"The pictures are to graphic to show you."

[Guest]

Mailuk, your ability to swallow our American propaganda without question is truly amazing. Do you really believe the US wants a democracy in Iraq?! Isn't it obvious to you that since genuine elections would result in an Islamic regime hostile to the US, the American goal will be to avoid elections at all costs while continuing to drone on about bringing democracy. Do you have any ability to analyze events independently of what you are told to believe? Did the US support of repressive regimes result in democracy in Viet Nam, Guatemala, Chile, Iran, etc. etc. Is any amount of incongruence between reality and official language enough to cause you to question the propaganda? What will happen in Iraq is that there will be some kind of sham elections, a puppet regime that asks for American repression (like Diem, the Shah, any number of banana republics) and the US military will never leave Iraq while there is a drop of oil in the ground. All very predictable and obvious.

 

Khun Pad Thai

 

'What a wonderful thing it is for rulers that men do not think."

A. Hitler

[Guest]

Mailuk quoted " 'It's clearly recognized that people in combat situations are under enormous strain,' international Red Cross spokesman Florian Westphal said in Geneva. 'Obviously, we were not on the spot so we cannot judge the precise circumstances of what was being shown here.' "

 

 

People rationalize situations. Unfortunately, when a person uses such words as "He is pretending he is dead" along with explessive adjectives does imply the person is harmless and also reflects the frame of mind of the person killing him. Why did the soldier decide to shoot him in the head? Why not the shoulder or arm? Where was the plastic cuffs and the infamous American hoods? Or was the soldier caught up in the fervor which most US citizens seem to be caught up into - and that is to kill Moslems?

 

People around the world should be offended that in the US, our rights are systematically being taken away from us and we are fed propaganda claiming our form of government is going to be imposed upon the Iraqs and probably forced on to others later on. Why don't US citizens try to regain the freedoms they had, expand on them and becoming a glowing beacon of 'freedom' in the world, instead of turning toward a police state imposing our will onto others?

[khunsanuk]

Hi,

 

At the risk of breaking my own No Politics rule...

 

"The US will not tell people how to vote."

 

Correct, they influence elections using other, more certain, methods

 

Sanuk!

[pattaya127]

people are blinded by the word "democracy".

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It's become a loose word to use to justify anything. My sense is that, since Nov2, americans, by a small percentage, wish to have less democracy, and more lies and hypocisy (moral values, yeahhh :. Their choice, they will be served.

[torrenova]

flyonzewall said:i hope many american families will get to see those "too graphic" pictures, so that they can start thinking for what they have to send their children into another unjust and aggressive war.

As far as I know, there is no conscription in the US for the forces and those sent to Iraq are full time soldiers who signed on the dotted line to follow orders and fight when ordered to do so.

 

Mama and Papa didn't send them to war, Dubya did in his position as head of the military. He has that inalienable right as an elected leader.

 

Now you can argue until blue in the face that it is wrong or whatever or that we should invite the taliban and Saddam to Sunday school but there is a war and the soldiers need to fight it without their hands tied behind their backs.

 

OK, no-one is invading the USA but the USA was targetted by terrorist attacks. What you gonna do ? Just sit back and wait for the tyrants to realise they were wrong ? Hell no, take the fight to them and fuck them up.

 

Some of those non germanic european states want to thank fuck that some countries can wage war and get the job done. Most of europe just raises the white flag when the agressor comes. Easy now to preach when 60 years ago, The UK, USA, Ozzies and some erstwhile assistance from other countries with backbone sorted out the Germans or you'd all be living under Hitler's successor.

[Neo]

torrenova said:OK, no-one is invading the USA but the USA was targetted by terrorist attacks. What you gonna do ? Just sit back and wait for the tyrants to realise they were wrong ? Hell no, take the fight to them and fuck them up.

 

I think you hit on the 2 biggest misconceptions in the world today.

 

#1: Iraq had something to do with 9/11. No they didn't. In fact a CIA report at the time found Iraq not to be a threat to the US.

 

#2 9/11 was a case of America being attacked. It was a retaliation for the failures of US foreign policy where we had so angered others, they finally struck back. The US foreign policy creates these extreme terrorist groups. Bin Laden has been clear that he leaves countries alone that do not threaten Muslims. And footage of US soldiers slaughtering POW's in mosques is bound to breed even scarier terrorists.

 

[pattaya127]

Frankly, coming from both continents by now, I can see that the reluctance of europeans to go gun hungry is not just about being frisky, but that the long history of war on the continent has made anyone aware of the horrors and wantonness involved in each conflict, and that the americans may get a shock like 9/11, but have never dealt with war at their door.

 

I know, I can feel the same as a euro or same as an US, if i wish to. There is a big difference between defending democracy and freedom on your soil from agressors, and promoting it aggressively somewhere else. It is obvious that americans are not feeling at war at all. It's pure BS, to keep the money coming. War means sacrifice, there is no f...g (idea of) sacrifice around the country, save from the families with kids in Irak (a lot not yet citizens, BTW, that's the carrot for joining in).

 

If going after Irak is to defeat terrorism, well, let's wait... Case has not been made in situ, only in verbose from Washington.

