Hi twfowler; Re: "Why do you assume that disagreement with your ideas indicates a lack of knowledge or understanding?"
Because what you were writing was nothing more than the usual nationalistic crap trap that is commmonplace in the right wing. For example: "All in a country that was proud of its tradition of fighting off foreign powers that sought to impose their will ..."
Okay. So Vietnam was a country that was "proud of its tradition of fighting off foreign powers". Please point out to me a major ethnic group that is not proud of "its tradition of fighting off foreign powers".
If you can point out even a single major ethnic group (i.e at least half as large as the 100 million Arabs), then I'll retract my comments about you being historically illiterate.
The problem with nationalists is that they break all situations into special cases where the underlying causes are the (alleged) fundamental and important differences between ethnic groups. It's only one step away from racism, and if you put a couple of beers into a nationalist, you will almost always find another ignorant racist who, when sober, is only barely able to hide his demented beliefs.
Once you start explaining things on the basis of national characters, you lose the ability to understand the actual world situation. Jesus weeps! If you believe that ethnic groups are different (i.e. "cheese eating surrender monkeys"), you can explain everything, but you can only do this in the absence of a knowledge of history. In particular, you can get your dick stuck in one hell of a painful hole by failing to understand the simple facts of human nature.
Go ahead. Name the major ethnic groups across this proud planet, and give me the names of the ones that aren't proud of their history of fighting foreign invaders, LOL.
When you do find that ethnic group, let's organize a letter writing campaign to invade them. They're sure to be an easier touch than the f'ing Arabs, who have a continuing 50 or 100 year long history of fighting the Israeli "invaders", a 500 year (successful) history of fighting the Turkish "invaders", and a 100 year (successful) history of fighting the various colonialist "invaders". By "successful", what I mean is that eventually the foreign invaders left. When that happens, the locals accredit themselves with the "victory" whether they actually had any military part in it or not, LOL.
For that matter, if you are fully read in even US history you should have been aware of the history of Arab nationalism. Remind yourself that in the late 18th century the Arabs were under the rule of the Ottoman empire, and now go back and reread the history of US interaction with the Barbary states. You will find that they were rebelling at the time, LOL.
-- Carl
P.S. I really am waiting to hear about that ethnic group that we can arrange an attack against. Maybe the Polynesians would be a good choice, though I'm not sure how many of them they are, and it is a fact that they fought against the Japanese in WW2. Or maybe the Indians would be better, though they do have a bit of a violent history over there too. |
