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| Subject: But the US didn't create communism | |
Author: Trixta (UK) | [ Next Thread |
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] Date Posted: 05:03:57 11/06/04 Sat In reply to: Watcher 's message, "Al Qaeda" on 13:34:59 11/05/04 Fri I agree up to a point: yes, the 24-hour hate inspiration Usama and his mates are a largely-hyped enemy. The difference between them and what has gone before (the damn commies - hiding under good American beds) is that Al Qaeeda are largely a creation of the US. A certain bloody irony exists in that this time, rather than wait for an enemy to show it's face, the US has created it's own: Halliburton: proud sponsors of Al Qaeeda and the Islamic Fundamentalist Olympic team. [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> Subject: Oh, nonsense! | |
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Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 00:04:44 11/07/04 Sun Such twaddle. Al Qa'eda is not "largely a creation of the US"... At most it is partly a creation of the US, in the sense that the threat has been grossly magnified. Remember that those 11th September 2001 guys were plotting their attack when Clinton was in the Whitehouse and there was not a single American army boot on Muslim soil. I would only agree that they are "largely a creation of the US" in that American economic and political success has created jealousy and hatred. These chaps are told by their Imams that, if they read the Qur'an and follow the instructions therein, they shall be rewarded with success and happiness. So, off they go and follow these rules and remain in miserable poverty, while the blighters in the West follow none of the rules and are rewarded with success and happiness. You and I would probably conclude that this is about time to abandon the rules and do some work, but a small minorty of Muslims conclude that it is some kind of plot to subvert God's Will, and that in violently destroying the Western plotters they will be restoring God's prefered state of affairs. These become terrorists. And what part has America played in this process? Being wealthy and powerful. Many religions produce people like this. Many Jews also, I regret to say, tend to blame our problems on the actions of others. Only the Christians and the Karmic religions of Asia see suffering as the result of one's own actions (although for very different reasons, of course). But I'm damned if I'm converting, because I'm an intellectual snob and find the New Testament to be one of the most low-brow and badly written pieces of Greek that I've ever seen! Ave Julianus Augustus! [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> Subject: the word of a semi-literate god | |
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Author: Ian (Australia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 02:54:11 11/07/04 Sun Well, the story we know as the "Gospel according to Mark" has a certain rustic appeal for me. At least its Jesus has a bit of appealing savagery about him, unlike the pompous Hellenised twit in the version attributed to John. Nothing to compare with masterworks like the book of Job and the Yahwist bits of the Torah, of course. If literary merit were the rule, there would be a thousand temples raised to Macbeth for every christian church. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Mark... | |
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Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 12:43:27 11/07/04 Sun Mark is better than the others, since he is preaching to a Jewish audience, as Jesus would have done, whereas the others are attempting to bring in claims of universality, which dilutes and defeats the purpose of his movement. Still, even in Mark the poor bloke's message fail to impress: he preaches tolerance and a sort of asceticism, and as such is an ordinary Rabbi with slight pharisee tendencies: but compared with Plato he is a child. But enough of this stuff... ... the main point is that of London and Washington helping the Taliban against the Russians and Mr. S. Hussein against the Iranians. These things are both true, but doesn't that make it MORE of OUR responsibility to do something about them when they go bonkers? Like the mad scientist who builds the monster out of bits of old corpses, sews it together, touches the electrode to the bolt through its neck, sees it wake up, and then eyes it cautiously as it smashes down the wall and staggers off towards the nearest village... isn't it a bit mean for the scientist to say to the naturally concerned villagers, "Oh, well, you're on your own now. I know that it's my monster, but it's your village and if you don't like violent super-creatures destroying your hearths and homes, then it's up to you to so something about it..."? [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Mark's "gospel" | |
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Author: Ian (Australia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 13:46:02 11/07/04 Sun It's not the message that impresses me, but the character and his contradictions. The so called "gospel" (what is the good news, exactly?) introduced an interesting character into world literature and has a certain charm. Of course it isn't up to, say, Aeschylus' "Agamemnon", either as literature or, dare I say, as a guide to living. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: mad scientists | |
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Author: Ian (Australia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 13:48:51 11/07/04 Sun Of course the one who launched the problem on the world has a greater responsibility in cleaning up after himself. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: How do you define responsibility? | |
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Author: Dave (UK) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 16:00:27 11/07/04 Sun Without the Soviet invasion, the monster needn’t have been created. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Responsibility | |
