Leave a comment below!
layouting... I like that word, I'll have to remember it.
And honestly, if you'd like to know what's different from a year ago, is that Americans no longer care what the world thinks of them so they are willing to do things despite what other countries say. They were tired of "damned if you do and damned if you don't" reactions from other nations.
hey, life is unfair. Don't waste your time complaining and nobody give a hoot. If all your people got gut and stand up who could fuck you up, eh? You think the American got it where they are today because they whined to King for unfair treatment? They died for their freedom man. You better do likewise else you all follow that nutcase to the hellhole sooner or later.
Lanny, I'm sure in your simplistic, misinformed world, that's how it works; sacrifice for the greater good, oppression is no one's fault but your own, but...
No one has ever died for freedom. They died because humans in general (not just Americans) think they need some sort of massive dramatic existential crisis to elicit change, and what better way than to create a martyr (or a nation full of them...). Sure, there was that awful first winter after the Mayflower journey, lotsa people dead.... mostly Indians. We're free, but we're also pretty handy with a smallpox-infested blanket and a six-shooter, dontcha know? You don't think that the U.S. *hasn't* committed genocide in it's past, do you? Let freedom ring, man.
I agree that something needs to be done, but fuck that noise about dying for freedom or else. It's people like you, and Dubya, and Saddam that never get that there are better ways than death to change life.
By the way, salam, *excellent* fuck you. :-D
The horror of the Iraqi regime is not the reason we're going to war, but it is one of several necessary conditions.
We're very hesitant to make war against a government that treats its people well, so the French are safe no matter how irritating they get.
On the other hand, while Robert Mugabe is busily doing to his nation what Saddam has done to yours, he's no threat to the US, so we're not going to risk our soldiers' lives to save strangers. We only fight when we've go an interest in the result. Basic human self-interest.
We don't like fighting enemies too big to easily defeat, so the Soviet Union got to keep on existing for decades, despite it's threat to both our people and its own.
Going to war requires at least three conditions: (1) a regime dangerous to us (2) it is dangerous to its own people (3) we can do something about it at reasonable cost.
Bush has pretty well convinced most Americans about the "dangerous to us" part and the "we can win" part, now he's working on the "harmful to its own people, therefore illegitimate, therefore permissible to overthrow" part.
And as for Saudi, Syria, et. al., I have the same answer I give to those who ask "why not North Korea? They're working on nukes too."
"Y'all are just going to have to take a number and wait yer turns!"
A helping hand, late and even perhaps for the wrong reasons,is still a helping hand.
Given enough time in office, Dubyah and the "boys" will deal with the axis of evil in due time. Line up and wait your turn or hope to God, Allah (or what ever name you call your deity) that Algore, Kerry or Hitlary get elected instead, 'cause we damn sure know they won't do dick about anything but try to appease it and talk it to death.
It's always been a fine line of when to get involved in other countries' affaris. Look at Vietnam -- we tried to keep a dictator from taking over the whole country for about a decade, and that was a huge political fuck-up.
So why Iraq, and why now?
Because September 11th made the complacent people in our country care. Before that, none of it mattered, because hey, the Middle Easy is Way Over There, and it doesn't affect us. But 9/11 made all of us pay attention.
Now that we see all the shit that goes on over there, most of us are saying "Hey, maybe the oppressiveness of those countries has something to do with how fucked up things are over there. And their problems are starting to become our problems, and that doesn't wash." Iraq is on the radar because Saddam has been on our shit list for a long time.
I think things have changed in our attitude. I think it's for the better, for everyone involved.
So, JohnCl, I am very confused by your post.
"It's people like you, and Dubya, and Saddam that never get that there are better ways than death to change life."
In the same paragraph with:
"I agree that something needs to be done..."
So what needs to be done? What is it that the "moron" George Bush is missing. Help us all out man. We are clearly in need of it.
"Better ways than death to change life" - love that new age crap. Where'd ya learn it? In college? From a song by an oh-so-enlightened artist?
What needs to be done? Tell us damn it!
My guess is that when cornered you're one of those people that blathered something about "sanctions being given a chance to work" - is that it?
