Regardless of whether war is right, unilateral action is wrong. - Page 9

I really hope there is no proof ever.

Stratfor had an article that contained the following:


They then argue that Iran is next.

I'm not sure why people keep insisting that this war is being conducted for the sake of Saddam and his accused WMD.

BTW: Stratfor is far from liberal. One commentary made was that bilx is now going to fade into "much-deserved obscurity."

You're vastly over-simplifying the saudi relationships to bush admin officials and advisors, including Perle, the force behind anti-saudi sentiment in the US. Although I will concede this is the closest I've seen on AI to someone acknowledging a major part of the stategy.


yet again we see pakistan, which is vastly more important in a discussion regarding either al-qaeda and/or nukes, conveniently ignored.

So you know an Iraqi. Does anyone here not know someone from Iraq?



As many people around the world do. Do they not count?


Of course, you apparently have an extremely simplistic understanding of business (and, therefore, the world in general). Let see one thing that did happen after the gulf war:


The current strategy does involve more control over oil, a plan (official called the 'kissinger plan') that has been in the works and building support for 25 years.

BTW: you are aware that Kellog, Brown & Root, which is owned by Halliburton, has already been contracted by the US government to help with the rebuild, aren't you?

As far as I can tell, it was the Nazis that did the lying and the money-grubbing. Unless, you care to refute that, I really don't see where the analogy stands.




Well, Im glad you caught that spelling error and that me writing that at 3 am didnt hamper your ability to understand my point.

Harrald, you still didnt explain to us why you call yourself a Jew. Is it because the Koran refers to Moses and Abraham that you also consider yourself a Jew? Or is it because you are a bolding hooked nosed, money-grubbing liar, consider that a fitting description of a Jew, and therefore that makes you a Jew? Please answer and don't hide this time around.

Not at all tonton.

Islam is an ideology. Just like Communism, Fascism, etc. Im attacking that ideology, and not the color of the skin of those practicing it. Now, to you it might be politically incorrect to attack that ideology, but thats your hang-up, not mine. The only thing remaining is whether you accept what I said is true. If you dont, I can provide you with information elaborating on that point.

I would say that Saudi Arabia is the main force behind anti-saudi sentiment in the halls of US power. They've played the US, expertly. The US always suspected that was the case, but had to make nice for numerous reasons; now with the Saudis barely able to contain their visible glee at 9-11, palestinian suicide bombers, and Al Queda's ultimate ellusiveness, it's just become too much. The Bushes and Bin-Laden's hate each other, clearly, but money talks. Anyway, I don't think Pakistan is being overlooked. Pakistani's are much more amenable to "western" values than most of the middle east, their president/dictator (haha) seems to want to make a genuine effort to advance the country. However, there are many border towns that are highly sympathetic to extreme islamic groups, largely ignorant, and hostile to the idea of "America."

So if you say we must deal with other areas, I'll agree, but that doesn't mean you don't also have to deal with Iraq, if only to make it easier to deal with those other areas.

There seems to be an overriding academic sentiment that imperialism is bad. It hasn't been good in the last 200-300 years, but corruption flows both ways and for every imperial abuser you can find a dozen local tyrants at least as responsible for people's suffering as the so-called powers. In any event, the stakes have changed drastically in the last 50 years, especially in the last 10. We may have to live with some imperialist powers in exchange for a relatively safe world order. If you want to call such a thing imperialism, which is open to debate, but not illegimately named, so be it. I can accept that. The stakes are just too high now, it really is only a matter of time before chem/bio/nuclear weapons become available to those who know how to procure them. Ten years before Chernobyl, experts predicted such a disaster, 20 years before 9-11, industry experts warned of exactly those kinds of vulnerabilities, you wanna read what experts/analysts are saying about WOMD? Not gov't propaganda, but what gov't themselves would prefer people ignore -- fear is bad for business, you know? It isn't good.

If imperialism is the price for a greater measure of safety, then Hail Ceasar! Sign me up for one of the most benign empires one could hope for.

You missed the broad side of the barn by a mile. What I was saying is that this shows he doesn't have a big danerous arsenal. Besides I was talking about him attacking us ( if he's sooooooo dangerous ) over here. Because we're attacking him. Where's the threat?

Again,

"The Problems in Africa is interlinked to this issue. The Islamization of that continent is at the root cause of the conflicts there, the disinvestment and the starvation"

Read it carefully this time.

The point is they are both racist lies. That Jews are money-grubbing and that Africans are cannibals.

(By extention you are a racist liar incidentally).