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Author: Ed Harris (Back in Shropshire) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 15:00:56 11/08/04 Mon Ah, now there's a point. The Americans destroyed the Taliban. But that's because they created the Taliban. But they created it because the Russians invaded. And the Russians invaded because of instability in the regions left over from the Raj. And the British invaded because a region of warring-tribes makes a feeble buffer zone. And the tribes were warring because...etc etc etc. Once one side has attacked, and another side has retaliated, it doesn't matter who started it, because both sides have all the excuses which human nature needs to do it again and again and again - all the way back to the first murderer: a man called Cain, you know? It is so easy to see History as a series of inter-related events which lead to the present. In my opinion, this is not true, as History is not over yet: the inter-related evens are still leading us towards somewhere which none of us could see. If I did not believe that, then I would not have so much hope for this society. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Funding, supplying weapons, training | |
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Author: Trixta (UK) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 05:10:46 11/07/04 Sun > I would only agree that they are "largely a creation of the US" in that American economic and political success has created jealousy and hatred. On the contrary, the US saw in the Mujhadeen (excuse spelling) an ally against the USSR [their original bugbear] and were only too happy to provide everything from cash (at least $1 billion dollars) to training and AA missiles. It is one of those bittersweet ironies life throws up that once the US had assisted Usama and his chums to force the Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan this allowed the Mujhadeen to turn their attention on the world's favourite bad-guy. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: T.E. Lawrence | |
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Author: Paddy (Scotland) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 10:35:12 11/07/04 Sun He was far from spelling arabic names consitently [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Yah, but... | |
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Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 13:21:17 11/07/04 Sun ... He actually chopped and changed the spellings deliberately, in a pretentious attempt to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of translitteration, as shown in a letter from him to his editor. When reading that book of his, and discovering such characters as Zhobeir, Sobayr, Zopaer and Subheyr, it took me a while to work out that these were in fact the same person, and the eerie similarities between their actions and personalities were in fact quite easily explained! [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Mujahadeen | |
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Author: Dave (UK) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 15:47:42 11/07/04 Sun “It is one of those bittersweet ironies life throws up that once the US had assisted Usama and his chums to force the Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan this allowed the Mujhadeen to turn their attention on the world's favourite bad-guy.” I agree, I always find arguments about realpolitik quite inappropriate. The fact that the Soviet-fighting Mujahadeen performed a metamorphosis into Al Qaeda, does not give moral equivalence to their relative causes, or transient allies. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: And... | |
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Author: Ed Harris (Back in Shropshire) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 15:25:41 11/08/04 Mon And in any case, there's something Palmerstonian about US diplomacy, and we all know what old Palmy said: "we have no eternal allies or eternal enemies: only eternal interests." Words to that effect. And it is a bit rich to criticise American diplomacy and compare it unfavourably to bulls in china shops, when for 250 years we did exactly the same thing ourselves. A lot of anti-Americanism is the rage of those who 'can not', and would like those who 'can' to be prevented from doing so. And a lot of American anti-Europeanism is the contempt of those who 'can' for those who 'can not' and try to pretend that they 'would not'. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Rumsfeldian English | |
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Author: Trixta (UK) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 22:48:45 11/08/04 Mon That was almost as good as the 'known knowns and known unknowns' - yep, it makes sense but I did have to read it twice. The difference is not that we can't (we can't - I don't argue that), the difference is that we did and, up until what, the 50's / 60's, were being told by the US that we shouldn't. Now, we can, as part of NATO, and we have, under US direction done exactly what we used to do to further our own imperial interests. Those days were supposed to be gone (thank God) and yet our current PM still revels in phrases like "British interests". As the previous global imperial master and as the residual animosity towards us for our empire has shown what is most in our interests is distancing ourselves from our colonial history - not assisting our bastard offspring in achieving the same thing. The only excuse Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Denmark and all the other empires have is that their actions were carried out in the age of conquest - when colonisation was at least the norm and at best a matter of survival for European nations. What's the US's excuse - it's making the world safer for good, Christian, God-fearing supporters of democracy. What was our excuse? The colonised were savages who could not appreciate the wonder of European civilisation and who spurned it - thus they were obviously unfit to maintain control of their country and would have to have civilisation forced upon them. Our excuse is not acceptable, even 100 years after the age of empire-building was drawing to a close. To actually start building an empire, or to continue doing so, in the 21st century is an anachornism of the worst kind. Do we really envy the US's power - hell, sure we do. We all want to be invulnerable and secure in that knowledge. Is this why so many of us frown upon it? No. Most of us have, however reluctantly, had to accept that imperialism is morally offensive, regardless of the perceived benefits from our perspective. That it should be the US, the original anti-imperialist in modern history who waged war against the world's most powerful empire to be liberated from it, that should now be the world's most powerful empire, imposing it's will on others by every means possible, is just another of life's bittersweet ironies. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: No American has been 'secure' in their supposed invulnerbility since 11th September 2001 | |
