Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: greenspirit who wrote (124121)	2/1/2004 2:33:33 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Respond to of 281500

re: The Mind of Our Enemies: <The assumption here seems to be Iraq was not propped up and maintained by guns in the past.> You're changing the subject, here. Is this your way of admitting that the present Iraqi government is not consensual, and to call it that is Orwellian? <Subservience to dictators and brutal regimes may by your cup of tea, it certainly is not mine.> This entire paragraph is one long string of straw men and fantasies. You believe we are bringing freedom, prosperity, the rule of law, elections, and feminism to Afghanistan, when the evidence is overwhelming that none of that is happening. You simply ignore all inconvenient facts, which, in this case, means ignoring all the facts. And you attack me for positions I have never advocated; you attack a fantasy boyegman terrorist sympathizer Leftist that is entirely a creation of your own mind. The methods I advocate replace fear with freedom. Since Gandhi led India to independence, there have been a long list of successful nonviolent revolutions, all over the world, that have replaced the most brutal totalitarian governments with democracies. The methods you advocate, replace fear with fear. When the U.S. Army (or CIA, or some other instrument of killing) overthrows a regime, the consistent result (in all the poor areas of the world) is: an anti-american thug is replaced with a pro-american thug.

To: greenspirit who wrote (124121)	2/1/2004 3:19:55 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

<Finally, would you arrest our returning GI's and put them behind bars for murdering?> It's a sham, Michael. The fantasy that we are championing freedom, gets increasing harder to believe in. It requires ignoring more and more facts. Here's what's really happening: nationinstitute.org The most vociferous complaints, however, concerned nighttime raids and detentions. Military people had previously acknowledged to us a policy of "45 seconds of rage and fury"on entering a house. They consider this necessary to obtain immediate submission and keep their troops safe. Soldiers break down doors, yell commands to lie on the floor, run through the house, and generally try to frighten the occupants into submissive behavior. "Why do the soldiers break down our doors and smash our cupboards. We would give them the key if they just asked?" was a typical question from the outraged lawyers. "When Saddam raided," said one, "he took only the person he was after. Now the whole family is taken, even when the soldiers know they have the wrong house." (my comment: this is classic chimp dominance behavior and threat display. Word for word, this is how Goodall describes alpha male chimps acting.) ---------------------------------------------- He flatly denied that either men or women had been taken in without being allowed to clothe themselves fully, and he emphasized that he is not authorized to detain people just because they are family members of suspects. He assured us that his troops didn't usually handcuff the detainees. He preferred, he said, to leave them uncuffed, so that "if they run we can use any level of force necessary to control them. Once we cuff 'em, we can't touch 'em." (my comment: what do you think "any level of force" means? Examine his thinking process, that results in the decision to leave the detainees without handcuffs.) ----------------------------------------------- "With a heavy dose of fear and violence, and a lot of money for projects, I think we can convince these people that we are here to help them." - Lt. Col. Nate Sassaman of the 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, and commanding officer of the U.S. military base in the Yithrib District of Iraq. (My comment: that last is almost as good as "We had to destroy the village in order to save it.") ____________________________________________________ No, I wouldn't arrest U.S. infantrymen, or even Lt. Col Sassaman, for the same reason I wouldn't arrest German infantrymen in 1945. I would, however, arrest Bush, and try him for the crime of waging a war of aggression. Since I don't believe in the death penalty, I wouldn't hang him, as we did at Nurenburg. I'd chain him by the ankles to Saddam Hussain, and have those two thugs spend the rest of their lives picking up unexploded cluster bombs and land mines. That would be justice. There are a list of war criminals in the U.S., whose crimes have been exhaustively documented, and who go unpunished, protected and even honored. Kissinger, Calley, all the Iran-Contra crowd (many of whom now work for Bush, and who pose as humanitarian imperialists), etc., etc. Most of the American war criminals are political, not military, leaders. No infantrymen.