And people wonder why they hate us ...

[Rabid Headbanger]

Neither would I, which is why I said it wouldn't be pretty.

Either way there will be wars and killing etc.

 

[Ender Rises]

Yes, just more so with anarchy. Eventually the human race would follow the don't fuck with him and he won't fuck with me rule, but until then there would be a whole lot of bodies to bury. It wouldn't be pretty and I don't want it to happen, but it is feasible, which is the point I was trying to make.

 

[LithiumLulu]

I'll write that down.

I'm reading Guns, Germs, And Steel right now, so... it'll have to wait.

He's an advocate of bringing down civilazation through any means necessary. He can be pretty verbose though, I think he could have got his ideas across in about 1/3 as many pages.

 

[Rabid Headbanger]

Yes, just more so with anarchy. Eventually the human race would follow the don't fuck with him and he won't fuck with me rule, but until then there would be a whole lot of bodies to bury. It wouldn't be pretty and I don't want it to happen, but it is feasible, which is the point I was trying to make.

Thats because very few humans have the ability to think the way true anarchists do.

For the record, anarchy works in small groups.

 

[Ender Rises]

Explain the way anarchists think, if you don't mind.

 

[Rabid Headbanger]

Explain the way anarchists think, if you don't mind.

As in, were conscious about wanting to "preserve the anarchy". If everyone was an anarchist, there'd be no problems. People would go of an do what needed to be done (kind of like socialism) because they and the group depend on that vital work getting done. No one is "in charge", and just gets to sit on thier ass and dispense orders. An anarchist would seek to preserve that, so if everyone thought that way, it wouldn't turn into tribal warfare/power struggle.

 

[Ender Rises]

I see. It would work, and well, if everyone thought that way.

 

[Rabid Headbanger]

I see. It would work, and well, if everyone thought that way.

Well, if everyone held that philosophy that every man pitches in and no man has control over the other, then yes. (Or women in applicable cases)

 

[LithiumLulu]

Well, if everyone held that philosophy that every man pitches in and no man has control over the other, then yes. (Or women in applicable cases)

If I could find the right communal group that was (or could become) self-sustaining off the grid I'd be there. It's hard though, even within the anarchist community you find tons of people that don't "get it".

 

[Rabid Headbanger]

If I could find the right communal group that was (or could become) self-sustaining off the grid I'd be there. It's hard though, even within the anarchist community you find tons of people that don't "get it".

.

 

[skeptik]

Read some fucking Hobbes if you think anarchy is such a great idea. Civilization in general exists for a reason.

 

[Rabid Headbanger]

Read some fucking Hobbes if you think anarchy is such a great idea. Civilization in general exists for a reason.

...because the average human doesn't carry the anarchist philosophy.

 

[Skepticism]

Well, if everyone held that philosophy that every man pitches in and no man has control over the other, then yes. (Or women in applicable cases)

Unfortunately, this is impossible. Mass anarchy would never work successfully, period.

 

[Rabid Headbanger]

Thats what we've been saying.

 

[Skepticism]

MMMkay

 

[MasterOLightning]

I complete agree. Saddam was an oppressive tyrant that murdered his way to the top (with the help of the CIA), but at least with Saddam it was possible to stay off his shit list. Every home had portraits of Saddam, taxis would have little portraits, you could even get Saddam wrist watches. You just had to appear loyal and not be a threat to his power and you could live your life in relative peace (until we started the sanctions after the first war). But with us in power all bets are off, anyone can die anytime. Zero stability. And there's no path that leads to peace, no one wants to cooperate, everyone wants it all.

We're so completely screwed and we have no one to blame but ourselves, we did it!

Horrible post. I can't believe you could be so short-sighted and selectively perceptive. Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, etc. all did a lot of good stuff for their respective countries at the time too. I suppose you would have left them in power, since the majority could live generally well if they were strongly loyal. There was peace and stability in Soviet Russia. So what if millions of people were killed and there was barely a shred of freedom? At least they had stability right? Do you see where this is a bad stance to take?

Saddam persecuted the Kurds pretty heavily, and the instances of torture are well documented. Surely you are familiar with that; or is it only atrocities like having a kid chase a truck, or having POWs pose for embarrassing photos? Acts like that are unfortunate and do not help the media portrayal of the occupation. It's too bad that the troops in Iraq are not the best and brightest of the USA. Yet, I'm certain the very large majority of them are good-hearted and want to fix things there (at least so they can leave.) I can't believe how people flip their shit about stuff like this, but brush over the torture that was going on there before. Just shows that people will push anti-Bush/anti-USA agendas regardless of any actual facts.

