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Date Posted: 15:46:39 11/12/04 Fri
Author: Shane
Subject: Re: German politics and culture part 2
In reply to: Chris 's message, "Re: German politics and culture part 2" on 13:00:33 11/12/04 Fri

>Yes, but many issues we are discussing are not very
>funny and humor quickly reaches its limits facing the
>thousands of victims of wrong warfare politics, be it
>in Vietnam or Iraq.

Of course these issues are serious, but the left in America is coming unglued. Liberals calling large parts of America "Jesusland" threatening to move to Canada. Liberals getting "therapy" because Kerry lost....I mean c'mon!

Well, the reason I say is>
>I think you are too much in black/white thinking
>patterns. The ugly truth that the world is not
>black/white, but black/black.

Some issues are black and white and some issues are not. What issue are you talking about? Yes, the war is a complicated issue. But let me make a point about the conflict in Iraq. The end of the story has not be written in Iraq, people assume that democracy will not work...but what if it does? What if Iraq holds elections in January and the country begins to stablize. It is way too soon to say that American involvement in Iraq has been a failure.

> The democrats may have
>problems, but this will not make the republicans any
>better.
I would challenge you to apply the same standard to Democrats that you do Republicans. Did you criticize Bill Clinton when he bombed Belgrade? Serbia was not a "threat" to America. Did you know that Clinton did not have UN approval for such bombing?

>
>George Bush may subjectively be a Christian, but
>he—and the U.S. armed forces—have objectively done
>more for secularism than the whole of the American
>agnostic community combined and doubled. The
>demolition of the Taliban, the huge damage inflicted
>on the al-Qaida network, and the confrontation with
>theocratic saboteurs in Iraq represent huge advances
>for the non-fundamentalist forces in many
>countries.
>
>The demolition of the Taliban and al-Qaida has only
>strengthened them. I firmly believe (and fear) that
>now we are not confronted with one Bin Laden, but with
>thousands of them.

Chris, with this logic, we can never attack terrorists and terrorist strongholds for fear of 'offending' people. Also, I disagree with your statement that the Taliban and Al Qaida are stronger. The Taliban has been effectively wiped out as a ruling body in Afghanistan and Al Qaida is on the run. In fact, elections were just held in Afhaganistan. The primary problem in Aghanistan is warlords, not terrorists. As far as Al Qaida, the best they can do now is make video tapes threating 'death to America'. Which is fine, they can make a million tapes if they want.


>Iraq had been a secular country
>before the US invaded it. The government was
>bad and a dictatorship, but at least it controlled
>those fundamentalists which are no rampant in Falluja
>and every major town in Iraq. I cannot follow your
>reasoning here.

Here you are making a comment on a Tom Wolfe column that I partially posted. Did you read the entire column that I linked? Tom Wolfe's point(BTW, he is a leftist) is that Europeans like to accuse Bush of being a Christian fundamentalists, but in reality by fighting terrorism he is opposing a religious fundamentalist idealogy. In otherwords he is actually advancing the cause of secularism. But read the entire colum, its interesting.

Polls conducted in Iraq show that the people are happy that Saddam is gone. Polls also show that 73% percent of the people support prime minister Allawi and the current Iraq government. If the small percentage of insurgents can be defeated Iraq has the possiblity of becoming a stable, moderate, democratic country, along the lines of a Turkey or perhaps an Egypt. Again, it is too soon to make judgements of success or failure.

As a sidenote, the conservative camp is split in two regarding Iraq. You have the neo-conservative movement which is very "Wilsonian" and wants to export democracy to other countries. And then you have the conservative isolationists like Patrick Buchanan who only want to take action if our national security is threatened.








>I have found it helps to have a sense of humor
>regarding politics.
>
>Yes, but many issues we are discussing are not very
>funny and humor quickly reaches its limits facing the
>thousands of victims of wrong warfare politics, be it
>in Vietnam or Iraq.
>
>I think you are too much in black/white thinking
>patterns. The ugly truth that the world is not
>black/white, but black/black. The democrats may have
>problems, but this will not make the republicans any
>better.
>
>George Bush may subjectively be a Christian, but
>he—and the U.S. armed forces—have objectively done
>more for secularism than the whole of the American
>agnostic community combined and doubled. The
>demolition of the Taliban, the huge damage inflicted
>on the al-Qaida network, and the confrontation with
>theocratic saboteurs in Iraq represent huge advances
>for the non-fundamentalist forces in many
>countries.
>
>The demolition of the Taliban and al-Qaida has only
>strengthened them. I firmly believe (and fear) that
>now we are not confronted with one Bin Laden, but with
>thousands of them. Iraq had been a secular country
>before the US invaded it. The government was
>bad and a dictatorship, but at least it controlled
>those fundamentalists which are no rampant in Falluja
>and every major town in Iraq. I cannot follow your
>reasoning here.

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