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Author: Roberdin [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 22:52:16 11/08/04 Mon [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Interests versus self-defence | |
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Author: Trixta (UK) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 02:14:15 11/10/04 Wed Don't worry about becoming a lefite - I'm a closet fascist anyway (hey, I try not to be but even I have to admit that, at the core, I'm significantly right of centre). The difference between, for example, battering the old biddy because she annoys you and preventing the old biddy from battering you is consistent with what I'm saying. It is, in my arrogant opinion, morally defensible to act to defend something (e.g. your bodily well-being) but not to act to attack something (e.g. the old biddy). The problem comes when what you are defending is your own exploitation of something at the cost of others. In world terms: it would be morally defensible to invade Iraq because we know (for a fact) that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction aimed at us and intends to use them without provocation. It is morally indefensible to invade Iraq because oil prices are high and Iraq has a lot of cheap oil. The former acts to prevent loss of life at the expense of profit, the latter acts to prevent loss of profit at the cost of life. Look at another example - free trade. It would be acceptable to act against someone or some nation that is preventing free trade between two consenting nations (e.g. UK and Australia). You are defending a legitimate, mutually-beneficial agreement made without duress on either party and advantageous to both. It would not be acceptable to attack a nation that is undermining your trade agreement by selling lower-priced goods to your opposite number in that agreement, or against the opposite number themselves, for that matter. Possibly the best example I can think of at this time in the morning are the two Iraq wars. In the first we all acted against an Iraq that had invaded Kuwait and taken an oil supplier from the market. In the second we acted against an Iraq that was staying at home and keeping its own oil for itself (I don't buy the whole WMD thing or the selective liberation of Iraq's disadvantaged). In essence, our primary 'interest' should be the defence of ourselves and our allies. When our 'interests' include the global price of oil - to my mind that's just greed. As for your neighbour - well I'm anti-European anyway. So I say just batter the bint (claim she's an Al-Qaeeda cell posing as a good Catholic to avert suspicion). [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Hehe | |
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Author: Ed Harris (London) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 12:20:54 11/10/04 Wed Sounds about right. Although, of course, if oil were the principle motive for invading Iraq, then that makes us very stupid, since all crises in the Middle East drive up oil prices to the benefit of the House of Sa'ud and to the detriment of poor oil-purchasing nations such as ourselves. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Well... | |
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Author: Ed Harris (Back in Shropshire) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 12:41:43 11/09/04 Tue Good lord, I actually agree with much of that. I think I need to lie down. Perhaps I'm becoming a leftie in my old age. I would, however, take issue with a few points. Firstly, in the 20s and 30s, the Americans were against imperialism because they were secretly in favour of it. That is to say, they wanted the Royal Navy to disarm, in order to increase the RELATIVE strength of the US Navy without going to the expense of having to build a navy to rival Britain's. Very cunning, but our statesmen called their bluff and they didn't bother to translate their wealth into power until about 1941 - giving Britain a lease of 20 extra years on the Top Spot which our economic decline did not warrant. Still, bit of goose for us, what? And, secondly, you seem to be saying that the very concept of having one's own particular 'interests' is per se somehow morally reprihensible. I don't know about that. My 'interests' could be, e.g., the massacring of the old woman who lives in the flat downstairs because, frankly, without her complaining about me coming in late at night every time I pass her door, my life would be a lot easier. Until you have been berated in high-pitched Venetian-Italian by a senile religious fanatic whilst staggering towards lectures with a hang-over (on a boat), it is difficult to appreciate how ghastly it can be. But if I were to act on this interest it would be morally reprihensible. On the other hand, it could also be my interest, e.g., to prevent her from walloping me over the head with her old umbrella (which I suspect of being made of cast iron and whale-bone) whilst muttering things about St Mary the Virgin at me, by some peaceful means, as it might be placating the poisonous old boot by removing my shoes as I come in or, more strongly, by the confiscation of her brolley. That, I think you would agree, constitutes a legitimate interest. The difference is the means, not the ends, so why do you hate the idea of a personal 'interest' which is in competition with that of someone else? It is a fact of life, surely? [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Oops - misplaced response. | |
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Author: Trixta (UK) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 02:17:18 11/10/04 Wed Ahem, the response (Interest versus self-defence) above your point was meant for you. Sorry about that. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Under Clinton... | |
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Author: Paddy (Scotland) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 10:24:27 11/07/04 Sun There were large numbers of American personnel in Saudi Arabia (land of Mecca) and in the Gulf. Also, he ordered intervention in Eritrea & cruise missile strikes against the Taleban in Afganistan and against supposed chemical weapons factories in the Sudan. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |