Chrono Compendium
Zenan Plains - Site Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Ramsus on December 14, 2003, 09:36:19 am
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Saddam Hussein was captured this Saturday in Iraq. Check out your news site, channel, station, or periodical of choice to find out more.
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I found out about this when some chicks who live across the hall burst into my room at 8:30 this morning, yelling the information. Woke up me and my hung-over roommate. Cool news, shitty way of breaking it.
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I awoke to the sound of Bush's speech in another room.
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It's really strange almost... I think everyone had kind of gotten used to this type of thing never really being resolved, and they just kind of forget about it over time... but then BAM, they get him. Kind of makes you wonder if they'll eventually catch up with Osama after all.
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Osama turned his back on the luxuries of life a long time ago. He's been living the cave hopping lifestyle for decades. Assuming he hasn't died, he could evade capture for some time. Saddam, on the other hand, had grown spoiled with luxury...he was doomed, he wouldn't know how to survive without all of his totalitarian resources.
My question is who's next? Iran? Libya? North Korea? That could get risky...
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Lord knows I do not want to get into a political argument (polarization of ideas), but I read a statistic that said the US only received about 5% of its oil from Iraq. This is my primary bastion against the bush-haters.
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Me? I'm not a Bush hater. I'm not even American, as you can see by my location. And I didn't mean this as a political comment. It was meant as a social commentary that tied in to an example from history. Generally I meant to say that the problem is western society which has lost sight of its foundation. I meant to say that terror cannot be fought with force of arms but only with an unshakeable resolve and undaunted spirit. Not all the armies in the world can prevail against terrorists; it is up the the people to stand firm against it.
And as for the historical commentary...the US is the new Rome, for better or worse. And let us not forget that through its rise we have much of the culture we have now; empires are not always a bad thing.
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Terrorism is a symptom, not a disease. Fighting it will improve things superficially, but if we don't take care of the causes, it will only be a temporary benefit at best.
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Truly said, come to think of it. Any war on terrorism is just taking care of a symptom. The disease that causes it lies a little deeper. Though taking human nature into consideration, it will certainly prove incurable. As fair a dream as it may seem to eradicate them, discontent and war will exist so long as we do. Even so, it is in everybody's best interest to do all that we can to try to diminish it as much as possible.
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I'm still not voting for Bush next go-around...And if he gets re-elected, like it seems like he will (although under similer circumstances his father was not)...I'm goin' north to Canada!
The fact of the matter IS, if the US goes after Saddam like they have, then that means they should go after EVERY leader like him. And the sad truth is, he's only one fish in a pond that's actually an ocean. So unless the US actually wants to spend the time, resources, manpower, etc fighting EVERYONE of these damned countries, then it's stupid and is OBVIOUSLY based on other principals other then "it's the right thing to do".
There were bigger fish to fry, and all the US did was saciate them (Korea yo).
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Personally, I just think it's foolish to spend such enormous amounts of resources to tear down and rebuild another country when the U.S. itself still has so many problems of it's own to deal with.
Sure there are bigger fish to fry, but before you go fishing, you've got to make sure your boat doesn't have any leaks.
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The fact of the matter IS, if the US goes after Saddam like they have, then that means they should go after EVERY leader like him.
YES. But not just the US. As I see it, all people everywhere should make some sort of effort to fight injustice wherever it exists. There's a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. that says something to that effect...
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Personally, I just think it's foolish to spend such enormous amounts of resources to tear down and rebuild another country when the U.S. itself still has so many problems of it's own to deal with.
True wisdom lies neither within nor without, but simply with all. The United States could no more disengage from the world and focus only upon itself than it could engage itself upon the entire world fully; in either extreme the nation would lose its identity and its way.
I believe very strongly in e pluribus Unum. I shall continue to refrain from giving my opinion on Iraq on this board at this time, but I will say that any policy which spreads unity and concord while assailing faction and contentiousness is a policy I will support, because in my mind it is worth whatever means to achieve (a) the most united world (b) for the most number of people (c) under the best conditions (d) as soon as can be.
Does Bush further that? Did Saddam foil that? I won't say yes to either; to give such a definitive answer with as little wisdom as belongs to me is to disrespect the complexity of our world and misunderstand the finest tenets of empire.
~ Josh
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saddam is dead now...
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Wow, interesting, I haven't seen this topic before. Now that it's been bumped, how have everyone's opinions on the Iraq War developed since the time Hussein was caught?
Goodness, I can remember actually supporting the war in a high school debate. All that talk of mushroom clouds and nipping in the bud, all hogwash! Little did I know at the time (somewhere in Feb 2003 perhaps), Dr. Hans Blix was before the UN saying, "Uh, guys, my weapons inspection team has had two weeks to investigate, and we've got nothin'. More time?"
Anyone remember if Dr. Blix's testimony was given one single minute of primetime news coverage in the weeks leading up to Shock&awe Day?
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Same; I was supportive back then as well. The conservative principles of fiscal responsibility and civil liberties != Republican party these days. I've come a long way.
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Very interesting. The Bush II administration has gradually turned my whole family from a bunch of flaming Rs to a bunch of flaming Ds. I think this Bush's handling of things has driven more Republicans away from the party than anything else.
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Same; I was supportive back then as well. The conservative principles of fiscal responsibility and civil liberties != Republican party these days. I've come a long way.
Same as well... (what can one do when the only information given is *misinformation*.) The Republican party has *really* become bastardized as of late.
Very interesting. The Bush II administration has gradually turned my whole family from a bunch of flaming Rs to a bunch of flaming Ds. I think this Bush's handling of things has driven more Republicans away from the party than anything else.
It isn't just Bush, but rather the whole party has degenerated into an unrecognizable mess, truly disgusting.
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saddam is dead now...
I know there is no such thing as a dead thread...but saying Saddam is dead a long time after he died...?
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hello...? using old threads to create new conversation! resurface old memories!
besides, this is a good topic.
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Actually, the entire Iraq war has been terribly interesting, from an academic perspective. The propaganda and misinformation that has surrounded the war is fascinating, especially given that so much of it seems to stem from the exact same sources but have totally different perspectives. It makes me wish that I was born a good 50 or more years later, so that I'd have a chance of actually studying it historically (unbiased history tends not to occur till the generation that lived through it has passed on). At times it feels like some people are working so hard to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, but it would be wonderful to approach it without so much rhetoric on both sides and my own personal biases.
Still, I never understood why, during all that, no one ever brought up genocide and ol' UN resolution 260 A.
Took a bit of search, Faust, but I found that February Report (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/feb/14/iraq.unitednations1) you mentioned. The January (http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/01/27/sprj.irq.transcript.blix/index.html) and March (http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/03/07/sprj.irq.un.transcript.blix/index.html) reports were also interesting.
Actually, I do recall that Blix's name, at least, was on the news almost daily before the first missiles were fired. He did almost drop off the radar after March (http://news.google.com/archivesearch?hl=en&q=hans+blix&as_ldate=2003&as_hdate=2003&um=1&ie=UTF-8&scoring=t&sa=X&oi=archive&ct=title), however.
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Actually, the entire Iraq war has been terribly interesting, from an academic perspective. The propaganda and misinformation that has surrounded the war is fascinating, especially given that so much of it seems to stem from the exact same sources but have totally different perspectives. It makes me wish that I was born a good 50 or more years later, so that I'd have a chance of actually studying it historically (unbiased history tends not to occur till the generation that lived through it has passed on). At times it feels like some people are working so hard to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, but it would be wonderful to approach it without so much rhetoric on both sides and my own personal biases.
Still, I never understood why, during all that, no one ever brought up genocide and ol' UN resolution 260 A.
Took a bit of search, Faust, but I found that February Report (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/feb/14/iraq.unitednations1) you mentioned. The January (http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/01/27/sprj.irq.transcript.blix/index.html) and March (http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/03/07/sprj.irq.un.transcript.blix/index.html) reports were also interesting.
Actually, I do recall that Blix's name, at least, was on the news almost daily before the first missiles were fired. He did almost drop off the radar after March (http://news.google.com/archivesearch?hl=en&q=hans+blix&as_ldate=2003&as_hdate=2003&um=1&ie=UTF-8&scoring=t&sa=X&oi=archive&ct=title), however.
The propaganda and misinformation that has surrounded the war is fascinating, especially given that so much of it seems to stem from the exact same sources but have totally different perspectives. It makes me wish that I was born a good 50 or more years later, so that I'd have a chance of actually studying it historically
Hindsight is 20/20, people, including I, always look back and think "what was I thinking" all the time--misinformation tends to make people fickle.
(unbiased history tends not to occur till the generation that lived through it has passed on)
Time is not always the best cure for misinformation--remember even the good information we have now will eventually be lost to the sands of time along with the bad and ugly. In addition, unbiased information, in my opinion, is as impossible to reach as the speed of light and *true* justice. A person must *observe, *interpret*, and then record and/or *understand* and eventually pass on said information.
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Time is not always the best cure for misinformation--remember even the good information we have now will eventually be lost to the sands of time along with the bad and ugly. In addition, unbiased information, in my opinion, is as impossible to reach as the speed of light and *true* justice. A person must *observe, *interpret*, and then record and/or *understand* and eventually pass on said information.
Actually, the problem for the modern historian is not that "good information" will eventually be lost, it is that there is too much information. Consider, if you will, all the information on the internet that is usually stored somewhere, creating electronic copies. There are ever-more news agencies, keeping their own records and archives, ever more bureaucracy that requires events be recorded in triplicate. No, the problem isn't loosing good information; it is analyzing a significant portion of it.
If I want to study the events of 2007 BCE as it relates to Greece, I could read every available record within a year. If I wanted to study the events of 2007 CE as it relates to the United Confederate Islands of Micronesia, I could spend a lifetime reading only a portion of the available records.
The historian doesn't seek unbiased information; that would be a silly goal. Rather, a historian tries to remove their own biases from the situation and objectively looks at the sources, judging where the biases of the source lay. The closer one is to the event, the harder it is to remove one's own biases, thus making it all the more difficult to analyze the biases of the sources. G.W. Bush is a prime example; Liberals say he is too conservative, Conservatives say he is too liberal. What is he then, a moderate? Ah, but that would be making the logical fallacy of the middle ground. If I might play the soothsayer for a moment, G.W. Bush is a complex and curious enough topic that he will be the subject of more than one doctoral dissertation in coming years.
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Time is not always the best cure for misinformation--remember even the good information we have now will eventually be lost to the sands of time along with the bad and ugly. In addition, unbiased information, in my opinion, is as impossible to reach as the speed of light and *true* justice. A person must *observe, *interpret*, and then record and/or *understand* and eventually pass on said information.
Actually, the problem for the modern historian is not that "good information" will eventually be lost, it is that there is too much information. Consider, if you will, all the information on the internet that is usually stored somewhere, creating electronic copies. There are ever-more news agencies, keeping their own records and archives, ever more bureaucracy that requires events be recorded in triplicate. No, the problem isn't loosing good information; it is analyzing a significant portion of it.
If I want to study the events of 2007 BCE as it relates to Greece, I could read every available record within a year. If I wanted to study the events of 2007 CE as it relates to the United Confederate Islands of Micronesia, I could spend a lifetime reading only a portion of the available records.
The historian doesn't seek unbiased information; that would be a silly goal. Rather, a historian tries to remove their own biases from the situation and objectively looks at the sources, judging where the biases of the source lay. The closer one is to the event, the harder it is to remove one's own biases, thus making it all the more difficult to analyze the biases of the sources. G.W. Bush is a prime example; Liberals say he is too conservative, Conservatives say he is too liberal. What is he then, a moderate? Ah, but that would be making the logical fallacy of the middle ground. If I might play the soothsayer for a moment, G.W. Bush is a complex and curious enough topic that he will be the subject of more than one doctoral dissertation in coming years.
be lost to the sands of time along with the bad and ugly. In addition, unbiased information, in my opinion, is as impossible to reach as the speed of light and *true* justice. A person must *observe, *interpret*, and then record and/or *understand* and eventually pass on said information.
Actually, the problem for the modern historian is not that "good information" will eventually be lost, it is that there is too much information.
And that is why there is a decay of information. Somebody must eventually sift through said information eliminating what he/she conjectures to be false information. And since no person is omnipotent, the potential of information loss is inevitable...
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The historian doesn't seek unbiased information; that would be a silly goal.
