[extropy-chat] Re: Iraq and legality again

Mike Lorrey mlorrey at yahoo.com
Mon Jun 27 16:45:11 UTC 2005



--- Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:

> 
> 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.

If the US wants Iraqi oil so badly, why did they allow a French company
to get the vast majority of the oil supply? The oil shibboleth is one
more lie of the radical left.

> 
> > 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.

If you were an Iraqi with your lifestyle, in Iraq, you'd be dead by
now, likely at the hands of the sort of people you think of as 'the
resistance'.
 
> > 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.

Based on what facts? The 'resistance' is a few thousand Baathist thugs
outnumbered by Saudis, Syrians, Iranian, Jordanians, Egyptians, and
other al Qaeda recruits who are against ANY sort of representative
government. How can you support a group that has openly declared its
opposition to the very idea of democracy? Your stance is typical of the
loony Chomskyan left.

> 
> > 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.

Bull, just above you declared you'd join them if you were Iraqi. I also
question your libertarian credentials if you think your nationality is
of any importance in this fight. Why aren't you putting your life where
your mouth is like the American left did in Spain during the 1930's?

> 
> > 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".

Saddam was not 'our opponent'? I see a meltdown coming...

> 
> >      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.

What credibility? You never trusted Bush's credibility since 2000. If
you are a libertarian who puts her money where her mouth is you haven't
paid taxes, and you haven't volunteered, so exactly whose money, life,
and trust are we talking about here?

> >
> >      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.

Nazi prisoners tried to claim the same thing of allied war prisons, but
nobody believed them. Don't you know that everyone in prison in America
is innocent? Few prisoners ever admit their responsibility for their
actions, and always blame their victims, the system, society, their
guards, the state, etc. etc. etc.

> >
> >      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.

Most insurgents are not Iraqis.

> 
> > This had to be done
> > sooner or later. We have to stabilize the Middle East
> > somehow.
> 
> By turning it into American Empire?

My only opposition (and that of many libertarians I talk to about the
topic) to the UN and one world government is that they didn't adopt the
US Constitution. If the entire world adopted the US Constitution, would
that be an American Empire? And would that be so bad? That would be my
second favorite option of a future world, outside of the end of
government altogether. I'm willing to compromise and take my second
choice...

> 
> > 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.

What, you are advocating federal spending on energy? Hardly libertarian
of you. A better idea is to either remove the inane boat anchor from
nuclear power (the dollar per kilowatt tax paid into the
decommissioning trust fund) that retards its development, or else apply
the same boat anchor to oil to pay for its pollution.

> > 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.

We? We who? Please let me know when you receive your draft card.

> 
> >      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?

Of course, because that is exactly what is going on.

> >>
> >> 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.

<sarcasm>
Which is why Muammar Khaddafi has become an unrepentant international
kingpin and leader of a global terrorist movement....</sarcasm> Oh,
wait....

> 
> > 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.

Bull. The progressive Iranians boycotted the elections because the
mullahs banned all their candidates. It is going to take a good term of
true oppression again to motivate the Iranian people to do away with
religious rule once and for all.

> 
> > There is no diplomatic
> > solution to such an ultimatum.
> 
> We are the ones giving military ultimatums in the region.

I suppose you could say "Stop giving ultimatums or die" is a sort of
ultimatum, but it is not a principal one...

> 
> > 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?

Because Bush's election was not guaranteed by any means and he is now a
lame duck, so the election would have been the optimal time to 'catch'
him if he was our patsy.

> 
> > 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.

Home grown in the offices of the Worker's World Party, the IAC, ANSWER,
MoveOn, and other groups that have been co-opted by the WWP's
entryists. What you take as gospel is nothing but stalinist/baathist
propaganda and disinformation. Mighty libertarian of you.

> 
> 
> >      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?

Who do you think killed Kennedy? The Secret Service is an office of the
Dept of Treasury and the Federal Reserve. Kennedy was trying to take
the US Gov't off of dependency on Federal Reserve Notes with an
issuance of United States Notes to supply the governments cash needs
free of the tax of inflation.

> >
> > 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.

Oh, yes, that dastardly Marshall Plan, total insanity that resulted in
the terrible waste of western Europe and Japan as failed states....

> 
> > 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.

It took a number of years to get Europe and Japan back on their feet,
with active infiltration and communist insurgency supported by Stalin
in both areas. You know nothing of the thousands of French communists
that de Gaulle killed after the war....

> 
> > 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.

Bias alert. Our domestic fundamentalist crazies gain credence when the
voices of liberty sound even nuttier when they allow themselves to get
conned by stalinist propaganda.

Mike Lorrey
Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
                                      -William Pitt (1759-1806) 
Blog: http://intlib.blogspot.com

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