At 10:02 PM 11/23/2004, James A. Donald wrote:

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And the problem with a civil war in Iraq is?

Well, once you get past the invalid and dishonest parts of Bush's 57 reasons We Need to Invade Iraq Right Now (WMDs, Al-Qaeda, Tried to kill Bush's Daddy, etc.) you're pretty much left with "Saddam tried to kill Bush's Daddy" and "Replacing the EEEVil dictator Saddam with a Democracy to protect the Iraqi people". Pulling off the latter requires that you leave them with something better than a civil war, though it's not clear that what they're getting right now _is_ better than a civil war.

James A Donald wrote...

And the problem with a civil war in Iraq is?

And the answer is: 9/11 sucked. Oh wait, I guess I have to explain that. After the Soviets were pushed out of Afghanistan the place became a veritable breeding ground for all sorts of virulent strains of Islam, warlords, and so on. Iraq would likely denigrate into the same, eventually launching similarly nice little activities. -TD

-- James A. Donald:

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And the problem with a civil war in Iraq is?

On 24 Nov 2004 at 2:42, Bill Stewart wrote:

Well, once you get past the invalid and dishonest parts of Bush's 57 reasons We Need to Invade Iraq Right Now (WMDs, Al-Qaeda, Tried to kill Bush's Daddy, etc.) you're pretty much left with "Saddam tried to kill Bush's Daddy" and "Replacing the EEEVil dictator Saddam with a Democracy to protect the Iraqi people".

Seems to me that permanent civil war in Iraq provides Americans with the same benefits as democracy in Iraq, though considerably more reliably. Chances are that after fair and free election, the majority will vote to screw the minority - literally screw them, as in rape being unofficially OK when members of the majority do it to members of the minority. Nothing like a long holy war with no clear winner to teach people the virtues of religious tolerance. That is, after all, how Europeans learnt that lesson. And the worst comes to the worst - well today the Taliban are busy kiling Afghans instead of Americans. Wouldn't it be nice if Al Quaeda was killing Iraqis instead of Americans - well actually they are killing Iraqis instead of americans, but wouldn't it be nice if they were killing *more* Iraqis? --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG PwjZ4PipCdWr8EC4cLgzxV3SAw0bWUhhvejdGR8/ 4XrnLDT2Ed8fBlZ0wGPU0dQOOH2GeZ5kbh7h8N4QF

Thus spake Steve Thompson (steve49152@yahoo.ca) [25/11/04 10:17]: : You're dreaming. People simply do not learn from history. People /do/ learn from history. But most people never bother learning history, period, and many of those that do believe that their situation is different. And... : Never mind the fact that the historical record is largely incomplete and : of course written by the victors; what does survive in the history of the : species entirely fails to teach individuals and cultures the errors of : primitive and barbaric ways.

--- "James A. Donald" <jamesd@echeque.com> wrote:

-- James A. Donald:

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Seems to me that permanent civil war in Iraq provides Americans with the same benefits as democracy in Iraq, though considerably more reliably.

Steve Thompson

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You might be more accurate to say that a permanent [civil] war in Iraq benefits miltiary leaders and civilian contractors with a variety of benefits.

[pardon the redundancy]

Permanent holy war in Iraq would keep them busy and out of mischief WITHOUT permanent large involvement from American military.

True, but there's a question of the waste of resources and man-years that would come from such a circumstance. And then there's the ethical[1] side of the coin: do the (largely financial benefits) that might come from a civil war in Iraq really justify the consequent standard-of-living for the residents of Iraq? People like Tim May might say that the towel-headed barbarians deserve to be killed in a bloody civil conflict, but other people might argue that there are stable states that do not actually require heavy foreign civilian losses. As to who is correct, I cannot say. As a relatively new student of history I am still researching the topic.

Plus, of course, they would be pumping oil like mad in order to fund it.

Aren't we all about to run out of oil soon anyways?

Finding Al Quaeda is hard. Nation building is even harder. Military training covers nation smashing, not nation building.

