2006-03-03
Taliban Presence is Bigger and More Menacing Than Ever
This is in addition to the record opium output since the US invasion. And they never did find Osama. But on the positive side, a former UnoCal exec is the president of the country. Was that (and the opium) the point all along?
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8 comments:
Stop it with the straw men. George Washington would have been a Unocal exec, if such a thing had existed back then; and the liberation of Afghanistan is just like the US revolution. And the Civil War. Think Lincoln didn't pimp for corporate interests in his spare time? You're just hopeless. And an appeaser. And in need of lectures from white guys about racism and how it no longer exists.
My Tom, you're far too clever and brilliantly intellectual for the rest of us!
How dare we try and match wits with the likes of you!
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Tom: Lincoln certainly was accused of pimping for business interests, including accusations that his war of revolution served those interests. And don't you and Nadir disparage Washington's revolution as nothing but a crass economic move?
Sadly, most wars of liberation merely lead to the replacment of one dictator with another. This was true of the first few revolutions in France, and nearly all revolutions in Africa. It may well be true of the revolutions now in Afgahnistan and Iraq.
Who has been liberated in Afghanistan and Iraq?
Maybe it is the Taliban who don't have to deal with the day to day business of running a country. Now they can concentrate on violent oppression full time.
Maybe it is Osama Bin Laden (if he is still alive) who has no one chasing him anymore.
It certainly isn't the people of Iraq or Afghanistan...
Paul, do you REALLY view Bush as "The Great Liberator"?
What about you Slinger? Why are you so happy about this turn of events in the Middle East? How have these wars benefited anyone besides the multinational energy, weapons and finance industries?
Yes, Tom. George Washington was the ricest man in America when elected president. Is Bill Gates running in 2008? Windows for EVERYONE! Even you Mac nerds. Could that be the new American revolution?
And yes, Lincoln pandered to corporate interests. The power struggle between the increasingly industrial corporate barons of the north and the agrarian aristocracy of the south is well documented. The African slaves, who provided 400 years of unpaid labor to build this nation, were a political football.
Perhaps this is the only similarity between Paul and Slingers current revolutionary wars and the U.S. Civil War - this time the people of Afghanistan, Iraq and the United States are the political pigskins. Hue and Six cheer on the combatants while their own arses are being kicked through the goalpost.
Tom: Of course only black people have anything valid to say about racism... except for crackers who concur with Nadir's view. Such honkies are "sensitive" and "get it." Just try to get between Nadir and a race-lecturing Howard Zinn or Tim Wise! Nadir has even paid money for an entire book-form lecture on race by Tim Wise. But whoa unto the black person who opposes Nadir's view. Such negroes are "sell-outs" or have "forgotten where they come from," and wholly unworthy of holding forth on the subject of race. Just try to get Nadir to hold still for a lecture on racism (or purchase a book on same) from Tom Sowell!
What rubbish. "Racism" in this discussion pertains to white-on-black racism, which combined with the dictionary must mean a presumption by a white person that members of particular "races" naturally possess superior or inferior qualities, and/or efforts by a white person to deny or permit privileges to people according to racial categorization. You mean to tell me that only black people can detect white-on-black racism, or validly comment on it? That their dectections and assessments are infallably correct?
That members of the only population qualified to practice white-on-black racism (honkies!) have no observations or assessments of this phenomenon that are worthy of consideration?
This is preposterous for nearly enumerable reasons. For one, even adherents of this view dont' accept it, as they embrace race lectures from honkies with whom they agree, and recject race lectures from negroes with whom they disagree. Nadir never tires of pointlessly and irrelevantly telling me: "You will never know what it's like to be black". But neither will he ever know what it's like to be in a room full of white people, to hear what they say when zero black people are around. In proving the existence of white-on-black racism in our own neighborhood in 1972, Tom, I hardly think the most complete case could have been made without testimony from our family. Obviously and by definition, then, on the issue of black-on-white racism, blacks and whites are equally qualified to detect and assess it, with neither possessing special supernatural powers of perfection. (I would add that all humans of any background -- even Indian immigrants -- possess the capability to successfully study, detect, and ascertain white-on-black racism in the US.)
How very liberal of you to shut your mouth and receive wisdom on this subject from Nadir and Michael Eric ("I AM A NIGGA!") Dyson, and to remember never to contradict any of their promulgations. Their assessments and categorizations automatically qualify as definitive, after all.
What hogwash. First of all, your attitude is racist, because you ostensibly permit or deny the privileged of "lecturing" on a particular topic due to your categorization of the speaker into a racial group (ignoring that you and Nadir actually apply an idological criteria). And it is illogical, for more reasons than I have time to enumerate.
One, does it make sense that robbers cannot detect robberies? Or that somebody who's never been raped cannot detect and expertly hold forth on rape? "A robbery took place tonight, but you can't tell because you are a robber, and only robbed people can detect robberies." Imagine in 1840 or 1940 how easy it was to prove to *anyone* that racism was taking place. Decades later, and thousands of miles away, humans of any circumstance can read the articulations of Nat Turner, Sojerner Truth, or Frederic Douglas, and comprehend the racism documented in books written by these people... or the writings or their white contemporaries from William Garrison to Harriet Stowe. I guarantee you that a black person in Westland, Mi in 1940 could prove to any human on earth that racism was taking place there. This inherent ability of humans to comprehend and describe real actions of others in particular led to many whites fighting in the effort to achieve full citizenship for blacks (as well as Willard Motley, Collette, and the two Dumas to write convincing dramas featuring all-white charactors), and in general serves as one of the foundations of human civilization. The wealthy South Carolina slave-owning Grimke sisters certainly knew that racism was occurring when they ran away to Boston to help lead the abolishist movement. Among their activities: fierce lectures on the subject of racism. One of their amazed listeners: Fred Douglas. Today their words represent irreplacable testimony to the existance of white-on-black racism in their day.
Two, your logic on this topic would, when applied to any other topic (and other aspects of this topic), create absurd requirements. For example, Nadir and Cornel West have never lived as slaves in South Carolina. Thus they are no more qualified to lecture anyone about slavery in South Carolina than I am to lecture anyone about racism in 2006. And only mothers could diagnose pregnancy. Only rape victims could diagnose rape. The profession of Historian would have to be abolished, obviously, since no human living now lived in ancient Greece or China.
Nadir: If you wonder what the point was of the Iraqi and Afgahnistan invasions, just read any or all of the mountains of articles and books written by the neocons themselves. They are crystal clear about what they want, unless you propose that they secretly want something else. They want a constitutional free market democracy in these nations; they believe that this will result in the most prosperity for the most people. You can disagree with their belief, but other than your own imagination, can you cite any evidence that they instead believe something else?
Paul, aren't some of the neocons openly and unapologetically pushing Empire? I actually find that a lot more intellectually respectable than the approach that attributes the war to some abstract love of "democracy."
As to the doctrine of Iraq threatens our ally (Israel), and thus must be crushed, I'm not convinced. First, that sort of alliance behavior was surely discredited in WW1, which saw something like half of Western Europe's male youth perish over such considerations. Second, other countries--including Bush-approved states like Saudi Arabia and UAE--were surely sending lots more cash to the Palestinians. Must they not be crushed, too, under such a policy regime?
I don't think its unreasonable to suggest that the war in Iraq was about setting up a permanent military base in the Gulf (the Saudi one had become untenable.) Besides the ouster of the Baathists, what other aim has the US achieved over there?
Tom:
0) I've read of no neocons pusing Empire, only dozens of anti-neocons claiming that this is what the neocons want (ie, strawman arguments). You might be refering to articles that accept your incorrect definition of Empire (either your definition of Empire is incorrect, or your charactorization of the US has having one is), and assert that this US Empire is a benevolent one. The neocon advocacy of democracy in foriegn countries comprises a set of assumptions:
0.a) Democracy = Constitutional republics wherein transparent laws enforce private contracts and the rights of individuals to enter into contracts freely with each other and to own their own thoughts, expressions, and actions. Necons believe that this is the natural state of humans living securely and prosperously organized together into formal socieities. "The end of history" -- a neocon term -- refers to the neocon belief that Marx was right that human societies naturally, slowly, and violently advance forward into one type of government, but that he was wrong about the type of "endpoint" government.
0.b) Democracy leads to the greatest possible security and prosperity for the greatest possible fraction of people. Breakdowns in security and prosperity tend to repreesent breakdowns in democracy. For example, Enron, or Nadir getting pulled over by cops and bullied for not wearing his seatbelt. Enron officials and the police officers here have violated bedrock concepts of democracy. Another example: Arabian dictators blaming the lack of prosperity in their nations on Isreal and the US, and officially or clandestinely funding terror within the borders of, or upon the representatives of, Isreal or the US. If these Arabian nations adopted democracy, its people would be too busy sustaining a productive economy, upgrading their kitchens, and building trade relationships with Isreal and the US to attack those nations.
0.c) A given democracy's prosperity and security increases not only by the extent to which not only it practices democracy domestically, but also by the extent to which other nations do.
0.d) Military antagonism between nations tends to result from a breakdown in deomcracy on the part of one of the nations, and that the most proctive military response is not merely to defeat a foriegn nation militarily, but to facilitates its people in establishing a democracy.
1) There is no doctrine that "because Iraq threatens Isreal, it must be crushed." Instead, there is this: The baathist govt of Iraq officially paid suicide bombers who attacked targets in Isreal. For this reason and several other factors (including on-going voilations of the 1992 cease-fire agreement coupled with the failure of economic sanctions to affect anything but extra poverty for Iraqis and massive fraud within the UN with people conspiring to lift those sanctions, and Iraq'a historic regional leadership role), the US military must intervene to speed the Iraqi's to that natural endpoint of history (see above).
1.a) You make a point about the lessons of WWI, but I don't know what you're refering to. I thought that WWII, though, taught us the absolute importance of military alliances, and that such alliances can only have one useful meaning: if you attack one, we will respond as if you have attacked us all. Such behavior would have "stopped Hitler at Poland (or Austria?)," no?
1.b) Please enlighten me about government representatives of SA and UAI issuing official payments from their respective national treasuries for terror strikes against Isreal. I believe that this is untrue. I believe you are referring to private citizens making payments to terror groups. (This argument resembles the other illogical argument you peaceniks make that since most of the 911 terrorists were Saudi nationals, that this should have caused Bush to target SA's govt.) The neocons do not believe that the US can directly install democracies in every Arabian nation. Rather the beleive that in examining a variety of factors, if they pick the right nation (or even two nations), democracy's inevitable spred will accellerate without US intervention.
2) The only reason that the neocons want a military base in Arabia is that they believe Arabia contains governments and groups with short and long term objectives of attacking the security and prosperity of the US and its allies. When Arabians finally become as devoted to upgrading their kitchens as Tawainians, South Koreans, and Canadians, the neocons would advocate no military bases in Arabia. Thus the neocon's ultimate goal is a US that has no military bases in Arabia.
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