Friend of Yours?

craner

Beast of Burden
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Anyone actually read the full text of this speach?

For example:

We are in the process of an historical war between the World of Arrogance [i.e. the West] and the Islamic world, and this war has been going on for hundreds of years. ...

The issue of this [World without Zionism] conference is very valuable. In this very grave war, many people are trying to scatter grains of desperation and hopelessness regarding the struggle between the Islamic world and the front of the infidels ...

Is it possible for us to witness a world without America and Zionism? But you had best know that this slogan and this goal are attainable, and surely can be achieved...


So come, now, darlings, let's talk about "Iran" with the reform veil ripped away.

Don't tell me you're surprised, like all those, for example, idiot (oh, really?) EU politicians?
 

tryptych

waiting for a time
Yes, of course, because if you're critical of the US involvement in Iraq, then of course you must be an Israel-hating, Iran supporting fundamentalist.

That's pathetic.
 

bassnation

the abyss
Paul Hotflush said:
A friend of most of the posters on this page, I suspect...

no, on the contrary its the most idiotic thing they could have possibly said or done. my heart sank when i read about it.

but lets face it, the rhetoric is getting rateched up on both sides. this was a speech designed for a domestic audience, much the same as bush's bullshit war on terror addresses to the american people.

the situation is not looking positive is it?

i sometimes wonder whether we bolster hardline extremists in iran by presenting them with exactly the kind of enemy they need to sell to their people to stay in power. you know, iran could blossom into something good, democracy wise - theres debate (which is stifled) but before this nutter took control it appeared to be a country struggling but still on its way to becoming a modern democracy.

feels like all these countries, uk included have really taken big steps backwards these last five years.
 
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droid

Guest
bassnation said:
feels like all these countries, uk included have really taken big steps backwards these last five years.

Is that really a surprise given whats been going on in the mid-east? The chances for any kind of settlement to the Palestine problem have gone rght out the window along with the invasion of Iraq - people are very angry, and the net result is nutters like this guy getting back into power, and things escalating beyond anyones control.

Its a bit of a dangerous situation when one side (US) wants to keep things politically destabilised and on edge through permanent diplomatic attack and military LIC (low intensity conflict), such as Israel's and Turkeys regular threatening air sorties into Iran, and recent US/UK special forces incursions, and the other side (Al Qaidea) wants things to explode into full scale religious and cultural war.

Its funny - Ahmadinejad's speech reads like the mirror image of Huntingtons 'Clash of Civilisations' bullshit. Makes me wonder what Iranians think of the neo-con propaganda that gets published in our newspapers every day.

Anyway - back in the real world. The Middle Easts shining light of democracy continues on its glorious path to destiny:

Human rights groups launched a High Court battle to stop the "physical and mental harm" to Gaza's civilian population they say is caused by Israel's new weapon against militant attacks: the sonic boom.

Miscarriages have increased sharply and children have been driven to panic by Israeli jets systematically breaking the sound barrier over Gaza, according to a petition filed with the court yesterday.

The petition, served by Physicians for Human Rights-Israel and the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme, seeks a court ruling requiring the Defence Minister, Shaul Mofaz, to halt the low-altitude supersonic flights.

The groups say the fear and damage caused, particularly to children, by the "mock air raids" - a response to two phases of about 80 Qassam rocket attacks into Israel in September and October - are a form of "collective punishment" against the civilian population as a whole and therefore violate international law. Denying this, the Israeli military says the flights are a "less threatening" alternative to artillery fire and targeted assassinations, which have also increased in response to the rocket attacks and the suicide bombing that killed five Israelis in Hadera on 26 October.

According to UN figures 12 Palestinians were killed, including some civilians, in the last week of October. On Tuesday an Israeli Army sergeant, Yonatan Evron, was killed in a shoot-out with Palestinians in a village near Jenin. An Israeli was injured last night when two mortar shells fired by Palestinian militants hit Netiv Ha'asarah, a community just north of the Gaza Strip, hours after the army killed an al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade militant in Qabatiyeh, near Jenin.