If so then you are the one on the receiving end of Salam's "Fuck You", and rightfully so.
FuCk us, huh? OK, rot under Hussein's rule - we don't have to help you. You are angry as though we OWE it to you - we don't. Be glad we help at all, EVER. Actually, be glad that we CARE about you - it would be far easier in terms or American security to simply bomb Iraq into nothingness, then send in some troops to make sure Hussein is dead.
And JohnCL - come back to the real world; you're WAAAAAAAAAAAAAY out there.
Violence does NOT take take both sides participation. There's a great Tolkien quote about that - appraximately "It only takes one to wage war. Those who do not wield swords can still die on them." In short, NOTHING gets done without the credible threat of violence - those who are willing to use violence will ignore mere words. Oh, and OF COURSE, death isn't that helpful - the idea in war, as a famous general said, is not to die for YOUR country... it's to make the other poor bastard die for HIS.
And the Indians were thoroughly decimated before the US even came into existence - somewhere in the neighborhood of 80% of the original population of the continent was already dead by the time of the Revolutionary War, due to smallpox, etc - brought by EUROPEANS.
Other than the American Indians (wiped out by European diseases that no one at the time knew how to prevent anyway), what genocide has the US committed? I challenge you to name ONE. And no, dropping the A-bombs on Japan does not count - forcing the surrender of Japan PREVENTED genocide (what would have happened had we had to invade... the entire population was prepared to die in suicide banzai charges armed with sharpened bamboo poles against men with machine guns). Go on - name ONE... still waiting....
Thje trrrruth is, the US has done mor for the good of the world than any nation in human history. We give MASSIVE amounts of money in foreign aid (no strings attached - see EGYPT as an example of that!). We risk the lives of our soldiers on humanitarian efforts with NO strategic value whatsoever (the whole "Black Hawk Down" thing in Mogadishu being a prime example). We patrol the world's trade lanes (the British used to do that...). We've produced the vast majority of the improvements in everyday life the world over (like air travel, the light bulb, etc). We've prevented or ended many genocide attempts (not all of them, admittedly).
Compare that record to any other country ever. EVER. Now SHUT THE F--- UP and learn to appreciate us a little!!!
Salam, you have my sympathy, and I, for one (and there are many others) think we should have taken care of Saddam back in '91 when we had the chance - but you can thank our "multilateral" coalition (and the UN) for that. We're going to get rid of him now. Maybe you could attempt to appreciate that somebody finally is - unless you just LIKE living under a dicator that words cannot do justice to...
JohnCL, within 2 lines of my words, you are sure of everything of who I am, what I think and commit the first ever sin in debate : Ad hominem. It reveals great deal about you and your thought. This Carl Sagan baloney detection kit link may help you a bit to attract the right people to your website instead of the same birds of feather
http://www1.tpgi.com.au/users/tps-seti/baloney.html
Salam,
Look, you've got a good point but with all our wonderful technology we Americans haven't invented the time machine yet. We can't go back in time and undo what has already been done. The mistakes of the past can only be corrected in the present.
Yeah yeah, I know... we're still making a lot of mistakes. If we could get our politicians to ignore opinions polls and lobbyists and start reading blogs instead then maybe....
Salam -
The USA has learned the hard lesson of allowing al-Qaeda access to the resources of an entire country. While Saddam is not an Islamic Fascist (merely the meglomaniacal kind), we believe that he would gladly hand over WMDs to al-Qaeda and its ilk. We also believe that he would use these weapons to threaten Israel and the Arab states within missle range. So rather than wait for him to reach a greater level of threat to the USA, we will act now.
We hope that many good things will happen to the Iraqi people if Saddam is removed from power, but those things are not sufficient reasons for us to expend our lives and resources. The security of the USA is a reason for us to risk those things.
The main reason for bringing up Saddam's barbarism is to remind the UN and the world of what he does on a daily basis. If this man has children tourtured in front of their parents, if he gasses his own citizens, then he cannot be allowed to gain weapons that reach beyond his borders.
Mike
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear...
Has anyone tried imagining how Salam must feel?
A strange place for self-rigteousness on anyone's part....
What's changed from two years ago is 911. America has decided to stop living with threats and start taking care of them.
