Sunday, October 03, 2004
A comment gone lengthy.
Something I could not post on Laura's blog because of space constraints, and am running out of time to break same into peices.
This thread made for a good read. I regret that I am too late to participate in the discussion, but then I guess I could never have covered it as well as Faramin did.
No offense to the other contributors to the discussion. I just do not understand how anyone can spend so much energy justifying mass massacres around the world in the name of bringing peace and harmony to the world. There have been many allusions to the cosmic war between good and evil. There have been many songs sung in praise of Freedom, and quite a few times morality was the point of discussion.
No one really came back and explained where is the good in exercising the freedom to kill half a million children of a nation over a decade of sanctions and feel morally correct about it?
The sanctions were levied by the US, the holy, on Saddam, the terrible, and unless he complied he would have to bear with the deaths of half a million children of his country on his conscience. Wonderful. So, if a man is corrupt and mistreating his family, we go in and hold his family ransom until he complies to our demands to be nice to them. And if in the process, the family has to be sacrificed, (Starved or bombed), so be it. Good needs sacrifice.
Nations cannot be attacked on the premise of good and evil, which of late has come to be the justification for ravaging Afghanistan and Iraq. The Taliban were meanies, had no respect for the rights of anybody, and oppressed their own people, and ditto for Saddam. There was no democracy in either of these countries, or for that matter in the other virtually crime free and violence free Oil rich nations of the Arabian Gulf, so that constitutes a reason for sabre rattling, (and soon enough invasion and bombing). What kind of logic is that?
If tomorrow, by some twist of fate these countries become more powerful than the US and the Britian, would they be justified in invading and bombing the latter two into oblivion because the crime rate is too high in their societies, because teen pregnancies are on the rise, because pre-marital sex is rampant in these countries, because alocohol and pork are consumed freely there? Sounds ridiculous doesn't it? Well, so does the premise of freedom and democracy for an invasion to a people who live a peaceful life in the GCC countries, without fear of crime or what is moral degradation to them.
Let the Americans put themselves in our shoes and think - what if a bully came along and dictated his way of life to them. How would they feel living under the threat of invasions, and daisy cutters???
Estes, you have these mysterious people you work with, who give you access to sensitive inside information. You will not buy into credible and specific evidence provided to you because of your own biases, why should your unnamed "sources" be more acceptable?
These are just thoughts that had accumulated as I read through the exchanges. I realize they must sound incoherent. But the facts that led to these thoughts were facts, everyone's facts. (Didn't Faramin say this somewhere, something about one's right to one's own opinion but not one's own facts). I hope we can pay more attention to facts as they are, and not put a spin on them. The fact is that millions of people are dead, because of the decisions US governments took on their behalf - hundreds of thousands of children were maimed, starved, bombed and murdered because they had to be "liberated".
Hundreds die everyday.
Just found something else very funny... The US forces are invading Iraq, and the Iraqis fighting them are called rebels/militants. Why can't they just be Iraqis, who do not want the US forces on their land? And why can't the US forces be the enemy? The occupying oppressing force? The Abu Gharib-imprisoning-dogs-unleashing torturers?
Regards to all.
¶ 10/03/2004 01:52:00 AM
This thread made for a good read. I regret that I am too late to participate in the discussion, but then I guess I could never have covered it as well as Faramin did.
No offense to the other contributors to the discussion. I just do not understand how anyone can spend so much energy justifying mass massacres around the world in the name of bringing peace and harmony to the world. There have been many allusions to the cosmic war between good and evil. There have been many songs sung in praise of Freedom, and quite a few times morality was the point of discussion.
No one really came back and explained where is the good in exercising the freedom to kill half a million children of a nation over a decade of sanctions and feel morally correct about it?
The sanctions were levied by the US, the holy, on Saddam, the terrible, and unless he complied he would have to bear with the deaths of half a million children of his country on his conscience. Wonderful. So, if a man is corrupt and mistreating his family, we go in and hold his family ransom until he complies to our demands to be nice to them. And if in the process, the family has to be sacrificed, (Starved or bombed), so be it. Good needs sacrifice.
Nations cannot be attacked on the premise of good and evil, which of late has come to be the justification for ravaging Afghanistan and Iraq. The Taliban were meanies, had no respect for the rights of anybody, and oppressed their own people, and ditto for Saddam. There was no democracy in either of these countries, or for that matter in the other virtually crime free and violence free Oil rich nations of the Arabian Gulf, so that constitutes a reason for sabre rattling, (and soon enough invasion and bombing). What kind of logic is that?
If tomorrow, by some twist of fate these countries become more powerful than the US and the Britian, would they be justified in invading and bombing the latter two into oblivion because the crime rate is too high in their societies, because teen pregnancies are on the rise, because pre-marital sex is rampant in these countries, because alocohol and pork are consumed freely there? Sounds ridiculous doesn't it? Well, so does the premise of freedom and democracy for an invasion to a people who live a peaceful life in the GCC countries, without fear of crime or what is moral degradation to them.
Let the Americans put themselves in our shoes and think - what if a bully came along and dictated his way of life to them. How would they feel living under the threat of invasions, and daisy cutters???
Estes, you have these mysterious people you work with, who give you access to sensitive inside information. You will not buy into credible and specific evidence provided to you because of your own biases, why should your unnamed "sources" be more acceptable?
These are just thoughts that had accumulated as I read through the exchanges. I realize they must sound incoherent. But the facts that led to these thoughts were facts, everyone's facts. (Didn't Faramin say this somewhere, something about one's right to one's own opinion but not one's own facts). I hope we can pay more attention to facts as they are, and not put a spin on them. The fact is that millions of people are dead, because of the decisions US governments took on their behalf - hundreds of thousands of children were maimed, starved, bombed and murdered because they had to be "liberated".
Hundreds die everyday.
Just found something else very funny... The US forces are invading Iraq, and the Iraqis fighting them are called rebels/militants. Why can't they just be Iraqis, who do not want the US forces on their land? And why can't the US forces be the enemy? The occupying oppressing force? The Abu Gharib-imprisoning-dogs-unleashing torturers?
Regards to all.
¶ 10/03/2004 01:52:00 AM