 

Finally, just because Euros are indebted to the USA, for liberating Europe, does not mean that 60, 100, 200 years later, Uncle Sam can do as wishes, or at least that they should automatically agree. gee, WW2, I bet Dubya would have spent that one dangerously riding horse in Texas. Even his Poppa had enough sense not to occupy Irak. Of course, he'd seen war from up close.

[MaiLuk]

>>Do you really believe the US wants a democracy in Iraq?! Isn't it obvious to you that since genuine elections would result in an Islamic regime hostile to the US, the American goal will be to avoid elections at all costs while continuing to drone on about bringing democracy.<<

 

If you check your calendar you will see that there will be an election in january. You can talk about postponing it. Now that fallujah is in hand that is unlikely to happen. Also, there was already an election in Afghanistan which would seem to go against your narrow world view here.

 

Dictatorships/oligarchies in iran guatamala chile etc having nothing to do with elections in Iraq and Afghan. You want to quote them because they more closely align with the 'all the US does is tainted' ideology that has a grip on current opinion.

 

The point about an islam government being elected is one of the reasons that bush's own supporters wonder about whether all this was worth it. An islam gov't will come to power. Thats democracy in the middle east.

 

Lets not also forget that the brits aussies and others are also on board, this is not just an american affair.

 

So the answer to your question is "yes", the US wants democracy in afghan and iraq and it will happen despite the naysayers whose ideology regarding american policy is even more distorted than the bush ideology which is not easy to surpass

 

>>What will happen in Iraq is that there will be some kind of sham elections, a puppet regime that asks for American repression (like Diem, the Shah, any number of banana republics) <<

 

This is an assumption by you without any facts to back it up. How is a sham election going to be accomplished? Are american agents going to stuff ballot boxes? If you are aware of a plot to perpetrate election fraud you should share the facts. The support for dictatorships that you are using as examples is a non sequiter. Its apples and oranges when comparing those dictatorships to the efforts to implement elections in afghan and iraq.

 

>>Is any amount of incongruence between reality and official language enough to cause you to question the propaganda?<<

 

Why do you ask? . The propaganda from the bush admin is standard stuff and I seriously doubt that politically aware people pay attention to it. Be careful about falling into the "everything america does is evil" propaganda trap, you seem to have gotten a large dose of it ::

 

OK. just so you know where I'm coming from. When bush announced he was invading because of WMD, I did not believe him. It wasn't that I did not believe saddam had WMD. I believed he had 'em and so did everyone else. It just seemed blatantly obvious to me that WMD had nothing to do with the real reasons for going in. Was not the first and won't be the last that a US president obtained the implied consent of the american public by using a pretext. And with saddam violating UN resolutions, the pretext was further perfected.

 

Iraq was weakened from years of sanctions and an easy take down target. It posed a tremendous opportunity to expand american influence into the middle east. And of course no soviets to check american interests. It would be accomplished by taking out saddam and installing democracy and more importantly a booming capitalist economy. The iraqis would warm to americans as we rebuilt their country. (The incompetence of the plan was the failure of postwar foresight and planning, and ignoring the potential insurgency but that is another issue)

 

By expanding into the ME the US could change the face of all of it, so the thinking went. We could influence regimes, even change some. It would be good for america. And if the people living under dictatorships got a chance to vote and capitalist economies developed instead of the "ruling family gets all the dough" system then everyone would be better off (and so would americans, don't forget how we like capitalism). And with democracy would come a softening up of the hard line islamists promoting terrorism and hatred that were perpetuated by the existing regimes. We are talking long term strategy (as in decades) to promote US interests in a place where we had limited influence. The 21st century was the prize being sought. And they thought it would be easy to get that first foothold. People who said it would not be easy were ignored.

 

The oil was an added benefit because it could pay for most of what we were planning to do (so they hypothesized). The undertaking is obviously bigger than the intellectuals in the administration had dreamed possible and the US is now paying for it all.

 

The overall idea was not a bad one, unfortunately there was serious incompetence in the planning not to mention some self interested parties promoting things as well. Most likely a group think situation developed and a leader at the top with limited capacity for processing info and no surprise things are where they are.

 

So there you have my rambling theory on why the US is on holiday in iraq. Bush has a major asset in the current way the main US media outlets cover the war. The public can tolerate things for now. I suspect the media black out will not hold for that long and when it lifts the american public will lose their enthusiasm. Bush needs to take down the insurgents now before that happens.

[MaiLuk]

>>"The US will not tell people how to vote."

 

Correct, they influence elections using other, more certain, methods <<

 

The tried and true method here in the US is to spend money promoting your candidate. Did you have another method in mind? ::

[pattaya127]

Bin Laden has been very clear that he leaves countries alone that do not threaten Muslims.

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Sure, he needs no help for that, he's done a good job of threatening them and worse himself, with his Taliban acolytes. Free of you to heed by his words....

 

I will admit, though, that it is undeniable that him, Omar or saddam were propped up by the same people in charge of the war now, on the US side. Our creatures, so to speak. We may have stroked the bottle a bit too eagerly, and the genie won't go back in....