Not trying to start an argument and go too far off topic, but I assumed it was one of true historian's to achieve, if not completely unbiased information, at least as close as possible to it. Other than that there are no other disagreements of your logic on my end.
G.W. Bush is a prime example; Liberals say he is too conservative, Conservatives say he is too liberal. What is he then, a moderate?
A bastardized douchebag. :)
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And that is why there is a decay of information. Somebody must eventually sift through said information eliminating what he/she conjectures to be false information. And since no person is omnipotent, the potential of information loss is inevitable...
Historians might shift through the information, but sources are almost never lost now days (compared to pre-1450 records). They still sit around, quietly waiting for another historian to come through, shift through it again, and pull out different information.
And there is no such thing as "false" information. So document A is found to be a forgery? Meh, tells us something about the forger and their perspective during the time period in which the forgery was created.
Not trying to start an argument and go too far off topic, but I assumed it was one of true historian's to achieve, if not completely unbiased information, at least as close as possible to it. Other than that there are no other disagreements of your logic on my end.
A historian is to be as unbiased as they can, that is certainly true. But as there is no such thing as an unbiased source, no historian would waste time trying to find one. Historians work with the sources available and, ideally, are able to peer beyond the bias (but even that bias is useful information).
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And that is why there is a decay of information. Somebody must eventually sift through said information eliminating what he/she conjectures to be false information. And since no person is omnipotent, the potential of information loss is inevitable...
Historians might shift through the information, but sources are almost never lost now days (compared to pre-1450 records). They still sit around, quietly waiting for another historian to come through, shift through it again, and pull out different information.
And there is no such thing as "false" information. So document A is found to be a forgery? Meh, tells us something about the forger and their perspective during the time period in which the forgery was created.
Not trying to start an argument and go too far off topic, but I assumed it was one of true historian's to achieve, if not completely unbiased information, at least as close as possible to it. Other than that there are no other disagreements of your logic on my end.
A historian is to be as unbiased as they can, that is certainly true. But as there is no such thing as an unbiased source, no historian would waste time trying to find one. Historians work with the sources available and, ideally, are able to peer beyond the bias (but even that bias is useful information).
Historians might shift through the information, but sources are almost never lost now days (compared to pre-1450 records). They still sit around, quietly waiting for another historian to come through, shift through it again, and pull out different information.
Key word being "almost" and over a large enough timescale it is almost certain. But this is all hypothetical as even if information was lost, most of the time one wouldn't know.
And there is no such thing as "false" information. So document A is found to be a forgery? Meh, tells us something about the forger and their perspective during the time period in which the forgery was created.
That's not really what I meant, you are correct in the sense of your *assumption*, though. What I meant by "false" is incorrect, biased opinions accepted as fact (the Crusades are a *prime* example of this, but please, lets not get into religion, this is a topic about Hussein, and derivatively Iraq and the war.)
A historian is to be as unbiased as they can, that is certainly true. But as there is no such thing as an unbiased source, no historian would waste time trying to find one. Historians work with the sources available and, ideally, are able to peer beyond the bias (but even that bias is useful information).
I never specified information to be from one or more sources... :? A historian *will* usually attain multiple (as many as he/she could) sources and eventually piece together the truth as he/she sees it, but every once in a while false information, as I just explained, will slip in. In a perfect world all false information is destroyed and all good information is preserved. But, this isn't a perfect world, is it? :wink:
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That's not really what I meant, you are correct in the sense of your *assumption*, though. What I meant by "false" is incorrect, biased opinions accepted as fact (the Crusades are a *prime* example of this, but please, lets not get into religion, this is a topic about Hussein, and derivatively Iraq and the war.)
True, this is a topic about Hussein and the Iraq war, but as those are in the past this is now the realm of history. Besides, no one gets offended over history (except maybe people interested in the actual thread's topic).
But as far as incorrect, biased opinions accepted as fact; history itself is a prime example. ;)
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Ah, yes. Fitting that the last post was mine. I killed a lot of topics back in the day.
I was an ardent supporter of the war, from before its launch until some point in 2005. Not because I supported Bush. Not because I was terrified of weapons of mass destruction. And not because I cared about Saddam.