What are you writing?!?! Where would you ever get the idea that there is a unified attitute towards Saudi Arabia, even within the top 10 of the Bush Admin? How could you even imagine thinking it is this simple, especially considering the New Yorker article last week on Perle's dealing with Saudis through his company Trireme (he is a private citizen, you know)? Perle is the driving anti-saudi force right now, and this is the farthest thing from a secret. Last week's article shows clearly why you can't even simplify Perle's relationship (which is the most extreme) into a monochrome explanation.

You mock me because you are a poor writer?!

So I ammend my statement. Now read it as :

Funny. You ignore colonialism and promote a narrow minded racist explanation.* This is right after an insult. You're a teenager, too, right? I sure hope so.

*Your explanation would be strongly contested by African scholars. I know. Not only does my work contain the premier Africana library in the US (thus, a few of my co-workers are doctoral students on african politics, one even very influential in the implemeting the South African elections, and I have interviewed them for various projects of my own), but both my roommate and his sister are scholars on africa. Don't underestimate the resources of the people you try to BS on the internet.

The UN and the BBC says different.

] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2661365.stm

Firstly, I did not mock you. Secondly, although English is not my first, nor second, nor third language, grammatically that sentence should not have confused you. You are either a careless reader, or your reading comprehension skills are very lacking, or you just like putting words in other peoples mouth and carry false accusations. Also, I'm curious, what in that sentence/paragraph made you think that I said anything other than the root cause of problems in Africa is the Islamization of that continent, causing conflicts, disinvestment and starvation?

How unscientific. Popper and Gould would have a field day with someone like you.

BTW: on what populated continent has there not been cannibalism?

When a girl practice oral sex and swallow, is it cannibalism ?

This is quite incorrect.

I'll take a very few unconnected examples and offer brief explanations here. (You might have to join the dots yourself.)

Drought has caused millions of acres of agricultural land in the Horn of Africa and north Central Africa to be lost in the last two decades. (There is famine in Ethiopia and in the Southern African states of Malawi, Zambia and Lesotho today due to the failure of the rains two years ago, too.) The storms in South Eastern Africa devastated Mozambique, Swaziland and Madagascar four years ago, making millions hungry and investment difficult, since the infrastructure in the south of Mozambique had to be rebuilt. Soil erosion in South Africa and Ethopia is a big problem.

In Angola a civil war between a terrorist guerilla organisation called UNITA and the government, a sordid business to do with elected socialist governments and extra-national funding for murderers, destroyed the industry and tremendously fertile farmland of a prosperous country. Sierra Leone kinda similar.

The way Africa was divided into states dividing ethnic groups, mineral resources and agricultural land by European colonisation is responsible for the recent ethnic unrest on the Atlantic coast of Nigeria (where majority tribes find themselves governed from the capital by coteries of other ethnic groups) and the terrible violence in Central Africa of the last decade.

Nigeria has the oil to make it one of the planet's richest nations; it's poor because billions of dollars are in bank accounts in Switzerland, Germany, London and New York because of terrible corruption and inept economic policy.

Religion doesn't come in to any of these (very typical, randomly selected, examples.)

Islam, however, has been in Africa almost as long as Christianity. The library of Timbuktu, a world heritage treasure, contains ancient manuscripts (been looked after by the same family since the 1500s, I think) and the Swaheli language is practically Arabic. The Muslims and Jews of Algeria and Morrocco got on just fine (with butchers that were passed both halal and kosher, mixed bands, indistinguishable sirnames) until colonialism messed it all up after the Second World War. The 'Islamisation' of Africa was over hundreds and hundreds of years ago.

In short: corruption, weather, legacy of colonialism, ancient ethnic rivalries, you're an ignorant racist who doesn't have a clue what he's talking about, etc.

The weather issue can be further evaluated as a direct consequence of Global Warming which as we all know results primarily from greedy Americans who consume copious amount of the Sludge of Great Value because they are lazy wasteful and greedy. Does their culture of self-righteous entitlement know no bounds?

the fact that I know a girl from Iraq has nothing to do with the point being made nor did i make reference to the rest of the world not counting. I was talking in responce to coments which were reflecting a belief that the US would do terrible things against the people of Iraq if we went to war, My point being that the common people of iraq are in favor of US intervention and war. My friend from iraq says that their family says that if no more than half of them die it will be worth it to get rid of Saddam. Pretty much every person from iraq who i have talked to is in favor of this war even though their own family members may die. the real tragedy would be to do nothing and to allow the situation to get worse.
your point to dispute me was unrelated to the topic, "Does anyone here not know someone from Iraq?
As many people around the world do. Do they not count?" is a weak attempt to avoid a topic with an irrealevent coment which aludes to having to relate to everyone in the world or something like that.
And yes, to answer your question the many people around the world do count which includes me, and my friend.


