Fallujah: Marine Eye-Witness Report

[Steve Thompson]

 --- "James A. Donald" <jamesd at echeque.com> wrote: 
> [permanent holy war]
> Steve Thompson
> > 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?
 
> > 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
> > 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:
> > >  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
> > 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. 
 
> > 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.

> > 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
 

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