Ray

Bandwagon,

I have read George Orwell. 1984 and Animal Farm.

Enjoyed both. While the era of Animal Farm is over, the era of 1984 seems to have come!

He was an Anglo Indian and was born Eric Blair in Motihari, originally a part of Bengal but now in Behar, India.

That sentence that you commented on is 'loaded'! I deliberately did not amplify!

__________________


"Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

HAKUNA MATATA

Lunatock

I'm shocked. And I previously heard someone say that Europe is pretty much allowing itself to be dragged under, because the American cowboys will ride to the rescue.

Ray

Let us not try to find scapegoat for the inane actions that have been perpetuated on the world. Indeed, one wonders if Europe has really gone under or why the American public is getting tired of all this chaos and uncertainty.

Just spare a moment on this thought.

Iraq was really no religious kettle boiling over during Saddam. It was the most placid country in so far as Islamic reawakening that has seized the world. Saddam had kept the lid tightly in place.

What has the War on Iraq and all this hocus pocus of Freedom and Democracy done?

It has added another terrorist spawning centre, apart from the misery that it has brought upon, not only the Iraqis, but to all countries of the COW (Coalition of the Willing)!

To beat the label of my being partisan, let me ask you, is Saudi Arabia not equally reprehensible? People talk about hijab, oppression of women as the raison d' etre to usher in Freedom and Democracy to Islamic counties. So, why was a dose Freedom and Democracy denied to the Saudis? More so, since they are the ones who are financing the madrassas the world over, which in turn, spawns the terrorists? Not only the Saudis are financing Pakistani madrassas but are also the fundhouse for the problems one has seen in South Thailand and Indonesia. I believe Saudi money is also being used by the Moros in Philippines! While cosmetic actions are taken to freeze the terrorist fund, the real source - Saudi Arabia - remains open for business to spawn terrorism! Therefore, the War on Terror is a fraudulent slogan, apart from not being the real reason for all the wars that are being carried out and that are on the anvil!

And please note that Saddam's Iraq was a country which did not have any of this religious wild ones going berserk! This fraudulent WoT has added it to the centres for Islamic terrorism spawning!

As everyday passes and the situation becomes horrifyingly entangled in Iraq and even the world, I cannot help but think that the War on Iraq was a huge blunder caused by a total lack of foresight and was more of a strategic requirement that has gone rudderless, rather than all these pseudo moral and impressive claptrap that was spewed from the political pulpit!

What have we achieved with this War on Terror?

Everywhere there is chaos and the Moslems are buzzing like angry bees whose hive has been shaken! And the Queen Bee (in a manner of speaking), ObL is elusive! He requires to be nabbed so that the bees can be lured back into the hive. Even that may not work!

Had more thought been given and had the nations been taken one by one instead of coming down like a jackhammer gone crazy and aimless, things may have gone off better.

The WoT has only shoved the Moslems in the corner and more and more Moslems are yelling and kicking than what was necessary!

Instead of taking everyone at the same time, if it was phased with intervals, it would not have united the Moslem world as has been done now, so much so that Saudi Arabia, the US' bosom friend, has condemned the US for an illegal war on Iraq! Imagine that! If the WoT was phased with intervals (to let each war fade from public memory), the Islamic terrorists would have possibly been netted, even if not wiped!

I think enough of bogus rhetoric has been spewed by world leaders. It is time to sit down and think and evolve a viable plan to bottle the genie that this fraudulent WoT has unleashed!

gunnut

We can easily make Iraq very quiet. Which faction would you like to silence? You said so yourself, Saddam kept a tight lid. How was that achieved? Probably through brute force.

There was a thread I believe asking about this. Which is more important: security or freedom?

I don't have an answer. Personally, I'd pick freedom.

__________________
"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

Ray

Freedom with no knowledge if one will witness the next day's sun rise!

Freedom for people who have no idea what is freedom. Freedom for people whose every action of personal life dictated and ordained in the scriptures from which there is no freedom!

So what Freedom are they wanting and experiencing?

Or is it that an alien concept of freedom for which they have no time, being imposed by force?

gunnut

I agree. We tried to impose freedom on a people who have known nothing but forced order. That's on us. We have learned that. Maybe we should just put a dictator in there to put the lid back on.

astralis

we hardly "imposed freedom". our policies imposed chaos.

had our initial occupation been run even half-way intelligently, democracy would have a real shot in iraq. and one had better hope that this is correct, too, because this concept of democratization as the anti-dote to terror is the lynchpin of the war.

__________________
Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

gunnut

Agree on all points.

But here's my question: what else could possibly be the antidote to terror? We tried democracy and that didn't work.

astralis

not democracy, but liberalization (lower-case l ). democracy should come last: after a stable economy, after creation of rule of law, after a system of national rule, after the creation of a civil society.

without any of these things, democracy is a hollow shell, ripe for take-over by illiberal elements. in effect, like hitler mentioned, they use democracy to destroy it. and all it does is give democracy an undeserved bad name.

smilingassassin

I'm curious to know what muslims who do beleive the holocaust happened think about this new PC move to censor the holocaust? Looks like the radicals are stealing their religion again, this time with the help of the Europeans.

__________________
Facts to a liberal is like Kryptonite to Superman.

-- Larry Elder

Ray

That's all fine.

But I have a question - why go an upset a functioning govt (Iraq) based on the western concept of a correct lifestyle and true governance?

And yet, quite rightly we consider it as hocus bogus the idea of Dar ul Islam which the Moslems are trying to bring to the world for Eternal Peace, through the various terrorist organisations!

It such a clusterf!

Ray

Smiling,

Who cares as to who wants to deny that there was a Holocaust?

And anyway, a bit of heartsearching will indicate that there is a latent anti Jew sentiment, not only in Europe, but also in the USA.

So, why single out Europe?

Who was the actor who was arrested for speeding and saying derogatory things about the Jews, which he retracted later?

Parihaka

All this talk of Iraq's freedom being bogus and the need for a strongman reminds me of m21 saying the best form of government is a benevolent dictator. In this case of course that dictator would have to be the USA itself, for at least IMO 50 years. Thus of course begins the Empire, mwahahaahaaah haaha...

__________________
In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

bandwagon

What's your reasoning behind this. Did you manage to measure the degree of brutality required to keep a lid on this pressure cooker. (Sadam did and imposed no limit). Sadam ensured that the Sunni-Shiite religious divide turned into tribalism. Then there are Sunni nationalists and Sunni Fundamentalists, and Shiite nationalists and Shiite Fundamentalists, and Kurds, all with explosive grievances. Do you really think leaving the Sunni nationalist security structure in place would have kept a grip?

If you think it would, but only with a much larger US occupation force, that would be an enormous long term commitment, with unacceptable exposure of American lives ("And it's one, two, three, what are we fighting for"..)

bandwagon

Ray,

I keep agreeing with you: good posts on religious terrorism, Iraq invasion and freedom. The arguments appear (that greatly overused word robust.