Nope, I supported the war because I was (and still am) an imperialist, and, back then, I thought that it was possible for Republican interests to coincide with my own on specific policies. The Republicans wanted from Iraq…whatever it is they wanted…and I wanted Iraq to be the centerpiece of a flourishing, prosperous Middle East. In those days I was looking at Iraq and seeing the successes of postwar Japan, thinking it’d all be chocolates and roses.
Boy, was I wrong.
The Iraq war was probably the most disastrous policy I ever supported. Considering the hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, and general state of terror in Iraq today, to say nothing of the plight of Iraqi women in particular, I learned the hard way never to support a war you don’t own ideologically. If people like me had put aside their special interests in 2002, Bush might never have had the popular authority to go to war. Then again, as he likes to say, September 11 changed everything. Americans were terrified by their own shadows during that time, and the Republican Congress would probably have supported a war on friggin’ air if Bush had asked for one. Perhaps nobody's prudence could have made a difference back then.
We can learn a lot by looking back over our past decisions and positions. I was right far more often than I was wrong, but the times I was wrong stand out a lot more starkly. To be plain, I was considerably more naïve then than I am today. That’s perhaps the one positive outcome for me in all of this: If the Iraq war had succeeded in liberalizing and democratizing Iraq, I might never have learned the tragic lesson that will temper my war lust for the rest of my life. On the other hand, had that war succeeded, millions of people would be better off today, not least including all those dead Iraqis, and the American people themselves. Ah, the complexities of history! Makes ya wonder about certain religious fanatics who like to whitewash history until it’s all the same, fake, pious color.
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You must be pulling some kind of trick here so that even I cannot see your activity in the last fifteen minutes on the forum.
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^ Can you see "invisible" people?
hello...? using old threads to create new conversation! resurface old memories!
besides, this is a good topic.
Fair enough.
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Yes, I can.
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Thought, thank you very much for the research on contemporary reports of Dr. Blix's testimony in 2003. You even gave me a source for a paper I'm writing!
Yeah, I also thought we'd be able to handle Iraq "because we did it with Germany and Japan." In retrospect, it would have been best if we'd stuck with focusing our goody-two-shoes efforts on Afghanistan. Our efforts divided among two countries we're supposedly trying to help, both plans for democratization have serious risk of failure.
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And is there any doubt to the central role of religion in complicating the occupation of Iraq?
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Religious differences certainly are one root of the problem; Sunnis and Shi'ites never should have been stuffed into the same artificial country. Imperialist idiocy is the other root...Sunnis and Shi'ites never should have been stuffed into the same artificial country. Who the hell made that decision, and when? The Brits after World War I? The French got Syria if I'm not mistaken.
I think one of the reasons Japan and Germany went so well was that the populations there were fairly homogenous. The Nazis drove out or exterminated minoritiy groups in their ridiculous effort to "purify" the German nation, and the Japanese were, well, Japanese. It's safe to say that many, many other factors came into play, but lack of extreme factional strife in the occupied territories certainly didn't hurt.
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Ah, yes, cultural heterogeneity...
Bleah, what a mess it all is, like some caustic salad of ethnic groups and conflicting belief systems. I think DK put the cost per minute of the occupation at $220,000 now.
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Normally I'd say something like, "Well, shucks, I don't want my taxpayer dollars being put to such uses," but the money is just being borrowed from other countries or something no doubt. We're so far down the hole nowadays that it's the taxpayer dollars of Americans living hundreds of years from now that will still be paying for this.
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Which makes it even worse. This is becoming a generation mess, and all for nothing. The waste alone disgusts me.
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Out of curiosity, was the majority of the forum regulars, for or against the war back when it started? Did anyone think that is was more oil driven than the idea of spreading democracy? I started lurking here in 2005, so I was a bit late to any thread party that discussed yay or nay for war. If you did or do think it was for the better of the people and we were the "knight on the White Horse", what do you think of the Darfur situation and the lack of both media and US government attention it has been given?
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I think the idea that "wow, a country is going to have a free democracy now" is pretty attractive to everyone, so it was easy to rationalize the war until the staggering costs and difficulties in the occupation became apparent. Still, the leaders in charge of the entire thing shouldn't have been naive when it came to expecting easy change in a country so ethnically conflicted. They would have known about that, whereas the average American might not be an expert on the complexities of Sunni versus Shi'ite versus Kurd.