A medical opinion submitted to the court by Dr Eyad el-Sarraj, a prominent Gaza psychiatrist, points out that the flights have often been timed when children are on their way to and from school. Dr Sarraj says there is already evidence the flights are triggering in young children "poor concentration leading to low academic achievement ... fear of losing a close relative ... fantasies, nightmares, depressive thoughts, glorification of violence, increased feelings of vulnerability and alertness". He said this was because "loud sounds are associated with danger in the minds of children, who are unable to comprehend the distinction between real shelling and mock air raids".....

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article324316.ece
 

Paul Hotflush

techno head
spackb0y said:
Yes, of course, because if you're critical of the US involvement in Iraq, then of course you must be an Israel-hating, Iran supporting fundamentalist.

That's pathetic.

Usually this equation is pretty accurate, minus the last variable.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Mr. bassnation

If you look at it, actually, the rhetoric is not getiing "racheted up" to any significant degree, all things considered, by the US. There are even reports of Condi looking for discreet diplomatic openings with "moderates" and pragmatists in the Iranian regime - the (surely?) discredited Euro-diplomacy route, of which even Jack "Rock" Straw is an advocate.

Iran will never ever be a democracy while a revolutionary Islamic "republic" - these two things are mutualy exlusive. The Guardian of Councils choose and vet every election line-up: it either includes wet-sop reformers, conservatives and hardline conservatives or, as in the latest election sham, conservatives, conservative hardliners, and super-conservative hardliners. Additionally, the whole thing is a gigantic fraud anyway. The President is merely a manager for the CofGs and, ultimately, theocratic dictator-in-chief Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. They always get their guy. Look at the last election: Rafsanjani looked a dead cert, and yet we heard that Khamenei had a preference for Ahmadinejad and, lo!, out of nowhere, Ahmadinejd won.

Just the way it is, you know, in a revolutionary theocracy. Most Iranians don't want to be ruled by this lot, any more than we would. Hence the rude and healthy protest movements, the popular dissidents (many languising in gaol hell-holes, like Akbar Ganji), the Referendum movement, and so on.

It turns out, though, that even Khamenei thinks he's gone too far this time: he's attempting to take power out of Ahmadinejad's hands, in particular foreign policy responsibilties, and hand them back to "moderates", specifically Rafsanjani. Hang on a second...this Rafsanjani? The very same!

So, you get the picture. The election would make no difference, apparent reformers like Khatami make no difference, to the fundamentals of the Revolutionary Islamic Republic. Foreign Policy priority No. 1: the defeat and erasure of Israel (how irrational is that? Israel should hardly figure in Iranian policy!). Has been since 1979. Still is. It's a sad surprise that the world should be surprised by Ahmadinejad's clumsy honesty. At least he has a certain integrity, the dangerous loon, schleping around in his sports jacket.

Ahmadinejad didn't "take power": he was just given the highest managerial position.

As for you droid, well, 1., the idea that neocon propaganda gets published in "our" papers every day is laughable and 2. if you want an Israel-Palestine/Gaza thread, then start one. Otherwise, why mention it except to either

draw attention to Iran's support and funding and feeding of Islamic Jihad, al-aqsa brigades, Fatah, Hamas and, in the Bekaa Valley, Hizbollah, or

to implicity or tacitly ally with Ahmadinejad's sentiments?

Notice, in the second photo too, that the US globe has smashed before the Isreal one...why I asked, "friend of yours?" (apart from sheer, blissful provocation...)

Check it out, droid: the real world
 
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k-punk

Spectres of Mark
I can't really see what is supposed to be so shocking about this.

World without America.... good

World without Israel... good

World without Zionism....good

That of course doesn't mean that these countries are to be removed by force... but in an ideal world, yeh, let's see the back of them...