What's changed from a year ago is that we've built bases to replace the ones our good Saudi friends won't let us use.
What's changed from a year ago is that we've now given diplomacy a chance, trying to assemble a broad coalition. It's been close to a year since the fall of Kabul and Khandahar, and we have no more allies for the invasion of Iraq than we did in January. But we asked, cajoled, pleaded, and negotiated. Now they will be left whining on the sidelines.
It is time. More than that, as Salam points out it is past time. However, if it does not happen now it will never happen.
it is disturbing, the way my countrymen and women spout the rhetoric fed to them by the corporate controlled government. wake up and smell the oil, people. sheesh.
kd u r an idiot.
If it was about oil we could go buy the damn stuff a lot cheaper than this operation is going to be. As it is we're going to spend 100 bil and then we're still going to buy the damn stuff. Salam, we shoulda done it in 1991, I said it then, I only pray we do it this time, I'm scared the UN is going to try to stop it this time too. Let's hope Bush (why does everyone hate him so much, he's trying) is truer to our principles than Clinton the lip-biter. Be ready to organize and take care of yourselves, don't spend years fighting each other like the Afghans are doing. We got other things to do after Iraq. Good luck to you all.
Reading this blog I take your point. Liberation and a bombed out house is not pleasant for anyone living in the bombed out house.
I'm not going to waste my time with my opinions but just wish you good luck and hope that ,whatever happens, you and yours make it through unscathed.
I can't even believe what I'm reading here. Faced with the human side of the war, faced with someone who IS and WILL BE affected, and you people are spouting like so many self righteous sheep.
You do not know this man, and yet you are so willing to support our government's efforts to plan his destiny, both past and future. I don't understand.
Most people, no matter what nationality, are narcissists. They care about the suffering of people like them. They might care a little about the suffering of others, so long as someone else is to blame for it. But they do not what to hear that their own country might have done something terrible to others.
That's what's going on with several of the posters here. Americans are like Palestinians who condemn Israeli atrocities, but support suicide bombers, or like Israelis who condemn suicide bombers, but pretend not to know their army is shooting unarmed people.
When the hell did people in Iraq get to use the Internet????????????
It seems they also have a lot of freedom of speech there too. Am I missing something here??????????
This would all be amusing if it weren’t so damned serious. I laid down a challenge before and no one picked up on it. WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
Douglas, KD, Lisha, Irrelevant, JohnCL (still waiting to hear from you, know your checking in on the posts), and for that matter Salam – What, exactly, should be our course of action?
You clearly don’t want to see a war that would remove this grotesque monster from power. You clearly don’t want to see endless economic sanctions that would only perpetuate the misery of the people of Iraq. I presume you don’t want to just walk away and let Saddam do whatever the hell he wants (though I could be wrong, maybe you do – I know JohnCL doesn’t: “Something has to be done…”
.
So, what would you do? Come on folks. Instapundit has brought us all here. Lots of people are reading. This is your chance to show everyone just how stupid George Bush is. Let’s hear your ideas that make his look so lame in comparison.
"When the hell did people in Iran get to use the internet,"
I agree that it seems somewhat suspect, but I've noted in my own life that many things which seem suspect or unlikely to others were to me the known facts, therefore I will forebear to worry about this.
I think bringing down Hussein is a good thing, but this does not in any mean that the U.S is nobler than anybody else for undertaking to do so; at most it means that it is convenient for them to do what should be done. I appreciate their convenience. I fail to appreciate American self-righteousness about their actions, because an action undertaken for one's convenience cannot be understood to be righteous in the primary senses of the word, although the meaning of ³morally justifiable² will sneak through I suppose.
I had several other comments prepped and ready to roll, but then I figured: ³Why feed the trolls²?
Mike,
There are 3 things to deal with
1) The possibilities of WMD in the hand of a nut case
2) Sanction
3) The Iraquis choice to pursue their own happiness and it does not mean a blank check to screw around.
1 & 2 are very easy to deal with and solution are inter-related. #3 belongs to the Iraquis and if the Iraquis don't stand up for themselves, who are we to give that to them?