again you talk around the topic and somehow feel that you are making your point by making an unrelated insult. Somehow my not agreeing with you is evidence of my having an extremely simplistic understanding of business and the world in general. We were not even talking about business. Are you such a simpleton that you feal that everyone with a different opinnion than you is wrong. having to reply to a post to restate every point i have made is not a good use of my time. It was written clearly the first time. But it is my time to waste. I can only guess that you were responding to my quote

" terroririst are not these poor people that have been oppressed by the U.S.
they are the elite and the rich. most of them are highly educated. the oppressed are the poor starving people living in iraq under an evil rule."

which was in responce to a coment about how that terrorism was a result of the US oppressing a poor country givng them no choice than to lash out at us with violence.


Sigh... what I said was.. OIL OIL OIL how i am tired of hearing about how bush wants oil. I remember they said the same thing about the gulf war. well, in 1991 we won a war and got the oil. So if we were after oil wouldn't we have kept it instead of giving it back to the people after the fighting was over...

Yes of course the current plan does involve control over oil. Oil is the only resource in iraq and is the only chance the country has of becommjing a thriving society. This is not a hidden or obscure secret. in 1991 Saddam burned 700 oil wells. This is Iraq's only resource if this happens again it will be a disaster for iraq. And bush is actually trying to help the people of iraq. yes bush plans to rebuild the economy so that the country can have better schools, food, medicine, etc.
what! do you really think that when we gain control of the oil we are going to steal it from iraq?

Well i do not know everything but i do know that Saddam has proven to be worse than hitler and I know that we have been negoiating with iraq for more than 12 years and it has not done a thing. I also know that the people i know who have emidiate family members in iraq right now are in favor of the war and they thank god for bush and pray that their family comes out ok.

Right. Uh, run that one by me again?

Saddam is evil, for sure, but worse than Hitler it appears to me difficult. Could you elaborate ?

BTW this discussion is not of a tremendeous importance, to be a bad guy you don't really nead to be more worse than Hitler.

Does Bush intend to bomb every bad guy on earth? I want my ticket to the moon.

Oops! Hey, I just read this!

For your information, people regard this kind of stuff as a little, well, racist these days.

It's not really on to talk about Africans as 'these people' since, well, what with it being a whole continent and all, and the thousands of different languages and cultural traditions spoken and practised there, and all, it's a bit like saying 'all black people are the same, really, aren't they?'. And cannibalism is is not, and has never been, a defining feature of pan-African culture(s).

Instead, look at the the click-speaking hunter-gatherers of Southern Africa, or the linguistically unique Dogon people of southern Mali, or the so-called 'falasha' Jews of Ethiopia, the 'Beta Yisrael', for example, airlifted to Israel in the 70s and 80s and now manning toilets and cash tills across the country, unable to find work and scorned by orthodox Jewish leaders for celebrating different feast days and using unorthodox forms of prayer: Africa is a wonderfully diverse place.

While all this is quite far from the initial premice of this thread (which was quite silly to begin with), it seems there is much controversy around the fact that cannibalism is still practiced in the more distressed parts of Africa (there were also cases of it being practiced in some very distressed parts of Europe in the last century). The fact is it's presently more practiced in Africa than in Europe.
So while we can discuss the many horrors associated with colonialism (which were no less significant than in Eastern and South-Eastern Asia, than in Africa), most contemporary problems of Africa stem from more recent, mostly economic and political factors, which turned the promissing growth and development trends witnessed between 1950 and 1975/80, into the crisis which goes on there from then on, which is also linked to the 1970s oil crunches and the consequent global economic problems they incurred.
But I guess than would be for another thread.


No such thing as a Pan-African culture, perhaps it might look all the same to some due to certain physical features common to most Africans. You have more commonalities between European cultures than betweem African ones.
There might be a Pan-African ideology, or Panafricanism, or Afrocentrism, or whatever they call it these days, which isn't fundamentally different from Pangermanism or Panislamism.