What is supposed to be so bad about this? After all, in his speech Ahmadinejad also hails the humiliation of Saddam Hussein, which Oliver and his ilk also celebrate.

Don't get me wrong, I don't support Ahmadinejad any more than I support Bush, but surely the symmetry between the two is obvious to anyone...

Populist conservative elected by corrupt means and supported by nation's power elite, favouring dualistic us-versus-them, 'we the good, they the evil' theocratic rhetoric

The difference is that one is the leader of the one, the only country to use nuclear weapons in anger; the other is the president of a country which doesn't yet have such weapons.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Oh boy! A feast of false equivalence! And worse!

How do you make your ideal world without America, Israel, and Zionism? Well, you could start by attempting to remove them, or supporting the struggle to. As an advocate of Zizek-filtered Leninsim and unflitered Bolshivism you, of all people, should understand this...

Ahmadinejad despised Saddam, wanted him gone? Of course! I want(ed) them both gone, just like you want Ahmadinejad and Bush/America gone...what's your point? We're on different sides? Or, in a weird way, on the same side? Because we all want each other gone? (By the way, he wanted Saddam gone for totally different reasons to me and my ilk. That's surely obvious.)

Surely not. I know what you want. You told me face to face: world communism. That's not an answer: it's a facetious justification for your eternal critique...because, without it, it's just

well, critique.

There's no symmetry between Bush and Ahmadinejad: mutual incomprehesion, more like. Is antagonism now symmetry? You'll probably tell me it is. Maybe it is. It's not even Ahmadinejad though, you missed my point: it's the regime. Ahmadineja's a manager, a cypher.

Bush was not orginally elected (the corrupt election you refer to) on 'us-verses-them' rhetoric: he ran his campaign on US isolationsim, a platform you would, I assume, prefer, even support. Second time around he just, well, won.

The US didn't use nuclear weapons in anger in WWII: that was ultimate (yes, murderous) pragmatism. Whether that was justified is a long, old, thorny debate. They could have just carried on fire-bombing Japanese cities Curtis Lemay style...

you see WWII has it's own prism of evil...feel free to come back on this one, but I'm making the point that America, in WWII, dropping nuclear bombs was not an angry irrational religiously-motivated impluse. That's historically inaccurate.
 
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k-punk

Spectres of Mark
oliver craner said:
How do you make your ideal world without America, Israel, and Zionism? Well, you could start by attempting to remove them, or supporting the struggle to. As an advocate of Zizek-filtered Leninsim and unflitered Bolshivism you, of all people, should understand this...

1. What's wrong with a struggle to remove things?

2. I have to assume that 'struggle' here is code for 'military struggle', but Oliver, Oliver you couldn't be disapproving of THAT could you? It's not the MEANS that are the problem surely...

Ahmadinejad despised Saddam, wanted him gone? Of course! I want(ed) them both gone, just like you want Ahmadinejad and Bush/America gone...what's your point? We're on different sides? Or, in a weird way, on the same side? Because we all want each other gone?

No, the point is that your show of dismay at Ahmadinejad's 'shocking' statement is a little random --- presumably if he'd have restricted his speech to hailing 'a world without Saddam' you would have approved of it. And you would have approved of it even more if he had added North Korea and Syria to the list of things the world would have been better without. My point being that your friend George has his own list of countries that he thinks the world would be better off without, and that the faux-outrage against Ahmadinejad depends not a disagreement about means - you are quite happy to advocate the use of military force to rid the world of your enemies - but about which countries are to be removed.

Surely not. I know what you want. You told me face to face: world communism. That's not an answer: it's a facetious justification for your eternal critique...because, without it, it's just

well, critique.

What is the 'it' it is without?

