is not enough to solve all of Iraq's problems and the greater challenge of nation-building still lies ahead.
However, I expect and hope the world to show some gratitude to the Iraqis and Americans who fought, suffered, bled and died ridding the world of thousands of al-Qaeda terrorists, each one of whom could have been capable of murdering as many innocent people as their fellow terrorists did in New York, London or the many cities across the world that paid a high price simply because they don't approve of the ways of those extremists.
The internal struggle for power in Iraq will not end by pacifying al-Qaeda or the militias. It will continue in different forms until we have the correct legislations and institutions that can prevent bloodshed by facilitating peaceful sharing of power and treasure in a way that every individual or group get what they deserve, no more and no less. It goes without saying that these legislations and institutions will need an impartial, competent force to be able to function efficiently..............
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jun 29, 2007 - 01:04am PT
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I have to question TGT's source. Al Queda is far from the big Iraqi problem. It's total public knowledge that the US is spending millions to plant propaganda news stories in Iraqi media and blogs. All you have to do is look at the daily death toll to see things are not improving. If the silent majority was really happy and supporting the US in Iraq, things would be very different.
peace
Karl
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Jun 29, 2007 - 01:41am PT
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Who can really look at the Iraq thing and, without blowing a bunch of smoke about future peril, say this whole thing is good for America and Americans? What does the current situation actually say, in the plainest terms?
JL
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Jaybro
Social climber
The West
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Jun 29, 2007 - 03:47am PT
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Nice one Moosey!
Lois, I think the problem a lot of us have with your stance is that you appear to only learn after the fact. So you can denounce Bush and his war these days. How does that effect what you will do (vote) in the future?
Which is the closest?
1) watch out for guys like him.
2) stay the course, he was an anomally
BTW/OT I think if you met Matt in the physical analog of this digital 'world' you would see him differently and more in context.
Fukker throws shoes at defensless old men, hyark!
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wootles
climber
Gamma Quadrant
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Jun 29, 2007 - 09:33am PT
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It pains me a great deal and I can't believe I'm doing this but...
One thing a lot of us do on here is try to sway or change opinions (probably a somewhat futile endeavor). It would seem to some extent that LEB has changed her's. Now she's being attacked for expressing it. So what if her over all philosophy and world view has changed little if any. She has changed her view on the war on terror and on Bushco and friends. That's a start.
Earlier in this thread someone said "what can I do (about the war)?" in expression of hopelessness or futility. I see the ONE thing we can all do is keep up the dialog. Put your opinions out there, plant the seeds, and get people to think. Getting (American) people to think has got to be the most difficult task facing the world. They are more concerned with getting the latest status trinket, celebrity gossip, who won American Idol, and other such BS.
So now we have LEB expressing a view that is more in line with many of her detractors here, myself included, and she's being slammed as hard as ever before.
You won't change her view by force of will. She will do that on her own (or not) as she integrates the information she finds here and elsewhere. Just need to keep her away from Fox News.
A seed has been germinated. Don't crush it.
I can't believe I sided with LEB. WTF is the world coming to?
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Jun 29, 2007 - 10:14am PT
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External forces have been the prime movers of the violence in iraq from day one. Early on large numbers of the Fadajin Sadam had Syrian or Saudi pasports and pockets full of Franklins and were dressed in Polo and Ralph Loren and Levis.
The "Civil War" is a mythical creation of the MSM. There have been and will continue to be large scale tribal conflicts and revenge killings but these are characteristic of all predominantly tribal societies from the Jungles of the Amazon and Africa to Nepal.
You might try talking to someone who's been there or reading a source that has the cajones to get out and see what is going on rather than writing their columns from the safety of their New York office or in a drunken stupor from a hotel bar stool.
"Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) had tarnished its name here by publicly attacking and murdering children, videotaping beheadings, all while imposing harsh punishments on Iraqi civilians found guilty of violating morality laws prohibiting activities like smoking. The AQI installed Sharia court had sanctioned the amputation of the two “smoking fingers” for those who violated anti-smoking laws. In part because local sentiment was shifting against it, AQI synthesized with other groups and undertook an image makeover, christening itself “The Islamic State of Iraq.” But the new name was just lipstick on a pig here.
On the evening of the 24th I spoke with a local Iraqi official, Colonel Faik, who said the Muftis would order the severance of the two fingers used to hold a cigarette for any Iraqis caught smoking. Other reports, from here in Diyala and also in Anbar, allege that smokers are murdered by AQI. Most Iraqis smoke and this particular prohibition appeared to have earned the ire of many locals. After an American unit cleared an apartment complex on the 23rd, LTC Smiley, the battalion commander, reported that residents didn’t ask for food and water, but cigarettes. In other parts of Baqubah, people have been celebrating the routing of AQI by lighting up and smoking cigarettes.
Other AQI edicts included beatings for men who refused to grow beards, and corporal punishments for obscene sexual suggestiveness, defined by such “loose” behavior as carrying tomatoes and cucumbers in the same bag. These fatwas were not eagerly embraced by most Iraqis, and the taint traveled back to the Muftis who sat in supreme judgment. Locals, who are increasingly helpful in pointing out and celebrating the downfall of AQI here, said that during the initial Arrowhead Ripper attack the morning of the 19th, AQI murdered five men. Townsend’s men found the buried corpses behind an AQI prison, exactly where they’d been told to look for the group grave. Locals also directed Townsend’s men to a torture house. Peering through a window, American soldiers saw knives, swords, bindings and drills. AQI is well-known for its macabre eagerness to drill into kneecaps, elbows, ribs, skulls, and other parts of victims."