You're projecting familiar stereotypes from Anglo-Saxon countries unto a situation you're not familiar with, and of which you don't have even a superficial understanding.
In Israel you'll find recent arrivals (Olim as they're called there) employed in menial jobs, which means Jews from Ethiopia but no less than those from the former USSR. And while they have some integration problems it's mostly due to the unfamiliarity with a modern complex society for people mostly from a rural third-world background, which is to be expected. Given Israeli society's record with integrating people from very different social background, I expect the Ethiopians to mostly overcome their specific probelms within less than 20 years, for two reasons:
The basically democratic, open, and relatively tolerant nature of Israeli society, and the underlying common national identity of the Jews from Ethiopia and those from other diasporas, which are already fusing anyway.

That is true for some of them.
Which no less of a problem for many tenth-generation Englishmen in England.

The Ultra-Religious scorn is essentially the same for the Ethiopian Jews as for the secular founders of modern Israel (you know, Zionists) and the average secular or less devout Jewish person, and most of them do as I do, and simply ignore them and their scorn.

whoa... Are you actually saying that the problems in african are not for a large part the effects of colonialism, post-colonialism and imperialism?
And, are you using the different situation in South-East Asia as an explanation?
Boy, another thread is needy indeedy...

I certainly agree that there's no such thing as a pan-African culture, which is why I explicitly mentioned the thousands of different languages and cultural practices spoken and practised in Africa in my post, and why I wrote 'pan-African culture(s)' with an 's' in parenthesis. It was an attempt to show that there are unequivocal commonalities in African cultures, as for example with the siNtu (Bantu) speaking peoples (a people with a common origin in the Benue Valley of present-day Cameroon, closely related language and myth) and in the group of siNtu speaking peoples known as the Nguni (of whom the Zulu and the Xhosa are perhaps the best known in the northern hemisphere), whose language, myth and ritual has been influenced by the KhoiSan - click-speaking - people of Southern Africa. Many other African peoples share myth and both cultural and ritual practices which are undoubtedly related. I suppose it's my fault if this wasn't clear.


I'm an expert in the oral history and art of southern African hunting and gathering peoples. It's my job. I've travelled all over Africa (I've spent eight of the last eighteen months in South Africa, Namibia and Lesotho) and this tends to innoculate you against easy stereotypes somewhat, so I must disagree with you here.


I think I agree, but 'afrocentrism' is an American term. In my experience, black Africans don't see black people from America as 'our brothers taken from us by slavery' but as Americans (although for some reason South African radio DJs use dodgy American accents all the time: there's probably a thesis in there somewhere.) The states of Africa are far less united in a common cause than those of Europe or North America.


I read an article on the unique difficulties experienced by the Beta Yisrael: racism, back-of-the-queue-negroe's-only-housing and the like. I've done a quick Google scour but can't find it. Anyway, check The Israel Association for Ethiopian Jews. I remember something about a scandal when people refused to take blood donated by Ethiopian Jews. But really, Immanuel, this was just me having a bash at Mika. These Africans who he seems to think eat each other: well, some of them are Jewish.

And finally, when you write that "cannibalism is more practised in Africa than it is in Europe" what exactly are you talking about? What books have you been reading? Cannibalism isn't practised in Africa at all, as far as I know, so I'd like to know where you get this from. I know that a couple of insane African dictators have been into the long pig but that hardly constitutes a cultural practice.

You do realize that an oil-based economy is extremely centralized and, by its very nature, gives wealth to only a few. Whether that few decide to give the money to the people is the real issue, and in a fractured, devided and scarred country like Iraq, it will be surprising if that happens. WHat makes it all the more unlikely is the Bush Admin's plan to secure the privilaged status of the mid-upper levels of government.

But go on continuing to live in fantasy land.




Slow down! I didn't mean that deep in fantasy land!

It appears you need to re-evaluate your world view.

Or maybe that was meant as some sort of joke?

JC:

Read my signature.

Well, why not do a google search and educate yourself? Just type: "africa cultural cannibalism", and away you go.

In this case, guerrilla/gorilla can be interchanged quite nicely.

] http://www.genocidewatch.org/Congoca...sJanuary16.htm
KINSHASA, Congo, Jan. 15 (AP) A six-day investigation in a remote region in northeast Congo has confirmed systematic cannibalism, rape, torture and killing by rebels in a campaign of atrocities against civilians, with children among the victims, United Nations officials said today.

I am saying that the process of de-colonisation which took place after 1945 was associated with growth and development till the mid-70s, whether in Asia or Africa, however, unlike several countries of East and South-East Asia, many African countries started since ca. 1975 sinking in the sad morass in which they still are.
The myth of the grand imperialist colonialist scheme by old men in Wall Street with cirgars and top hats to keep Africa down, is just that, a myth.