There's a broader argument to be had here about pragmatism/ commensuration to the reality principle versus 'the politics of the impossible', if you want to have it. But of course such a discussion can't be had if the 'that's not an answer' move is always made. What does 'that's not an answer' mean? Well, it means, 'that answer is not allowable' in the craven Blairite, Third Way conditions of possibility in which we live. Of course it's not allowable, of course it's not an 'answer' to the questions set by the 'real world' of so-called politics subordinated to Capital.

There's no symmetry between Bush and Ahmadinejad: mutual incomprehesion, more like. Is antagonism now symmetry? You'll probably tell me it is. Maybe it is. It's not even Ahmadinejad though, you missed my point: it's the regime. Ahmadineja's a manager, a cypher.

Meanwhile, Bush is an brave entrepreneur-individualist, who fought his way to the top against the odds, struggling against the American establishment who despised him and who have fought for his removal ever since his election?

The idea that mutual incomprehension and antagonism of this type are opposed shows a pretty poor grasp of psychology, if I may say so. Surely this type of antagonism DEPENDS UPON mutual incomprehension. Indeed, as Gregory Bateson observes, most conflict situations arise from symmetry. It's precisely because neither side in this theocratic, we-the-good struggle can see that it is the mirror image of the other that the sorry state of affairs obtains.

Bush was not orginally elected (the corrupt election you refer to) on 'us-verses-them' rhetoric: he ran his campaign on US isolationsim, a platform you would, I assume, prefer, even support. Second time around he just, well, won.

Sure, doesn't stop them being symmetrical now though...

The US didn't use nuclear weapons in anger in WWII: that was ultimate (yes, murderous) pragmatism. Whether that was justified is a long, old, thorny debate. They could have just carried on fire-bombing Japanese cities Curtis Lemay style...

you see WWII has it's own prism of evil...feel free to come back on this one, but I'm making the point that America, in WWII, dropping nuclear bombs was not an angry irrational religiously-motivated impluse. That's historically inaccurate.

By anger I only meant 'in a conflict situation'.... There was no suggestion of a religiously-motivated impulse... but the idea that there was no violence or cruelty in the libidinal dynamic of those strikes is a little naive I would have thought...
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Oh, and I just realised, doesn't that world without zionism poster in the first photo resemble the cover of Hardt/Negri's Empire?

0674006712.01._BO2,204,203,200_PIlitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,32,-59_AA240_SH20_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg


Wasn't Negri in Iran recently hob-nobbing with Iranian intellectuals? And aren't Iranian intellectuals mere regime-stooges, hence Azar Nafisi losing her job back in the early 80s (alongside many other "undesirables") and, eventually, emigrating?

Hey, just asking questions!
 

craner

Beast of Burden
But Mark, was I not clear???

I'm not shocked or dismayed by Ahmadinejad's speech: the very opposite. I'm grateful for his clarity and honesty. He represents the regime's real position. Reread what I wrote. He made it easier for everybody to understand, hence the dismay of the bassnations and ayatollahs.

I don't advocate military intervention vis a vis Iran. I can explain why, if you like. By the way, nobody does. Not even Ledeen.

I tried to unlock you next 'that's not an answer' bit: I merely mean, what's your anti-US/Israel strategy? Do you just talk (or write) or do you stick your neck out and support anyone active in "your" struggle? Or do you just like to critique and keep your hands clean? I support the IFTU, PUK, Kanan Maikiya, for a start. That, I think, is a clear position. I don't want to remove countries. I'm happy to stick with current borders...I just think that the struggle against ruling crime families/military dictators/theocracies is legitimate. It just so happens that in Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, and Iraq 03 intervention was warranted.

And, if I may say so, I own up to a poor grasp of "psychology"; is it not time you owned up to a poor grasp of geopolitics?

It's been ably demonstrated thus far...
 

k-punk

Spectres of Mark
Fair play to you...

But a flame-war at this point would be more than pointless; it would play into the hands of the likes of Paul Hotflush, and surely we can agree that we don't want the board reduced to that kind of silly sniping...