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The fact that Sunni and Shi'ites are fighting is reason alone to bomb the crap out of them.
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The fact that Sunni and Shi'ites are fighting is reason alone to bomb the crap out of them.
Wait, what? Are you being serious? Are you being sarcastic? Are you out of tolerance? Don't you respect people's problems? (they do not touch you man).
I really hope you're being some kind of sarcastic about the republican way here.
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Don't you respect people's problems?
What part of suicide bombing should command anyone's respect? Yeah, saying you should just bomb something is stupid and reminiscent of jingoistic Americans, but they're already doing it to each other.
INTERESTING NOTE: George Harrison, the most spiritual Beatle who played the sitar and practiced meditation, said "they should drop a bomb on Manila" after his time in the Philippines.
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The fact that Sunni and Shi'ites are fighting is reason alone to bomb the crap out of them.
Wait, what? Are you being serious? Are you being sarcastic? Are you out of tolerance? Don't you respect people's problems? (they do not touch you man).
I really hope you're being some kind of sarcastic about the republican way here.
If they had the facilities to do so to us, they would sooner consider doing it to us than us doing it to them. Besides This is *WAR* not some friendly game of chess (remember why the British were able to be defeated so easily during the Revolutionary War :wink:), this is the same kind of thing thats keeping us in Afghanistan all these years... And are you talking tolerance to people (terrorists, not the general populace) who care nothing of it? Just remember they could care *less* about our problems at any rate.
What part of suicide bombing should command anyone's respect? Yeah, saying you should just bomb something is stupid and reminiscent of jingoistic Americans, but they're already doing it to each other.
I agree completely.
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FINE.
I just hope and desire from the bottom of my heart that you people never have to live a situation of violence like that one in your streets, and do not have to suffer intolerance in your own flesh, and I'm not being sarcastic.
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The fact that Sunni and Shi'ites are fighting is reason alone to bomb the crap out of them.
Wait, what? Are you being serious? Are you being sarcastic? Are you out of tolerance? Don't you respect people's problems? (they do not touch you man).
I really hope you're being some kind of sarcastic about the republican way here.
I wasn't being completely serious, but the reason I said what I did was because seperatist Iraqis are stupid enough to believe that there is difference between Sunni and Shi'ite.
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FINE.
I just hope and desire from the bottom of my heart that you people never have to live a situation of violence like that one in your streets, and do not have to suffer intolerance in your own flesh, and I'm not being sarcastic.
Listen, I don't mean to offend you, being just my own opinion, but you're talking about a religious civil war war here, and no diplomat can really resolve differences between two religions or sects (Gandhi came close, though), besides religion is inherently intolerant of other religions (as few recognize one another) or sects. Add on top of that this civil war is based on petty political differences between the two sects inflames the problem. And don't take me as some "insensitive republican scum", based on my opinions based on my opinions of *this* topic, this war is *very* different from the standard model. And I accept your opinion as it has validity, so don't go thinking I haven't considered what you're talking about :roll:, I'm all for diplomacy when it is *possible*, besides we're not the ones who will be able to bring peace to these sects, anyways, let alone at the business end of an M-16.
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Thank you very much for your replies, I meant no offense either, and I appreciate your explanations.
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While we're discussing religious strife, I'd just like to toss in the example of the Muslim ruler of India during the 1500s or so, Akbar the Great: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akbar#Views_on_religion
This is how religious differences should be handled IMO. It should be noted that one must specifically reject specific religious traditions to do this sort of thing; Akbar had to do away with the jizya tax on non-Muslims, for example. If a Christian leader were in the hot seat, he or she would have to admit that belief in Jesus (as a literal concept, i.e., worshipping Jesus) is not the only way to salvation.
Note that I don't regard Akbar as a saint of any sort -- I think he threw a dude out a window once -- just as a very practical leader. Also, I don't think we need to go so far as to amalgamate all the different religions into a single faith; the discussion house inviting everyone from Sunnis to atheists to participate was probably enough. It's kind of like the Compendium forums.
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General Akbar!
It's a trap!
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I think he threw a dude out a window once
That just demands respect.
Also, Akbar means great, right? So he is "Great the Great?"