Of course. It's much easier to smash things than it is to create; and smashing requires much less wisdom. On average; depending on how one goes about `smashing' a nation-state. I imagine that nation-building, or nation-`shaping', would be quite hard -- and what if such efforts were to go awry? The consequences might be terrible.

But arranging matters so that Al Quaeda is busily killing those muslims it deems insufficiently Muslim, and muslims are killing Al Quaeda right back, seems astonishingly easy.

If you've been practising pitting groups of barbarians against each other, as is apparently the case for those involved with the military intelligence community, then yes, I suppose it might be considered `astonishingly easy'. I would also be inclined to suggest that those sorts of arrangements are quite expensive, regardless of their degree of ease.

It is like throwing a match into a big petrol spill. Why are American soldiers getting shot putting out the fire? Why are Americans dying to stop arabs from killing arabs? We *want* arabs to kill arabs. When arabs kill arabs, we fear that the wrong side might win - but whichever side wins, it usually turns out to be the wrong side. If no one wins, no problem.

I suppose that Americans are getting shot and dying because they are being paid to engage in high-risk operations. The risk-taking probably makes them feel more like manly-men -- until they bleed out all over the desert sand, of course. Is there a psychologist in the house who might shed more light on this kind of risk-taking behavior?

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Nothing like a long holy war with no clear winner to teach people the virtues of religious tolerance. That is, after all, how Europeans learnt that lesson.

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You're dreaming. People simply do not learn from history.

But we learnt from history. Europe, and Europeans, did learn from the European holy wars.

Well, my opinion is such that the major lesson that [a few] people end up learning from history is how to make conflict seem more legitimate to increasingly better educated populations. But there is evidently a long way to go before the enterprise of warfare is perfected. As to other lessons learned from history, it is evident that we as a species have learnt that war remains profitable under all conditions. This is now a matter of the most sacred orthodoxy to high-culture. Do not worry. I will not presume to challenge such a strongly-held belief.

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Many things would be nice if [group A] were busy killing [enemy B] instead of [group C]. Sadly, this is not a perfect world and the people who need the most killing do not, generally speaking, get it.

Perhaps it is a bit of a shame that the kind of broken person who ends up becoming a suicide bomber, a Ted Kaczynski, a Timothy McVeigh, or even a Jim Sikorski,

First: Three cheers for Timothy McViegh.

How about, "Where is Ted Kaczynski now that we really need him?"

Secondly, the people who organize large scale terror can be identified, particularly by locals and coreligionists, which is why they have been dying in large numbers in Afghanistan.

Um, what planet are you on? The people who, as you say, organize large scale terror tend to be protected by virtue of large bureaucratic firewalls, legislated secrecy, misdirection (smoke and mirrors), and even taboos. But perhaps you are not referring to Western terrorists, but are expecting your reader to assume that terrorists always wear turbans, and who generally will live and operate in the Middle-Eastern theatre. Perhaps you have forgotten about the people who planned and executed the operations that helped South-American tyrants form up and train their death- and terror-squads? Who was it, by the way, who coined the name "Death and Horror, Inc." My memory is a little hazy, but I don't believe it was Bin Laden. Regards, Steve [1] I'm so sorry to use that word, but I'm one of those unfortunate retrograde types who would like to see archaic words retain their currency rather than to see the language impoverished through unplanned lexical obsolescence and random mutation. ______________________________________________________________________ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca

--- "James A. Donald" <jamesd@echeque.com> wrote:

[permanent holy war] Steve Thompson

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True, but there's a question of the waste of resources and man-years that would come from such a circumstance.

All the oil money has been wasted, most of the humans in the middle east have suffered poverty, ignorance, lack of freedom and the unproductive absence of useful labor.

Just like the good ol' USA, AFAIK. It's just that the inequities at home aren't limited to those that are a product of the petrochemical industry. All of which is not too different from what I see in the poorer parts of the city I live in: Toronto.

All my life, people have been proposing to solve this problem. Nearly every American president since 1950 announced some big and expensive initiative that would supposedly solve this problem, or make some substantial progress towards a solution.

Lately people were talking about PSE/COA topics which make moot much of the bickering and squabbling that is a constant feature of capitalism. We don't hear much about PSE these days for some reason. I suspect that the path from here to there is still too far beyond the planning horizon of too many people. So, if PSE in a recognizeable form represents a rational outcome of current economic progress, then I guess we must wait until it looms nearer before selling it to the world.

What is your solution?

PSE. And the death of all superstitious nonsense. Of course, there are probably enough people around who like domination games that the elimination of bogus memes such as those attached to theology may prove difficult. Do you have a better idea?

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And then there's the ethical[1] side of the coin: do the (largely financial benefits) that might come from a civil war in Iraq really justify the consequent standard-of-living for the residents of Iraq?

And your remedy for improving the standard of living in the arab world is?

Give them more money. Aridrop directv dishes, televisions, and old computers. Hell, I don't know. Winning arab hearts and minds is a topic that is entirely beyond my area of expertise.

Steve Thompson

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Aren't we all about to run out of oil soon anyways?

Forty years or so, according to estimates by the more sane and conventional authorities.

And then what? What are we and they going to do the following year? And the year after that? I'm sure your military think-tanks have walked through the scenarios and have a good handle on the likely outcomes, but they aren't really talking at this time. (And of course, I wouldn't trust public military think-tank product to correctly predict the sunrise.)

James A. Donald:

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the people who organize large scale terror can be identified, particularly by locals and coreligionists, which is why they have been dying in large numbers in Afghanistan.

Steve Thompson

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Um, what planet are you on?

The planet where the Afghans held an election, in which nearly everybody voted, some of them several times, and the Taliban were unable to carry out any of the threats they made against the voters, which indicates that the Afghans have been pretty efficient in killing Taliban.

Ok. That may well be true. And it is a step in the right direction. However I would guess that the long-term stable state of Afghanistan is entirely up in the air. Barring coups and such I guess we'll have to revisit the Afghanistan question in a few decades. At that time, and after they've had a little practice with the democratic process, we'll probably have a much better idea of how well their liberation from the taliban went.

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The people who, as you say, organize large scale terror tend to be protected by virtue of large bureaucratic firewalls, legislated secrecy, misdirection (smoke and mirrors), and even taboos.

The average Afghan warlord is untroubled by any of this crap.

I suspect that not many of them get to the civilised portions of the Internet all that often.

He sees someone who looks suspicious, says "Hey, you don't look like you are from around here. What are you doing?" If he does not like the answers, he brings out his skinning knife, and asks a few more questions. If the answers make him even more unhappy, he hands his skinning knife to the womenfolk, and tells them to take their time.

You gotta admire the hands-on leadership style, at the very least.

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But perhaps you are not referring to Western terrorists, but are expecting your reader to assume that terrorists always wear turbans, and who generally will live and operate in the Middle-Eastern theatre. Perhaps you have forgotten about the people who planned and executed the operations that helped South-American tyrants form up and train their death- and terror-squads?

The parties that sponsored death squads of Latin America, when victorious, held free and fair elections, which they won, and those they had been fighting lost. The death squads were an response to Soviet sponsored attempts to subjugate, enslave and terrorize Latin America, and when the Soviet Union passed, so did the death squads.

Of course. All the soldiers just packed up and moved on, or retired into the relative and mundane obscurity of civilian life.

It seems most unlikely that Al Quaeda, the Taliban, and the rest, if victorious would hold free and fair elections, or be capable of winning them.

No, I imagine that isn't very likely. So, it is clear that the answer is to bomb the snot out of any country that harbours terrorist warlords. Then, we send in the educators and election facilitators. Correct? Perhaps I am too cynical and in short order, Afghanistan will quickly form up and join the modern age. Regards, Steve ______________________________________________________________________ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca