Straight from the Horses orifice..........
POSTED BY: BarnStormer
UPDATED: Saturday, July 30, 2005 06:30
VIEWED: 3356
PAGE 2 of 3
Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
I just think that not everyone puts as much faith in appeasement as you do.
Attack of the buzz-words! You just can't help yourself, can you? Crying "appeasement" is just a weaselly way of bringing Hitler into the argument.
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After we allow men who saw the heads off of screaming innocent victims to dictate American and British foreign policy by withdrawing our military support from our allies and interests in the Middle East, then what?
How ironic, it's really you and your ilk who are allowing these vicious men to dictate policy both foreign and domestic. The terrorists are not alone in questioning our involvement in the Middle East, they're simply the only one's you seem willing to see or hear.
This is not a matter of appeasement. We are the greatest military power in the world, no conventional force can touch us. We would not be doing this to escape a real threat, but to save countless lives from being wasted. We have the power to destroy many times the number of casualties we will ever suffer. The terrorist attacks we have suffered are terrible, but they do not threaten our way of life or our power.
We would be doing the Islamic world a kindness is all. Because we have the power to do so. Because we are the good guys and we lead the world in doing right. You can't keep humiliating whole peoples and rubbing your power in their noises and expect them to roll over and take it.
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Should we hand them Israel as well and let them finish what Hitler couldn’t? Should we hand them Kuwait? Afghanistan? Saudi Arabia? It is control of the Middle East they want, and right now our military power stands in their way, and that’s why they have such a problem with our military presence. I don't want Al Zawahiri dictating American power.
Hitler again. I would love to understand what purpose this last bit serves in your mind. Just blowing off steam? Day dreaming? I'm actually interested in something somewhere in the middle between your recipe for Empire and this masochistic fantasy.
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
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Quote:
original post by HKCavalier:
Whenever I hear from the Islamic fundies about America and the west, the central focus always seems to be what they consider to be our militarism and imperialism.
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But y'all keep saying they hate us because of our culture.
I think its a bit of both personally. I think that the clerics hate us, our culture (both American and British), and they use imperialism as an excuse to get what they want and to push more liberal muslims into doing things like terroist attacks.
Just my opinon. But If we were no longer in the middle east these fanatics would suddenly lose a hell of alot of their power.
A woman drove me to drink and I didn't even have the decency to thank her.
--W.C. Fields
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Quote:
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Should we hand them Israel as well and let them finish what Hitler couldn’t? Should we hand them Kuwait? Afghanistan? Saudi Arabia? It is control of the Middle East they want, and right now our military power stands in their way, and that’s why they have such a problem with our military presence. I don't want Al Zawahiri dictating American power.
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Hitler again. I would love to understand what purpose this last bit serves in your mind. Just blowing off steam? Day dreaming? I'm actually interested in something somewhere in the middle between your recipe for Empire and this masochistic fantasy.
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Actually HK, Finn is asking some very cogent questions. Ones you seem unwilling or unable to deal with. And while I agree with you that the Hitler analogy is used way too often in this case it's apt. In the 1930s England and France were the military powers on the planet. The German military was crippled by the treaty of Versailles (sp?). When Hitler came to power he ignored the treaty and rearmed - kind of like Saddam's ignoring the UN resolutions. England and France did nothing. When Hitler occupied Poland again England and France did nothing except delude themselves that would appease Hitler and bring 'peace in our time'. We all know how well that worked.
I'd like to echo Finn's questions. Once we've pulled our forces out of the Mideaset do we sell the people of Afghanistan and Iraq back into slavery and allow Israel to be destroyed? And HK do you really think it will stop there?
Fivver
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Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Okay, help me out here. Whenever I hear from the Islamic fundies about America and the west, the central focus always seems to be what they consider to be our militarism and imperialism. Take the two examples given in this thread, for instance. Time and time again, they talk about our presence in the Middle East being unacceptable and hostile to them--blood on our hands, etc.
But y'all keep saying they hate us because of our culture. There are plenty of fundamentalist Christians in this country who hate mainstream American culture as well. They've said some pretty hateful things in their time. That's what fundamentalists do. They're not the most tolerant folk.
Though the Islamic fundies passionately disapprove of our culture, the salient point at all times seems to be our military presence. And yet y'all just gloss over that as irrelevant. Why?
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
It seems to me that the west did'nt have much of a military presence in the area until the first gulf war. After that, it was not a huge number at all, and they were stationed in Saudi Arabia for the most part, at the Saudis request.
Their hate of the West (The U.S. in particular) started long before the Gulf War(s).
How long have the fundamentalists been referring to us as the "Great Satan"?
Am I a Lion?... No, I think I'ma tellin' the truth.
BarnStormer
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Quote:
Originally posted by fivver:
Actually HK, Finn is asking some very cogent questions. Ones you seem unwilling or unable to deal with.