I wonder when Iraqis will figure out that the way to get the occupying troops to leave is to behave for like a year, so that the troop presence is no longer necessary. The Iraqis need a Gahndi or a Martin Luther King to get them on the right track, but their culture does not seem conducive to these types of leaders. That's too bad for them. Peaceful revolutions have achieved great results within the past 100 years of so.

 

[ThisIsACoolName]

Great post.

 

[LithiumLulu]

Horrible post. I can't believe you could be so short-sighted and selectively perceptive. Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, etc. all did a lot of good stuff for their respective countries at the time too. I suppose you would have left them in power, since the majority could live generally well if they were strongly loyal. There was peace and stability in Soviet Russia. So what if millions of people were killed and there was barely a shred of freedom? At least they had stability right? Do you see where this is a bad stance to take?

Ok.... do you see where the US putting Saddam in power and helping to keep him there is us creating the monster?

My solution is to get in the time machine and go back to the end of WWI when the west divided up the Ottoman Empire and rethink some of those decisions. Iraq is not a natural country, it was designed to have internal strife. We (the US) have continually worked to keep Iraq, and the middle east in general, unstable for our own profit. We talk about liberty and democracy, yet we have help to overthrow elected governments all over the world, including Iran. We also helped the growth of radical Islam. Not like we helped because we weren't paying close attention, no, we funded them and armed them and taught them how to be more effective.

Do I think Saddam was a good guy, no, I never said he was. I think we should have helped the Shiites after the first Gulf War like we said we would instead of leaving them to their fate. What I am saying is that things were better under Saddam (before the sanctions) than they are under our occupation. You may not want to believe it, but it doesn't make it any less true. They had crumbling, but still functional infrastructure, not now. They had a secular society, were women didn't have to cover their faces, not now. There was a brutal regime in charge, that hasn't changed, except now there is no way to avoid being imprisioned and tortured and possibly killed. And if you try to be friendly to the Americans so they won't kill you, the insurgents will - no win situation.

Saddam persecuted the Kurds pretty heavily, and the instances of torture are well documented. Surely you are familiar with that; or is it only atrocities like having a kid chase a truck, or having POWs pose for embarrassing photos?

Of course I'm aware of the al-Anfal Campaign. Are you aware that detainees died in US custody? Are you aware that we sold Saddam a portion of the WMD's that we were sure he had and that he used on the Kurds and also on Iran during their 8 year war with Iraq? Are you aware that Saddam was our buddy far longer than he was our enemy? Are you aware that the US, via the CIA helped to put the Baathist party in power? Are you aware that we paint ourselves as the good guys when we're just as evil as our pet Saddam ever was?

Acts like that are unfortunate and do not help the media portrayal of the occupation. It's too bad that the troops in Iraq are not the best and brightest of the USA. Yet, I'm certain the very large majority of them are good-hearted and want to fix things there (at least so they can leave.) I can't believe how people flip their shit about stuff like this, but brush over the torture that was going on there before. Just shows that people will push anti-Bush/anti-USA agendas regardless of any actual facts.

Unfortunate? That's a kind way of describing the hell we've inflicted on them since their country was carved out. We'll never know how many Iraqis have died since our most recent invasion (because we don't care enough to try to keep track!), but the British medical journal the Lancet estimates the number at over 500,000. Even if you go with more conversative estimates we have still caused a number of deaths on par with a 9/11 size incident once a MONTH since we arrived. These people have that tragedy, AT OUR HANDS, every month. And that still doesn't begin to describe the level of the horror because we have roughly 300 million people, they had 25 million. So go ahead and multiple their numbers by 12 if you want to know what it would feel like to be under the same level of occupation.

Want more? The UN sanctions, put in place because of the US, following the first Gulf War resulted in an estimated 500,000 Iraqi CHILDREN dead. Saddam didn't suffer, his lifestyle didn't change.

Want more? Let's talk about depleted uranium. Are you familiar with this? In 96 & 97 the United Nations Human Rights Commission made a list weapons of mass destruction, or weapons with indiscriminate effect and depleted uranium was on the list. We've used it in both Gulf Wars. The results are hideous. Should I post up some of the pictures of the deformed children? They look like they should be dead, their bodies are grotesquely malformed and yet most of them do live for a little while, which just makes it sadder. But here's the best part... it's not just Iraqis babies, the children of US soldiers have been born all messed up too. Better killing and suffering through technology!

Want more? I can go on and on and on and on. Was Saddam bad, oh yes, are we any better, not a chance.