PS: Of course, I will leave 1 & 2 for those names you have mentioned as a mental exercise.
Herr Plaiss, you may check my own site for my plan of action. Why would I hijack Salam's comments for such a thing? Don't push your giant ego onto everyone else, eh?
Wow, I've never seen this kind of sense of entitlement in action. It's kind of funny and sad at the same time. It really hasn't occurred to some of you that Salam is in fact a human being put in a bad situation. I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, but I promise, just this one leeetle morsel and I'm done.
"(still waiting to hear from you, know your checking in on the posts)"
There are those of us whose lives consist of more than stirring up shit on a comment board.
"And the Indians were thoroughly decimated before the US even came into existence - somewhere in the neighborhood of 80% of the original population of the continent was already dead by the time of the Revolutionary War, due to smallpox, etc - brought by EUROPEANS. "
The U.S. was FOUNDED and SETTLED by those EUROPEANS.
"Other than the American Indians (wiped out by European diseases that no one at the time knew how to prevent anyway), what genocide has the US committed?"
European diseases. Hee. And, slavery/the slave trade.
The point I was trying to make is that the U.S. is not this squeaky clean bastion of hope for the world. We've screwed up big before, and we will do it again, possibly very very soon. We are not the world's best hope for peace when the best we can come up with is a weird Orwellian peace-is-war stance.
I just don't want the guy whose comments we are flooding to have to pick up the pieces because of that stance.
Back with some research and ammunition. So here are my conclusions are:
There is no frickin way this guy is Iraq...
NPR (National Public Radio) did a brief story about how Iraqi actually does have internet access but lets scrutinize the facts a little bit.
"Now there are some limit [to Iraqi Internet usage]. The connections are slow because of poor phone lines, and when Iraqis try to access private e-mail boxes such as Yahoo! or Hotmail, they're greeted with a blunt message: access denied. Everything has to go through uruklink.net, the government-controlled service provider monitored by Saddam's agents."
Hummm that¹s funny Salam has e-mail address is:
salam@nme.com
And raed's is:
raidjarrar@yahoo.com
Wait there is more:
³Mohammad, a university student, can get to just about any news site on this particular night. But if there's aggressive news about Iraq, he says you might find some of the sites suddenly blocked. And porn sites are always inaccessible.²
Salam seems to be able to access and link to his own website news that is aggressive towards Iraq with no problem. Hmmmmmmmm.
You guys shouldn't be so damn gullible...
"Faced with the human side of the war, faced with someone who IS and WILL BE affected, and you people are spouting like so many self righteous sheep."
...I think you guys have to face the fact that this guy is NOT someone who lives in Iraq.
For the record I trust NPR more than some weblog!!
All quotes from http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/transcripts/2002/oct/021028.garrels.html
Re. your latest commentless post:
Take down all comments if you care but PLEASE don't shut up!
To "SomeDumbGuy":
you seem not to know too much about the internet. But maybe it's a blessing.
Some Dumb Guy indeed.
If you had been paying attention, you would know that Salam has expressed the fear several times that he will have his Internet service shut off. That some sites are blocked. That he has indeed had difficulties with those very issues you brought up.
If you had been paying attention, you would know that we've already been over this. Try again, cowboy.
Some Dumb Guy!
I suggest you lock yourself up in your room and throw away your keys, and see how creative you get in trying to get out of that room.
what you have said is DUMB.
Hey Salam,
Thanks for taking down my previous posting.
BTW the correct time in Iraq is 9:06 not 7
http://www.worldtimeserver.com/time.asp?locationid=IQ
Hey just for your information it would be 9:00
Wait the last post got messed up sorry I saw the 7:00 on Salam's posting and assumed because I did not see it 2 hours ago that it was a new post and that it must be recent. I guess I was wrong he does have the right time. But that still does not make it possible that he is from Iraq. Tell me Salam you must be a genius because it takes years for people to become hackers how have you done it in a matter of months?
And just for the record yes I am dumb because I don't believe some guy on the net...
Last question:
Since Blogspot is an American company would it be violating US sanctions allowing Salam to use it?
--- this comment is for salam's stand for me on Dec 05 and he only wants one way dialog (and he wants freedom?) ---
hey, I hurt your feeling eh, salam? Look at your response to me, it's all about people fucking me up sorrow. Trust me man, I do know your feeling about how could I be so fucked up like this. I'm a Vietnamese who had picked up a gun to fight the VC in the 70s and lost. One of my brother got killed during the war. My other 4 brothers were sent to concentration camp and one died after released. My family went from some $ to totally broke and could not find anything to survive because we were on black list. Some of my relatives & close friends were executed or rotten in hell because they joined the fighting for freedom force. Telling me about constantly on the move, sleeping one relative house a night and moved to the next, and if they didn't want to help (plenty of times), you slept in the rice pastry. Of course we don't have oil like you guys have so we can claim it's all abut we have had Chinese for a long time, the French on top of us, then the Japanese, then the American screwed us royally and now we screws ourselves. Is there anything that I forget here in our misfortune so I can't join your sorrow party?
Now, if you want my sympathy, you have it. But that wouldn't get you & your people anywhere. Unless you and your people stand up for yourselves, you will be fucked up all over again and it could come from anybody including your muslim pals. Get real pal, you don't know jack shit what I am talking about unless you prepare to die for it. And that's for JohnCL too. Whiner!!!
Good blog. Ignore the haters. And leave the comments section up. It gives a chance to the the idiots in action.
Some Dumb Guy : Yep -- you're dumb.
Lanny, honey, we're all very pleased that you pulled yourself up by your bootstraps. Now, will you please stop choking me with the damned things?
Some Dumb Guy,
Concerning the email addresses, Raed (with the Yahoo account) is in Jordan, not Iraq.
As far as Salam gaining access to NME.com and Blogspot.com, they're probably not on the Iraqi government's blacklist of websites.
From what I gather, knowledge/use of the internet in Iraq is nowhere near as prevalent as it to those of us in the West. Salam's site is a relatively small one, and is very well likely just not being picked up by the censors.
Concerning your discovered discrepancies with the time zone, that's really no big deal. For the longest time, my girlfriend's email account was set to the wrong time zone and all of her emails suggested she was writing from the West Coast, when in fact she was writing from New York.
Salam,
I first came across your blog a couple of weeks ago, and I've learned a lot from your writing. I won't touch the politics--I think far too many words have been tossed around on that topic already.
I just wanted to say that I hope that you and those you love come through these difficult times safely. Take care of yourself--you've got friends around the world that you've never met, and we wish only the best for you.
Lisha,
#1) Use I instead of we're in we're pleased. At least I know you got gut not hiding behind somebody's back.
#2) Only idiot got choked by something they got it into themselves. My response is clearly for Salam, can't you read?
sorry, salam, don't want to get into bs w/ third party and waste your space. Anyway, what do you think of the Iranian students lately? Why can't you guys do something like that?
Best of luck Salam,
You owe the US nothing but contempt, though I know that you would not feel that anyway.
We are planning to drop 1200 J-dam bombs a day onto this country and then occupy it with a military presence for 2 years (yes I know Bush is considering a coalition occupation-great!) and that's called liberating?
From what I have read prior to sanctions and G.W.I, Iraq was a nice place to live with education and health care for all. Sorry we fucked that up for you. In fact, from my understanding most of the Middle East loved America in the 50's until we started determining their governance and basically inserting puppet dictators and arming violent terrorists (gee, can't see how that could backfire).
Lisha, John CL, CBN, and others- if you're Americans thanks for lending your real support for other people and thanks for showing others that we're not all a bunch of war mongering assholes who seem to think we know what's best for the rest of the world, and thanks for not using 9-11 as an excuse for a landgrab. "We had our eyes opened" -sorry, but many of us have had our eyes open the whole time and what we see is that invading Iraq is just another in a long line of American blunders in the mid-East. Those of you infants who just had your eyes opened may want to watch longer before deciding what is right for others and for ourselves.
A thoughtful article from the NYT I thought everyone might find of interest – left, right, or center.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/08/magazine/08LIBERALS.html?pagewanted=all&position=top
Salam, if you are who you say you are - good luck.
Commenting by HaloScan.com.