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I wonder if the terrorists would behave themselves for a few months, would we be smart enough to get out of there? Then they could continue to do what ever Muslims do to each other over there.
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Navyone wrote:
> I wonder if the terrorists would behave themselves for a few months, would we be smart enough to get out of there? Then they could continue to do what ever Muslims do to each other over there.
Yup. They get born, learn to walk and talk, go to school (if they're lucky) and learn, grow up a bit, fall love, have sex with each other, marry each other perhaps, possibly have kids (usually with other Muslims but sometime with people of other faiths), try and make the world a bit better place than the way they found it ....
Pretty much what my Muslims friend in London do. Come to that, pretty much what my Christian, atheist, agnostic and "other" friends in London do.
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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cossie
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On fire! |
Location: Exiled in North East Engl...
Registered: July 2003
Messages: 1699
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Navyone, I acknowledge that your posts are normally thoughtful and are rarely provocative, but it really does worry me that you regard Muslims as being in some way different from yourself. They may have a different interpretation of God, and it is certainly true that there are far too many dangerous extremists hiding under the Muslim umbrella, but - historically - it has been an extremely tolerant religion (much more so than Christianity) and there can be no doubt that the Muslim conquest of Southern Spain was the major source of the European age of enlightenment which presumably passed to the New World.
In many ways we look back to Greece as the cradle of civilisation; did you realise that our knowledge of Greek texts and philosophies came to us through Arabic translations?
People are people, race and religion is only part of the kaleidoscope.
For a' that an' a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that,
That man tae man, the worrld o'er
Shall brithers be, for a' that.
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I accept my 10 lashes with a wet noodle. I lumped all Muslims in the Middle East with the Muslim Terrorists that are everyday killing fellow Muslims. Ignorant mistake on my part, written in passion. I am not a pacifist I think pacifists should go walk the streets of Iran, North Korea, Iraqi etc and preach there beliefs. At any rate my question was meant to be how to get us out of there. So our Muslim brothers and sisters can determine there own destiny.
Gary
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cossie
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On fire! |
Location: Exiled in North East Engl...
Registered: July 2003
Messages: 1699
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.... I am not a pacifist. I accept (without any religious overtones) that there is evil in the world and that resisting evil may well involve the use of force. That doesn't mean that all Muslims are evil. After 9/11 and the 'War against Terrorism', it was clearly a good political move to invade Iraq. Saddam Hussein was manifestly a corrupt leader. Get rid of him, and the Iraquis would be hugely grateful, would grant generous oil concessions and would accept a puppet, pro-Coalition government. But it didn't happen like that; al Quaeda and its associates were - once again - well ahead of Coalition intelligence. They took advantage of the invasion to infiltrate and create the so-called 'insurgency', the obvious purpose of which is to secure an Islamic Republic akin to Iran.
The Coalition created the present mess - and my country is as much to blame as yours - but to talk of getting the US out of there is morally corrupt in the extreme. With the benefit of hindsight, the Coalition should never have invaded. In fact, some would say that with the benefit of integrity the Coalition should never have invaded. But we did. We caused the shit; it is our bounden duty to clear up the mess - and, thus far, we don't seem to be doing it very well.
Oh, and by the way, I progressed from wet noodles half-a-century ago; now I prefer to use supercharged cattle prods!
Navyone, this ain't personal - it's an argument about principle. I'm not trying to chase you away; I do value your terse and pungent comments!
For a' that an' a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that,
That man tae man, the worrld o'er
Shall brithers be, for a' that.
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I certainly don't believe that the use of violence is ever long-term effective, and it is therefore never justified. "What goes around, comes around" in a vaguely karmic sense, and Newton pointed out that to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction ... but mainly because "fighting for peace is like fucking for chastity". But that doesn't mean I'm always opposed to some kinds of force: marches, demonstrations, boycots, non-violent resistance are all fine with me (not sure about lashes with wet noodles ... grin).
I don't actually agree with cossie that it would be immoral to immediately remove all invading troops. Sure, there might be a bloodbath. But actually, there pretty much is a bloodbath now, both in Iraq (which I don't know) and in Afghanistan (which I do know a bit). It is certainly arguable that the total number of casualties might be lower if there is a flare-up in violence which results in some kind of settlement, exhaustion, or realisation of the pointlessness of it all and long-term lower casualties, than there would be if we continue the present situation indefinitely. And - over-ridingly for me - we cannot ultimately take responsibility for the actions of others, only for our own actions.
But there are certainly steps that we can take that would be likely to reduce the level of tension, and hopefully casualties, on our withdrawal (whenever that is).
Encourage the Iraqi government to repeal the law that we forced the CPA (civilian provisional authority - the interim puppet government) to pass that gives foreign civilian contractors immunity from all Iraqi jurisdiction.
For the US government to make good the vast sum (by some accounts up to $8 billion) that has been misappropriated, gone missing from, or is otherwise unaccounted for from reconstruction funds administered by the puppet CPA under American direction. http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/01/30/iraq.audit/
Encourage and allow the Iraqi government to revoke all "no-bid" contracts awarded (mainly to chums of Bush: companies like Haliburton & Bechtel) and re-tender them in a format that emphasises working in partnership with local companies, with full training, with a view to building up a local industrial infrastructure once again capable of maintaining essential water, power etc services, and where the contracts are structured to reflect the level of this "social good" the western partner actually delivers.