I wonder when Iraqis will figure out that the way to get the occupying troops to leave is to behave for like a year, so that the troop presence is no longer necessary.

Behave? Spoken like a true American. Here's a clue, THEY NEVER WILL. You, like most Americans I've spoken to about this, don't have any idea what their culture is like. Democracy isn't in their near future, if ever. They don't have the same kind of nationalistic feelings we have in the west, their first allegience is to family, and grows outward from there. Why are our attempts to create a new Iraqi army or police force failing so patheticly? They aren't us and we don't seem to get it. Pick up a book or two written by people involved with the various mercenary (er... security) companies that are over there. These are right-wing, gun toting, redneck-types, true blue Americans, they'll tell you exactly what I'm telling you.

The Iraqis need a Gahndi or a Martin Luther King to get them on the right track, but their culture does not seem conducive to these types of leaders. That's too bad for them. Peaceful revolutions have achieved great results within the past 100 years of so.

Yes, there is a lot of talk about finding their George Washington or Thomas Jefferson. And they have quite a few men that fit that bill, but we don't like them. Wanna guess why? They won't play ball. Under Saddam the oil industry was nationalized, one of the first things we did was to undo that. I'm sure you're aware of why us stealing their oil might piss them off. All of this might have worked out just peachy if it were still 1921, but it's not, and our support of radical Islam is now coming back to bite us on the ass. If we were to allow one of their natural leaders to emerge and take power, they (a) wouldn't have democracy as we know it, and (b) we'd be out on our ass without any profits to show for our effort, so I wouldn't count on that happening. And our puppet leaders aren't going to cut it. The opposition to us will not accept them.

So we find ourselves at the current impass where jackass soldiers rachet up the body count by amusing themselves with "unfortunate" behavior. Talk about horrible posts.

 

[MasterOLightning]

I'm not saying what was in that video was not bad, but in the large scheme of things it's pretty irrelevant, as I can say pretty confidently that this is not largely indicative of the troops' behavior. People do bad things to each other every day, every place in the world. This was bad, but a lot of other things are really bad too. I would be a lot more concerned about policy decisions (which clearly you are).

To speak out strongly against the Iraq occupation, for reasons you mentioned, is one thing, but to jump on this act in particular is missing the bigger picture. There are terrible injustices all over the world. I could post a picture of an Sudanese skin-and-bones child, and people would not be as offended as by this video. I get upset when people in Europe, who fuss about the US in Iraq, sit on their hands regarding issues like Darfur. The United Nations has not done shit for Darfur. That is a far worse situation than current Iraq (which Europe does not give a shit about either. And they should, considering their pending immigration problems).

I realize a lot of this (the current political status of the middle east) is largely to blame on Britain and France following WWI. They really botched things up then.

I honestly think that intentions were good for going into Iraq, regardless of WMDs. Has the execution been good? Of course not. And to dwell on the events of the past doesn't really help things now. Yes, we screwed up things in the '80s, but that's a fait accompli, a done deal. We can only change the present and the future. I hope we have learned from the mistakes of the '80s containment policies; the situations they caused are in place, and there are no redos for them now.

In your post, you make it sound like non-violent resistance is not something that will catch on in the region (history supports this). These people must be quite irrational to believe that car or suicide bombings will solve anything. If they believe this, then their culture is really defective, to be honest. How many millions of people hate our current leadership, compared to how many blow up themselves to express it? How many of these take place in Europe or Canada or Japan? Roughly zero. Bombings are a shitty method of expression. A culture that is so willing to accept suicide bombing acts is broken, frankly, and needs some improvement.

And you can't entirely blame UN sanctions on the US. If the US was in charge of the UN, then the current situation would be very different.

My overall stance on Iraq is that the US tried to fix a bad situation, they did a poor job, but they're not really getting any help. Is the rest of the world content with allowing terrible regimes like that to rule? It's not hard to oust the bad leaders. That part took what, a month? But fixing things is a larger task, something which not many others are interested in helping with.

 

[LithiumLulu]

I'm not saying what was in that video was not bad, but in the large scheme of things it's pretty irrelevant, as I can say pretty confidently that this is not largely indicative of the troops' behavior. People do bad things to each other every day, every place in the world. This was bad, but a lot of other things are really bad too. I would be a lot more concerned about policy decisions (which clearly you are).

I'm aware that there are horrific things happening everyday all over the world, I work for an organization involved with human rights causes.

My point about this incident is that it's not merely some soldiers blowing off steam. They may think so, but those kids think they're dicks. All the people on the street that they passed that realized what was happening think they're dicks. These perceptions pile up and become what people believe to be true, this is how stereotypes come into existence. My assertion is that these kinds of acts will be converted into blood given enough time.

To speak out strongly against the Iraq occupation, for reasons you mentioned, is one thing, but to jump on this act in particular is missing the bigger picture. There are terrible injustices all over the world. I could post a picture of an Sudanese skin-and-bones child, and people would not be as offended as by this video. I get upset when people in Europe, who fuss about the US in Iraq, sit on their hands regarding issues like Darfur. The United Nations has not done shit for Darfur. That is a far worse situation than current Iraq (which Europe does not give a shit about either. And they should, considering their pending immigration problems).

I commented on this because it's what was posted. Start a thread about Darfur and I'll comment on that.

At this point in history the UN is so corrupt that there might not be anything they could effectively do. But speaking of immigration, why isn't the US throwing it's doors wide open to displaced Iraqis?

I realize a lot of this (the current political status of the middle east) is largely to blame on Britain and France following WWI. They really botched things up then.

I honestly think that intentions were good for going into Iraq, regardless of WMDs. Has the execution been good? Of course not. And to dwell on the events of the past doesn't really help things now. Yes, we screwed up things in the '80s, but that's a fait accompli, a done deal. We can only change the present and the future. I hope we have learned from the mistakes of the '80s containment policies; the situations they caused are in place, and there are no redos for them now.

I think this may be where we part company. I don't believe for a second that our intentions were ever honorable. Look at the pre-Bush Jr PNAC documents, then look at who is part of the presidential cabinet. Need further proof? Look at the Downing Street memo. WMD were a fabricated pretext, nothing more.

I bring up the past because I think showing the pattern of systematic abuse indicates that the current actions are not anomalies, they are just the continuation of the foriegn policy we've been pursuing for as long as we've needed oil.

I also hope by mentioning the past some readers here will have their eyes opened to things they never knew about and maybe they'll get interested in finding out more.

In your post, you make it sound like non-violent resistance is not something that will catch on in the region (history supports this).

I don't think peaceful change is possible in the near future because (a) I don't see the US allowing someone with those values to run things, and (b) the region has been so oppressed for so long I think the release of those feelings is going to be violent. I would love to be proven wrong on this point.

These people must be quite irrational to believe that car or suicide bombings will solve anything. If they believe this, then their culture is really defective, to be honest. How many millions of people hate our current leadership, compared to how many blow up themselves to express it? How many of these take place in Europe or Canada or Japan? Roughly zero. Bombings are a shitty method of expression. A culture that is so willing to accept suicide bombing acts is broken, frankly, and needs some improvement.

I wouldn't call it defective or irrational, just very different. Almost any institution that we know and understand in the west is not the same there. Look at religion for a really glaring example. I don't think Islamic fundamentalism is a good thing but I have to respect the level of devotion that the average muslim has. Can you imagine Christians in the US going to church 5 times a day? A lot of these people are really fanatical about their religion so if they're lead to believe strapping on a bomb will please God, they do it.

And you can't entirely blame UN sanctions on the US. If the US was in charge of the UN, then the current situation would be very different.

The sanctions, as far as I know, were the suggestion of the US. As to your second statement... I shudder to think of what things would be like in the world if the US had that kind of free reign.

My overall stance on Iraq is that the US tried to fix a bad situation, they did a poor job, but they're not really getting any help. Is the rest of the world content with allowing terrible regimes like that to rule? It's not hard to oust the bad leaders. That part took what, a month? But fixing things is a larger task, something which not many others are interested in helping with.

I don't think there was anything honorable in the reasons why the US invaded Iraq. I think we're not getting any help because no one else was promised any profits, and lack of a clear UN mandate. I don't think there are any governments that aren't corrupt, so yes I think they are content to allow a lot of bad things to go on. Most governments are guilty of some human rights abuses, so where would they get the moral authority to take a stand? And many fascist dictators are good customers for arms dealing countries which ironically are the same countries with the kind of clout it would take to make a difference.

I think Jr should have discussed this plan with Sr and then maybe we wouldn't be in this position. In one of Sr's books (sorry I don't recall the title) he explained why he didn't "finish the job" and take out Saddam. First, it would have violated the UN mandate which he was smart enough to get before he started hostilites, and second, he knew that occupying Iraq was a losing situation.

What I hope comes out of this is a generation of Americans that will learn some lessons about how bad, greedy foriegn policy leads to really bad situations. Too long we've abided by the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" way of thinking. This has resulted in Saddam and bin Laden to name just two. I would really like it if American could walk the walk about being the good guys instead of just talking the talk.