Those are good questions... but it's not like I have 'the elimination of Israel' as an urgent goal, it's that I don't see the positing of 'a world without Israel' as a reason to be morally appalled.... on the contrary, when someone talks about it, I think, wistfully, 'yeh, OK, this would be good' ...

Questions of strategy are important, clearly, but it strikes me that 'strategy' should not become a name for 'selection from a series of choices put on offer by the existing order'. Strategy can substitute for fundamental projects. This is my fundamental problem about what is undeniably seductive about your position, to wit, how can one possibly object to anything which gets rid of thugs and murderers like Saddam etc? The contingent problems with pragmatics - the difficulties of being sure that intervention won't make things worse, which, in the case of Iraq for instance, it isn't clear that it hasn't - are one thing, but I think there's another, deeper problem, namely: 'How is that politics has come to be ENTIRELY articulated in negative terms?' Intervention is justified if 'human rights' are under attack, i.e. to eliminate an Evil, but not to bring about some Good. The Good is off the agenda, entirely. This excision is, for me, the very signature of the current ideological configuration.

Now, if you push me on what world communism would look like, or how to get there, I admit that these are open questions, themselves too defined by a negativity (i.e. anti-capitalism) at the moment. But reviving the notion of the Good is crucial; without it, we don't have politics, but only a grubby pragmatism, a perpetual clean-up operation. And, in effect, we have a world which poses the question: 'what do you want, given that you can't have what you want?' The Impossible and the Good are intimately connected.
 

dogger

Sweet Virginia
k-punk said:
Questions of strategy are important, clearly, but it strikes me that 'strategy' should not become a name for 'selection from a series of choices put on offer by the existing order'. Strategy can substitute for fundamental projects. This is my fundamental problem about what is undeniably seductive about your position, to wit, how can one possibly object to anything which gets rid of thugs and murderers like Saddam etc? The contingent problems with pragmatics - the difficulties of being sure that intervention won't make things worse, which, in the case of Iraq for instance, it isn't clear that it hasn't - are one thing, but I think there's another, deeper problem, namely: 'How is that politics has come to be ENTIRELY articulated in negative terms?' Intervention is justified if 'human rights' are under attack, i.e. to eliminate an Evil, but not to bring about some Good. The Good is off the agenda, entirely. This excision is, for me, the very signature of the current ideological configuration.

Sorry to butt in to what seems to be becoming a fairly personal discussion, but this is really interesting. I'm not sure I agree that politics - at least on the surface - has come to be articulated entirely in negative terms. Surely the time to get suspicious is when the politicians DO start throwing around positive buzzwords - like 'freedom' (Bush) or 'choice' (Blair)? That's when I start to feel I'm being hoodwinked, anyway. I suppose you could argue that these terms don't really represent positive ideologies, just attractive euphemisms for aggressive capitalist policies. This is where it gets interesting, I think: we seem to have got to the stage in the West where no positive ideology can be satisfactory any more - blame Lyotard if you will - and think of ourselves as the age of No Ideology, far too clever for fundamentalism. This is bollocks, of course, since this denial of our own ideological orientations only points to the fact of their being irreversibly ingrained. (Hence the common criticism of postmodernism as a philosophical capitulation to the - capitalist - status quo.)

k-punk said:
Now, if you push me on what world communism would look like, or how to get there, I admit that these are open questions, themselves too defined by a negativity (i.e. anti-capitalism) at the moment. But reviving the notion of the Good is crucial; without it, we don't have politics, but only a grubby pragmatism, a perpetual clean-up operation. And, in effect, we have a world which poses the question: 'what do you want, given that you can't have what you want?' The Impossible and the Good are intimately connected.

All this reminds me a hell of a lot of Adorno. Except according to him the Good can ONLY be articulated negatively, since we are so corrupted by our own ideologies - ideologies that have resulted in the world being the way it is i.e. pretty fucked - that we cannot even *think* of the Good. Only through its definition as a negative, an absence, does the possibility of the Good remain open. I am fairly sympathetic to this, though I think we do need at least some working notions of the Good to aim towards, even as we recognise their incomplete and provisional nature. Nonetheless, I do get really pissed off when people attack anti-capitalist/anti-globalisation protestors for 'not putting forward an alternative', as though it negates their right to protest in the first place. Critique is not to be sniffed at - the ability (and right) to criticise is the only power most of us in the West really have - and many people in the world don't even have that.
 
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droid

Guest
oliver craner said:
Mr. bassnation

If you look at it, actually, the rhetoric is not getiing "racheted up" to any significant degree, all things considered, by the US. There are even reports of Condi looking for discreet diplomatic openings with "moderates" and pragmatists in the Iranian regime - the (surely?) discredited Euro-diplomacy route, of which even Jack "Rock" Straw is an advocate.

Oh come on - and you speak of the 'real world' as if you were an authority! ;) Any fool would know that these vague 'reports' of Condi's meetings with Iranian 'moderates', are (if they even happened) almost certainly an approach by the Whitehouse to foil European efforts at diplomacy rather than help them. And it is undoubtably significant for the president of Iran to make a statement like this, despite your 'See -this is what all these nutters are really like' generalisations.

Iran will never ever be a democracy while a revolutionary Islamic "republic" - these two things are mutualy exlusive. The Guardian of Councils choose and vet every election line-up: it either includes wet-sop reformers, conservatives and hardline conservatives or, as in the latest election sham, conservatives, conservative hardliners, and super-conservative hardliners. Additionally, the whole thing is a gigantic fraud anyway. The President is merely a manager for the CofGs and, ultimately, theocratic dictator-in-chief Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. They always get their guy. Look at the last election: Rafsanjani looked a dead cert, and yet we heard that Khamenei had a preference for Ahmadinejad and, lo!, out of nowhere, Ahmadinejd won.

Something other than empty allegations of corruption would be useful here. Im no defender of Irans muderous theocracy, but (for what its worth) according to the BBC (a well known friend of Iranian fundamentalists), accusations of election fraud were unfounded:

Iranian election 'not fraudulent'

Election posters, including one of hardline Tehran mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, are removed in downtown TehranFew thought Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would sweep into second place. Iran's electoral authorities say they have found no evidence of fraud in the presidential election.

The country's Guardians Council, which ran the poll, said a partial recount had confirmed the result and a run-off vote would go ahead Friday.

One hundred ballot boxes in four cities were randomly selected for the recount after complaints of dirty tricks.

Tehran Mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad faces former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in the run-off.

"After complaints... the Guardians Council authorised the interior ministry to recount the ballots from a certain number of boxes. It was clear there was no fraud," the head of the Guardians Council, Ahmad Jannati, said in a statement read on state television.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4110792.stm


Which is not to dismiss the fact that, as you have pointed out, the overall 'democratic' system in Iran is inherently flawed and corrupt, and to be taken with a pinch of salt.

So, you get the picture. The election would make no difference, apparent reformers like Khatami make no difference, to the fundamentals of the Revolutionary Islamic Republic. Foreign Policy priority No. 1: the defeat and erasure of Israel (how irrational is that? Israel should hardly figure in Iranian policy!).

Oh yeah, those evil fundamentalists, victimising little Israel again! :D . I suppose the strategically and morally correct thing to do is ignore the incredibly rich, nuclear armed regional superpower neighbour, that offers a serious (and often vocalised) threat to your very existence?

As for you droid, well, 1., the idea that neocon propaganda gets published in "our" papers every day is laughable and 2.

Wow - I like that 'as for you'. Really makes you sound not-arrogant - distracted me from the Mark Steyn article Im reading in todays paper :D . Maybe you should go and laugh in the faces of the editors of The Sun, The Telegraph, The Express, the Washington or NY post etc... all of whom cheerleaded for war, and have published neo-con opinion in either direct or paraphrased form.