For the US government to sign up to the treaties establishing the International Criminal Court. This seems unlikely to result in the retrospective prosecution for war crimes of any individual american or briton, because most of the terms for the court are still being worked out - but it would send a powerful signal to the rest of the world the the USA no longer regards itself as above the law, and to US troops in occupation that the US government would no longer guarantee immunity for US citizens committing war crimes. The UK is already a signatory. It might also be helpful if any further allegations of atrocity by occupying troops were investigated by, and prosecuted under, Iraqi domestic procedures.
I'm not saying that these are going to put a stop to any further "insurgency"! But they are based on a couple of discussions I've had with expatriate Iraqis and others. The impression that I get is that the best hope for the new elected government to establish its legitimacy, and hence gain popular support and re-establish some kind of peace, is for it to show that it has the international support and the effective muscle to successfully challenge (what are seen as) the worst bits of cynical exploitation and indifference to law by the occupying powers.
Nothing succeeds like success, and we need to do everything in our power to give the new government some real and genuine successes to build on!
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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There is an interesting and (once one gets past the first few paragraphs which are rather anti-american in tone)fairminded article on the kinds of approach that might be useful in the current situation on http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5049214.stm
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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cossie
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On fire! |
Location: Exiled in North East Engl...
Registered: July 2003
Messages: 1699
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Suppose that you lived next door to a violent father who - to your certain and observed knowledge - regularly beat his children beyond any reasonable bounds? Would you ignore this, or try to intervene? And how different is this scenario from observing the actions of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe from the relative safety of Zambia or Malawi?
Seems to me that you can abandon force, or you can abandon justice - but it isn't possibel to do one without the other.
For a' that an' a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that,
That man tae man, the worrld o'er
Shall brithers be, for a' that.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13694
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The issue you pose appears simple at first.
To stop the father you send in the social services. They "deal with the matter", and as we know from Cleveland and the satanic abuse allegations, not always appropriately.
But when you send them in to deal with Mugabe (UN we presume, in some form) then you start to play with big boys' toys, and nasty incidents get nastier.
This brings us back to economic sanctions. But what if the reaction to sanctions (which never affected Rhodesia, so why should they affect Zimbabwe?) is to penalise a section, any section, of the Zimbabwean community in order to force the lifting of sanctions?
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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I'm not against all kinds of force, just violence.
I don't think that the answer is to beat the father to a bloody pulp in full view of the kids, then remove them to a care situation where they are beaten by older kids and beat younger ones themselves. This perpetuates a cycle of abuse: it is highly likely that the kids will themselves grow up to violently physically abuse friends, partners, and offspring.
In my view, peace has to be grown. Often the seed falls on stony ground, and even in the most favourable circumstances it may fail to flourish, but we can improve the chances by helping with just enough water, fertiliser, and support. It can't just be transplanted from one place to another with a totally different soil and aspect!
I know this is deeply against the modern need for quick fixes, and we all tend to suffer from an almost irresistible impulse to "do something" - but sometimes the most effective thing to do is to facilitate and encourage in a low-key manner, rather than dramatic one-off intervention.
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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cossie
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On fire! |
Location: Exiled in North East Engl...
Registered: July 2003
Messages: 1699
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In my previous post I was more concerned with justice than with force. There are - in my view - times where the international community can no longer justify doing nothing. There is much talk of the sovereignty of individual states, even where the boundaries are far from ancient and far from logical, but just how far should corrupt rule be allowed to go in places like Zimbabwe or Sudan? Should people be left to die simply because they live on the wrong side of an arbitrary line, all too frequently drawn by the British?
Sanctions have rarely worked because they are broken with impunity in the interests of profit - and British and American corporations are right up there with the major offenders. The real problem is that we are much more concerned with the protection of our own interests that with making a real attempt to solve the problems of the world.
As regards Iraq, I agree entirely with NW's condemnation of the moral corruption which is apparent - especially in areas like the 'no bid' deals - and I agree that these wrongs should be righted. I especially agree that in the field of reconstruction the priority should be to benefit the Iraqui economy rather than the economies of the invaders. But regardless of the reason for the invasion, the 'enemy' is now the so-called insurgency. The Iraqui people did not invite these 'terrorists' into their country; we, by invading, allowed them the freedom to infiltrate. Many of these insurgents have no respect for Iraqui lives, their sole objective is to seize control of the country 'in the name of Islam' - but it is a version of Islam alien to those upon whom they seek to impose it.
Leaving the population to fight it out among themselves in not a reasonable option. Pacifism, surely, entails doing everything in our power to prevent war - not merely to prevent our personal involvement in it. If we withdraw, the odds are stacked in favour of the militant fundamentalists, because they have the backing, the weapons and the intelligence to secure victory.
That said, I agree with NW that we are doing far too little to sow seeds for the future. The vast majority of my colleagues, friends and acquaintances do not believe that the US is behaving with integrity - how, then, can anyone expect the Iraquis to believe it?
One last thought. You'll appreciate from my previous posts that I have consistently argued that the Muslim community as a whole should not be judged by the behaviour of fundamentalists within it, any more than US citizens should be judged by the actions of Fred Phelps. But it either is, or is not, correct that Islamic scripture encourages its followers to kill unbelievers, and in its own interest the community should make its position unequivocally clear.
For a' that an' a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that,
That man tae man, the worrld o'er
Shall brithers be, for a' that.
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