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/drilling-for-justice.htm
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jstan
climber
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Jun 29, 2007 - 10:49am PT
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Way to go. We are moving.
It is never smart to state the obvious. But what do you do when it seems the obvious might be more obvious?
Never try to corner a human.
You want to kill a rat? Corner it. You want to talk to a human? Offer choices. Talk about likely consequences.
To get, one must give.
You want someone to put their opinion on the table? Put your opinion on the table.
Nothing is free.
My apologies to all and compliments to Lois. IMO she has just done the first 5.16. I am assuming there is a 15 somewhere. If not, she just skipped over it. Would have made a helluva climber.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jun 29, 2007 - 11:19am PT
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"One thing a lot of us do on here is try to sway or change opinions (probably a somewhat futile endeavor). It would seem to some extent that LEB has changed her's. Now she's being attacked for expressing it. "
LEB isn't being attacked for expressing her new opinions, she's being attacked for rewriting the history of her old opinions and their implications for the nature of US involvement in Iraq.
It's like, after the death camps were revealed to the Germans, of course they said "I was mistaken to support Hitler but the German People are quite decent." Yet those same people bought into the propaganda at the time that Jews were bad for society and something had to be done about them. They accept all the Jewish oppression laws and called for tough action. That's the moral equivilent of what Lois did and she won't see or admit it. It could be easily proved with her own quotes if somebody had the time. That's all.
ALL people are quite decent, even Iraqis. We think we're being quite decent, even with our death penalty and more people in prison than China with 3 times our population. We think it's indecent when we read about strict islamic law. Decency is kinda relative. Let's hope somebody's decency doesn't kill or rape us someday like we have done in Iraq.
TGT, the foreign forces bringing violence from day One are us, the United States. Even the guys running the prisons in iraq have admitted that really few foreign fighters are there. The Iraqis were and are all armed to the teeth. Think foreigners could just waltz into that society, set up shop and make mayhem without consent? Nope. They know who'se from Syria, or even from the next province. It's been a total lie that the problems in Iraq are imported from Syria and Iran. I suppose the French caused the problems when the former Yugoslavia broke up?
peace
Karl
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Jun 29, 2007 - 11:30am PT
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I'll take the word of my son and others that have told bme different including a Lt that was collecting those passports.
An article I saw this morning pretty much sums it up.
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Japanese Propaganda and American Mass Media
June 29, 2007: June 29, 2007: U.S. troops have been mystified at how differently the war they fight in Iraq is portrayed by the U.S. media back home. Most just shrug it off as "politics," and yet another reason to not trust what the mass media presents as reliable reporting. But recently, the troops have been passing around an interesting discovery. Namely, that the Japanese psychological warfare effort during World War II included radio broadcasts that could be picked up by American troops. Popular music was played, but the commentary (by one of several English speaking Japanese women) always hammered away on the same points;
1 Your President (Franklin D Roosevelt) is lying to you.
2 This war is illegal.
3 You cannot win the war.
The troops are perplexed and somewhat amused that their own media is now sending out this message. Fighting the enemy in Iraq is simple, compared to figuring out what news editors are thinking back home. A few times, the mass media has been bold, or foolish, enough to confront the troops about this divergence of perceptions. The result is usually a surreal exchange, with the troops giving the journalist a "what planet are YOU from" look. Naturally, this sort of thing doesn't get much exposure. When pressed, a journalist or editor will dismiss the opinions of the troops (of all ranks), because they are "too close" to see "the big picture." For the same reason, reporters who send back material agreeing with the troops, find their stuff twisted into an acceptable shape, or not used at all. Historians will have a good time with all this."
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wootles
climber
Gamma Quadrant
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Jun 29, 2007 - 11:45am PT
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Karl, Would you rather LEB hold her old view?
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Jun 29, 2007 - 11:47am PT
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TGT, I'm not doubting that the troops are doing heroic work so far as they can, but if most of us who have never been near Iraq (me, for one) have been fed a bill of goods by the media, what, then, is the truth about what's going on? Is the Iraq conflict something you think we can "win," whatever that means (and I sure don't know).
JL
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jun 29, 2007 - 11:50am PT
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TGT
Michael Yon, who you have quoted at length, says there is a civil war in Iraq. Further, here's what he said about foreign fighters
"Ask average Americans and Europeans if Iranians are coming to Iraq and fighting, and most seem to believe they are. But I crisscrossed Iraq on numerous occasions and never found an American or Iraqi military commander who agreed that Iranians are coming in. Surely foreigners have come to fight in Iraq—I have been there at times when some were captured—but on the balance, foreign terrorists are a small fraction of the problem in Iraq."
I won't paste the whole thing but you can read more about the civil war from Michael here.
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/of-words.htm
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Hootervillian
climber
the Hooterville World-Guardian
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Jun 29, 2007 - 12:57pm PT
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my brother is now in afganhistan, his wife is in iraq, one of my cousins is just back from iraq with the unenviable duty of 'counseling' those that have returned. i assure you he's horrified, not only from his participation, but of what he has to hear now on a daily basis.
my brother started this conflict as a marine, served his time and then went to the army to fly blackhawks. bottomline, he's a little hard-on, seemingly always with a chip on his shoulder, but no longer has any illusions about the what, why and where of the MEss.
when able, all outline a much different profile of overall morale. i sure hope they can get the attention they need when/if they get back.
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