Since the effect of colonialism in these Asian countries was not fundamentally different than in the African countries, I don't see why it would have impacted Afrcan countries differetly than Asian countries, particularly when dealing with the different outcome of the mid-70s processes.
It don't use it to explain why things evolved differently in Africa, but to show colonialism isn't the explanation, or else the outcomes would have been the same in all regoins which suffered coloinialism

Nobody hear ever said they believed that was the case.

The question was:
Do you not believe a large part of the current problems in african are related to past colonialism?

Since there is no such thing as a Pan-African culture, there cannot be several several of them either, there are African cultures, which of course my share commonalities, in varying degrees, with other African cultures with which they interact, but the very term Pan-African is political not cultural.



That's all perfetly fine, however this piece by you posted upthread:

is not about hunters-gatherers in Lesotho or Namibia, but about Jews in Israel, about which you're obviously not an expert, as your stereotypes-laden above quoted piece can show.



Well thank you for that clarification, as I said before I might have confused all these terms since I haven't been following closely all these ideologies and fads.



Since that article-you've-read-once-but-Google-won't-find-it-for-you conforms to the prejudice you have about Israel as a racial-supremacist-quasi-fascist-apartheid-state, you take it at face value and as further confirming your inital prejudice and thus conforting you in keeping it.
The Jews returning from Ethiopia certainly face many difficulties adapting to the realities of Israel, as did every previous wave of Aliyah, still, their condition greatly improved from that of diaspora, and after a while they will overcome thweir present difficulties, so others did.

I'm talking about reports of cases of cannibalism reported in recent years, there are more of them in Africa than in Europe.


The fact is that that in distressed, conflict-ridden areas in Africa, there were and still are cases of people eating other people; I do not dwell upon the cultural aspects of these atrocities or lack thereof, and I couldn't care less. It has to be stopped.

And while I'm at it here's another matter which I think deserves clarification:

The Jews and Muslims of North Africa did not get on just fine (although it might have looked that way to the Muslims as long as they were running the show), and while it wasn't as bad as in Europe at the time, it certainly wasn't the good ole times you as you paint it. Jews were living under a special discriminatory status, and while pogroms weren't as common as in Russia, they did occur as late as the early 1900s.
French Colonialism certainly improved the condition of the North African Jews , as the special status was abolished and Jews quickly adapted to French culture, and in Algeria which wasn't a colony nor a protectorate but annexed to the France as a group of départements (L'Algérie c'est la France was the motto then), Jews were granted French citizernship (décret Crémieux 1870).
The emergence of nationalism, whether in 1850-1950 Eastern Europe or in North Africa and the Middle-East since 1945, meant that religious, linguistic, or national minorities there saw their condition deteriorate, and most Jews left, whether to Israel, Western Europe, or North America.




Since it might not be clear enough from my previous message, the answer is:
No, I am of the opinion it is related in a larger part to how these countries evolved after colonial empires were dismantled.
I hope it's clearer now.

OK
I am just curious
if you were president what would you do. most people who oppose war do not offer any soultion at all. I personally do not see doing nothing as an option as the situation would have just gotten worse on its own.

By the way this is a free country and neithor you or I do need to re-evaluate any views at all. I approve of setting up a democratic society for irac as though it is far from perfect it is superior to a dictatorship (unless of course you are the dictator )

It looks to me like we agree with each other perfectly then. There's no such thing as Pan-African culture. Like I said. Twice. In my posts. WE AGREE WITH EACH OTHER.


Oh, sorry, my bad. I misunderstood.

So. No racism in Israel then. (Although I have to admit if I were an Ethiopian Jew I'd rather not live next door to Mika - I don't think he'd like me, what with my penchant for human flesh. Or is he the exception that proves the rule?)

Your comments on this please, from the Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs:



I was told that the Algerian Muslim and Jewish communities lived together without prejudice by Lili Boniche, an 80-year-old Jewish musician and national institution from Algeria. So I can't provide you with a link, only the first-hand testimony of a Jewish man who was born and grew up in Algeria.

I might be able to provide you with his address if you'd like to PM me and you can discuss it with him yourself.

Finally, with regard to African cannibalism, you've provided some vague evidence that in times of famine people have eaten each other. Starving people will do that. It still doesn't make it a distinctly African cultural practice and your sort of arguing that it does is kinda... curious. Especially in the light of your suggestion that famines in Africa are more to do with a sort of in-built African inability for self-government.

Finally, Mika, you are a racist ****ing dickhead of the first order, quite brimming with hate.

(This may be an ad hominem attack, but it has the advantage of being unimpeachably accurate.)