Now obviously, Ann Coulter or David Frum calling for war against Iran, or the extermination of Muslim's isnt anywhere as significant as Ahmadinejad's statement, but it is interesting the way that it seems to have become acceptable for the equivalantly extreme anti-islamic statements to be made freely by Western commentators.

if you want an Israel-Palestine/Gaza thread, then start one. Otherwise, why mention it except to either

Well - I figured that a contrast between the verbal threats of Ahmadinejad, and the reality on the ground in the now-'peaceful' Gaza Strip was worth pointing out... simple enough. Plus I had just read, and was particularly appalled by that report.

draw attention to Iran's support and funding and feeding of Islamic Jihad, al-aqsa brigades, Fatah, Hamas and, in the Bekaa Valley, Hizbollah,

Please - the floor is open. Why dont you educate us all about Iran's evil terror network (include your sources please). All I can say is that Iran must be pretty crap at supporting terrorism, as the IDF still kill about 3 times the amount of civilians annually as all of their 'terrorists' combined.

to implicity or tacitly ally with Ahmadinejad's sentiments?

:confused: Thats right - I oppose the deliberate terrorising of pregnant women and children - ergo i support the destruction of Israel...

Notice, in the second photo too, that the US globe has smashed before the Isreal one...why I asked, "friend of yours?" (apart from sheer, blissful provocation...)

Oohhh - ominous. I guess that means I must hate America as well... thanks for telling me, Ill cancel my holidays...

Check it out, droid: the real world

:cool: Yeah - you should come and visit us here sometime, the first thing you'll notice is that everything isnt black and white....
 
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droid

Guest
oliver craner said:
I don't want to remove countries. I'm happy to stick with current borders...I just think that the struggle against ruling crime families/military dictators/theocracies is legitimate. It just so happens that in Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, and Iraq 03 intervention was warranted.

Woah there... ive got a bag of apples and oranges here - care to compare those as well? :D Intervention in Rawana on humanitarian grounds was pefectly justified, even though (mostly US) obsufication at the UN delayed it to the point of ineffectiveness, ditto Bosnia, where, again, the intervention (when it came) was bungling and ill-managed. Iraq and Kosovo were very different.

Read the amnesty reports on Iraq over the last decade. No ethnic cleansing, no large scale oppression, and evidently, no real threat to its neighbours or anyone else. Kosovo, that great 'humanitarian intervention' of the 90's was similarly unjustified seeing as the bombing of Serbia actually caused the ethnic cleansing that it was supposed to be preventing. According to Norma Brown, ( US diplomat, and aide to the director of the kosovo observer mission):

"there was no humanitarian crisis [in kosovo] until NATO bagan to bomb. Everyone knew a humanitarian crisis would arise if NATO started to bomb"

I believe that the stated (but less publicised) reason for the bombing, ie: 'to restore Nato's credibility on the eve of its 50th anniversary', is more representative of Nato's motives in this case. Both conflicts also constitute illegal aggression according to the Nuremeberg treaty and by the standards of international law, no matter how warranted you may think they are.

Your unwavering support for Western intervention seems at odds with your reluctance to allow Muslim nations to redraw the maps through the use of violence. Seeing as some kind of territorial exchange seems like the only likely hope for the resolution of the israel/palestine conflict, how do you view the prospects for peace in the context of being 'happy with current borders'? Surely Israel will have to give up the dream of 'Ersetz Israel' in order to gain a lasting peace? Or would you rather all hope of wider stability in the region rots away with the Palestinains in their ever-decreasing and squalid territories...

And, if I may say so, I own up to a poor grasp of "psychology"; is it not time you owned up to a poor grasp of geopolitics?

It's been ably demonstrated thus far...

Perhaps instead of mocking the geo-political knowledge of others, you should read a few recent history books? (preferably one not written by Thomas Friedman this time)
 
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