[extropy-chat] Re: Iraq and legality again

[Samantha Atkins]

On Jun 26, 2005, at 12:20 PM, The Avantguardian wrote:
>       That is exactly what we are trying to do there
> now is give those people self determination.

No, we aren't.  You can give self-determination while occupying the  
country.  Bringing democracy and the rest is another ad hoc excuse  
for our actions.

> There are
> Iraqis that want self-determination. These are the
> Iraqis that risked their lives to vote in this last
> election. These are the courageous Iraqi cops (hands
> down the most dangerous job in the world today) that
> are being captured, tortured, and shot en-masse by
> your so-called underground resistance.


If I was Iraqi I would almost certainly be in the resistance and  
consider those cops turncoats to their own people.



> The insurgents
> are misled into thinking that they are fighting to
> drive out the foreign invaders but what they are
> really trying to do is topple the fledgling democracy
> that has been formed by the Iraqis with our guns but
> THEIR votes.

To you think this Iraqi government being so slowly bolted together  
represents real democracy rather than being in large part our own  
puppets?  I believe there is ample reason to distrust this so-called  
democracy and so-called Iraqi government.

> That is why more Iraqis are dying by the
> hand of your underground resistance than are American
> troops.

It is not "my" resistance.  It is theirs.

> Our troops are defending liberty yet again but
> this time it is not ours, it is the liberty of our
> defeated opponents.

Our opponents?  We decided to invade for bogus reasons a people that  
were not remotely "our opponents".

>      This might be an expensive proposition but will
> not be a waste of money, unless we fail.
>

It is a total waste of money and lives and credibility.  It is rotten  
to the core despite the rose colored glasses you insist on viewing it  
through.


>
>> The message should be sent again and again that
>> bullying and
>> occupying a country for largely imperialistic reason
>> is costly and a
>> mistake.   Saying that right is on the side of
>> grinding the
>> resistance into the dirt is about as evil as it
>> gets.
>>
>
>      Samantha, your idea of occupation is one that is
> no longer valid when it applies to American troops.
> American soldiers are, for the most part, good kind
> people. They are not vikings. They do not rape and
> pillage the conquered. Every country that America has
> occupied short of France has loved us for it. Our
> troops bring rule of law and spend lots of money in
> the local businesses.

Good kind people?  Read the accounts of the Iraqi people attempting  
to flee Falujah.  Go check out the stories and pictures from Abu  
Gharib again.  Good kind people no doubt were part of the German  
occupation of France also.   I am sputtering I am so amazed by such a  
statement.

>>
>> Organized terrorism has been strengthened
>> immeasurably by our
>> actions.  We are our own worse enemy.
>>
>
>      Organized terrorism has been strengthened a
> little, yes, but it has also been drawn out into the
> open and into the range of the guns of the most
> powerful military on this planet.

Insurgents defending their homeland are not automatically terrorists.

> This had to be done
> sooner or later. We have to stabilize the Middle East
> somehow.

By turning it into American Empire?

> We picked the easiest country that we could
> to put a huge military presence in the region. Would
> you suggest, we withdraw from Iraq and attack Syria or
> Iran?

I suggest we withdraw militarily from the region and come home to  
spend the money on nuclear and other energy alternatives.  That would  
be much more sane.


> Would you rather we occupied Jerusalem? These
> options would cost us far more dearly than staying the
> course in Iraq. But the benefit would remain the same.
>

I would rather we not occupy any place in the region.

>      I guess you could call it the bug-light manuever.
> We bait the terrorists into attacking our troops
> rather than our civilians and we kill them one by one.

Do you actually believe this nonsense?

>
>>
>> We are making the ranks swell now.   Don't threaten
>> with more
>> Reichtaggs please.
>>
>>
> Samantha, have you read Bin Ladin's letters? Do you
> know what Jihad means?

Sure.  I know what the words of many madmen who draw power through  
the mistakes and sins of their enemies mean. That doesn't mean that  
there is any real modern jihad that has a prayer of working.  But if  
you want to go more strongly toward jihad then show the Middle East  
countries that the supposed exemplar of modern, rational, free and  
secular ways is an invader who claims the right to attack at will.

> It means that they want us all
> to convert to Islam and put their clerics in charge of
> our lives or they will kill us.

We have strengthened the hands of the theocrats as we have made the  
alternative much less palatable.

> There is no diplomatic
> solution to such an ultimatum.

We are the ones giving military ultimatums in the region.

> So what if that's a
> laughable threat, THEY take it seriously and therefore
> so do I. The biggest trap we can fall into is to allow
> ourselves to underestimate them. I used to believe the
> WTC/Reichstagg conspiracy theory.

It is pretty obvious that the official story is full of holes.

> But when the Bush
> administartion failed to produce Bin Ladin in the lead
> up to and since the 2004 election, I came to the
> conclusion that the U.S. Government was not involved.

Why would we produce such an effective agent?

> Then I noticed that most of the literature on such
> conspiracy theories were sourced in other countries
> like Germany, France, and Canada. Countries that have
> a vested interest in discrediting Bush.

I don't think so.  Most of what I read was home grown.  I also drew  
my own conclusions from the events as recounted from multiple sources  
including the official ones.


>      No American President no matter how slick his
> willy or empty his ten gallon hat would EVER order
> such an atrocity. And if he did, the Secret Service
> men guarding him would shoot him down themselves.
>

Really.  Check out FDR on Pearl Harbor.  Check out what was proposed  
by the military to fake Cuban terrorism on US soil and citizens  
during the Kennedy administration.  What makes you think any such  
conspiracy would be visible to Secret Service agents?


>
>>
>> Is Iraq itself our enemy?   There is no "decisive
>> victory" in this
>> kind of conflict.  If you believe there is then
>> please explain
>> exactly what it is.  The whole world is watching us
>> do whatever the
>> hell we want militarily witho or without sanction or
>> reason.   We are
>> creating more enemies than allies in Iraq and
>> because of Iraq.
>>
>
> Iraq is not the enemy any more. Now they are an orphan
> that needs protection. Too many times in the past the
> inherent flakiness of a foreign policy that changes
> every 4-8 years has caused us to topple governments
> and allow whoever has the will to power to fill the
> vacuum. We have messed up whole sections of the world
> by doing this. Let's do it right this time so that we
> don't have to do it again.

So this time our unjustified meddling will produce good and balanced  
results eh?  This is insanity, expecting different results from the  
same actions that have brought ruin before.

> There is a decisive victory
> to be had in this conflict. It is the stabilization
> and integration of the middle east with the rest of
> the world.

Really?  Do say exactly what this consists of and how we will know  
when the job is done.  What "rest of the world"?  The world is pretty  
diverse.

> In a world with nukes, biotechnology, and
> soon nanotechnology, we can't afford to have even one
> percent of the world ideologically trapped in the
> dark-ages.

Then we better deal with our own fundamentalist crazies at home.   
They are much more directly dangerous to our way of live.


- samantha