Oh, please. On the one hand, I thank you for being direct and asking for clarification. On the other hand, your willful misunderstanding of very important world issues deeply disturbs me.
Is it really so very hard for you to understand my position? "Unwilling or unable..." You don't have to taunt me into responding, Fivver. When did everything become so black and white, all or nothing, us or them? I'll tell you when. When the Bush propaganda machine convinced you. You may have had your pet theories before 9/11, but none of you would have shared them in such a public forum if Bush's post 9/11 posturing hadn't made it safe to be paranoid again.
"Should we hand them Israel as well and let them finish what Hitler couldn’t?"
Jeezus. Is this what you call a "cogent" question? I never said we should withdraw all support from Israel. Long before 9/11, I felt that the Palestinians were getting a very raw deal, but I always thought we had enough pull and trust with Israel to try to steer them in the right direction. If we cared to.
"Should we hand them Kuwait? Afghanistan? Saudi Arabia?"
Okay, now hold the phone. This crap has got to stop. There is no unified, regimented, monolithic "them." Hitler was a "them." We could, and did, "hand" Hitler Poland. Today, there's no definable "them" until some wacko calls the newspapers and claims responsibility. (Edited to add: I just realized why you guys are so commited to crying "conspiracy theorist" at everyone else; y'all have cooked up the grandest conspiracy theory of all time!)
Look here: reducing our presence in the Middle East does not mean abandoning our friends to the Evil Hordes. At most it means that our response, should the Evil Hordes come knocking on our friends' doors, would be a mite slower. That's all. The vast majority of Muslims would see that we were changing our policy and doing the right thing without us having to completely abandon our friends. I'm asking for a meaningful reduction of military presence in the region. This would reduce terrorist support and slow recruitment, while our current actions bolster that support and have greatly accelerated recruitment.
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And while I agree with you that the Hitler analogy is used way too often in this case it's apt...When Hitler occupied Poland again England and France did nothing except delude themselves that would appease Hitler and bring 'peace in our time'. We all know how well that worked.
The comparison with Hitler is so completely off the mark because Hitler already happened. The world in 1939 had no idea that Hitler could even happen and he used that to his advantage, every step of the way. The moment Iran invades another country, we'll be there, I promise you. And the world will back us up, just as they did in Kuwait back in '81, because the world has learned a thing or two since 1939. Remember, after the first gulf war, there was a burgeoning anti-Saddam movement in Iraq which we allowed him to crush.
Quote:
I'd like to echo Finn's questions. Once we've pulled our forces out of the Mideaset do we sell the people of Afghanistan and Iraq back into slavery and allow Israel to be destroyed? And HK do you really think it will stop there?
You guys totally amaze me! I have had to edit out so many explitives from this post, let me tell you!
You have no idea how a person like me thinks, do you? Do I really think it will stop there? I mean to allow Israel to be destroyed! We should sell the people of Afghanistan and Iraq back into slavery! WTF? This nonsense which you insist I believe, is not the only alternative to your 
war of aggression and democratizing conquest. We have options, people. We call war "the last resort," because it should come last, after we've tried all the other resorts. We didn't this time, and we're paying the
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Quote:
Originally posted by BarnStormer:
It seems to me that the west did'nt have much of a military presence in the area until the first gulf war. After that, it was not a huge number at all, and they were stationed in Saudi Arabia for the most part, at the Saudis request.
Their hate of the West (The U.S. in particular) started long before the Gulf War(s).
How long have the fundamentalists been referring to us as the "Great Satan"?
Barnstormer, I'm guessing you were born in the '80's. This is not a swipe, it's just that even stuff that happened in '79 would be part of the mythic past to you if you were, but to me, it's recent history.
"Great Satan" is a translation of the Koranic Eblis (I think that's how it's spelled), so there aren't any "lesser Satans," it's just the Big Bad's title. It was during the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979 that it was first used to describe the U.S. specifically, not as a response to our decadent culture, mind you, but as a response to our support for the Shah.
The Persian world, like the Russian world before them, have had a love/hate relationship with Western Europe from the beginning. People over there decry the erosion of their traditions by Western influences. It's been that way everywhere on the planet. Even within our own nation. Everybody loves Shakespeare, nobody loves Coca-cola. Everybody hates the automobile until they have one of their own.
Ayatollah Khomeini is the closest thing to a Hitler they've had over there. Some student admirers of his took the American Embassy in Tehran hostage for 444 days, not because we were decadent western infidels, but because we would not give the Shah over to them to stand trial. During Khomeini's reign, Iran tried to get its neighbors to follow their lead with Islamic Revolutions of their own. They didn't really get very far. Secular Iraq attacked them and they were too busy fighting a war for ten years to bother anyone else. Then Khomeini died and since then the Islamic Republic of Iran has been slowly, but surely, falling apart. Fascist movements don't do so well after their leader dies. Just a for instance that I know about: it's against the law to have a Satellite dish in your home in Tehran. It wouldn't do for a fascist state to allow its people access to news and information from the outside world, right? Doesn't stop half the people there from owning satelite dishes today. The cops don't enforce half the laws set down during the Khomeini days. Things are changing over there all on their own.
So, yeah, we better stop this juggernaut before they take over the world!
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
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Quote:
original post by fivver:
When Hitler occupied Poland again England and France did nothing except delude themselves that would appease Hitler and bring 'peace in our time'
Actually the invasion of Poland was the line
Britain told Hitler not to cross. When he did Britain declared war on Germany.
Although thats completly of topic...
A woman drove me to drink and I didn't even have the decency to thank her.
--W.C. Fields
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Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:Quote:
Originally posted by BarnStormer:
It seems to me that the west did'nt have much of a military presence in the area until the first gulf war. After that, it was not a huge number at all, and they were stationed in Saudi Arabia for the most part, at the Saudis request.
Their hate of the West (The U.S. in particular) started long before the Gulf War(s).
How long have the fundamentalists been referring to us as the "Great Satan"?
Barnstormer, I'm guessing you were born in the '80's. This is not a swipe, it's just that even stuff that happened in '79 would be part of the mythic past to you if you were, but to me, it's recent history.
"Great Satan" is a translation of the Koranic Eblis (I think that's how it's spelled), so there aren't any "lesser Satans," it's just the Big Bad's title. It was during the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979 that it was first used to describe the U.S. specifically, not as a response to our decadent culture, mind you, but as a response to our support for the Shah.
The Persian world, like the Russian world before them, have had a love/hate relationship with Western Europe from the beginning. People over there decry the erosion of their traditions by Western influences. It's been that way everywhere on the planet. Even within our own nation. Everybody loves Shakespeare, nobody loves Coca-cola. Everybody hates the automobile until they have one of their own.
Ayatollah Khomeini is the closest thing to a Hitler they've had over there. Some student admirers of his took the American Embassy in Tehran hostage for 444 days, not because we were decadent western infidels, but because we would not give the Shah over to them to stand trial. During Khomeini's reign, Iran tried to get its neighbors to follow their lead with Islamic Revolutions of their own. They didn't really get very far. Secular Iraq attacked them and they were too busy fighting a war for ten years to bother anyone else. Then Khomeini died and since then the Islamic Republic of Iran has been slowly, but surely, falling apart. Fascist movements don't do so well after their leader dies. Just a for instance that I know about: it's against the law to have a Satellite dish in your home in Tehran. It wouldn't do for a fascist state to allow its people access to news and information from the outside world, right? Doesn't stop half the people there from owning satelite dishes today. The cops don't enforce half the laws set down during the Khomeini days. Things are changing over there all on their own.
So, yeah, we better stop this juggernaut before they take over the world!
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
Ah, no. As a matter of fact, when the Shah fell, and the hostages were taken, I was serving on an Aircraft Carrier in the Persian Gulf.
Trust me when I tell you I know what was going on there. I've been to several Muslim countries or countries with a large population of Muslims. I have learned in that time that the majority of the people do want to keep their social traditions alive, but also desire the technologies of the west. They did not seem to concerned about loosing their cultural identity because of those desires.
Back then, I know that in the neigboring countries of Iran at that time, the people were not sorry to see the Shah go. It was well known that he was a corrupt asshole, But they were not happy at all with the Fundamentalist who took over. They know what those people represent.
Am I a Lion?... No, I think I'ma tellin' the truth.
BarnStormer
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We seem to have drifted way off topic here.
When I started this thread, I was pointing out that one of those compasionate clerics in Britian actually said he was doing evil deeds.
Slip of the tongue? Or not?
I just thought it was funny, in a not very funny sort of way.
Am I a Lion?... No, I think I'ma tellin' the truth.
BarnStormer
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Quote:
original post by BarnStormer:
It seems to me that the west did'nt have much of a military presence in the area until the first gulf war. After that, it was not a huge number at all, and they were stationed in Saudi Arabia for the most part, at the Saudis request.
Erm, you do realise that many of the countries of the middle east were set-up by western powers after the 1st world war and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. In fact us Brits were bombing hell out of the Kurds before Saddam was even born. The CIA planned the 1953 coup of Iran, in fact it was the first (but not last) successful overthrow of a foreign government by the CIA.
( http://www.iranchamber.com/history/coup53/coup53p1.php )
The palestinians, rightly or wrongly, see the people of Isreal as an invading force, one that is proped up by the USA.
If you truly believe that there was little western millitary presence in the Middle East until the first gulf war your woefully uninformed.
A woman drove me to drink and I didn't even have the decency to thank her.
--W.C. Fields
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