Why Do You Oppose Promoting Liberty and Tolerance in Iraq?  

When did you stop beating your wife?

Merry Christmas to you, too!


Why does the world fail to understand the US' good intentions? What's wrong with the world?


Tolerance... invading a country that has never threatened you under false pretenses, leading to the deaths of thousands of its innocent civilians, and then we blame them for the chaos? Our leaders then call any US citizen who opposes the created status quo as un-Amerikan. Pure tolerance.

He did, but you couldn't comprehend it..

Ask a question that isn't rigged, and I won't respond with a similar rigged question.

Start a thread with content first.

I oppose tolerance.

They shouldn't tolerate they way they've been treated.

And we Americans (not everyone on the board, just us USians) shouldn't tolerate how our government has treated us either.

Too much tolerance going around these days.

Mojo, they won't answer your question because it is a loaded question. Those are only allowed by Democratic plants at CNN/YouTube sponsored debates.

Of course shetline said that anyone being asked a loaded question should "suck it up, and grow a pair" and then answer the question, but we like absurdity here. He also called loaded questions "tough" and noted that everyone should be willing to answer "tough" questions.

Finally ShawnJ and shetline will have to note that they still should address the content of your question. The fact that you asked it in a loaded manner merely indicates incompetence on your part and not bias. They should still be willing to state an answer to an unloaded version of your question about liberty and tolerance in Iraq.

Trumptman, quite, they won't answer it because it's a loaded question.

But I can help!

The following are examples of direct questions, mojo2.

• When will you accept that the American invasion of Iraq was really badly prepared, and that the explosion along the ethnic and religious faultlines that followed it is down to this bad preparation?
• When will you accept that the American forces' heavy-handed, culturally insensitive policing of Iraq has directly contributed to the climate of violence there?
• When will you accept that invading Iraq has made the world a demonstrably less-safe place and damaged the reputation of the United States for at least a generation?

And this is an example of a loaded question, mojo2.

• When Ron Paul has turned the American economy into that of Zambia's and you have to pay the police protection money, and the American social contract between government and citizen resembles that of Nigeria, and you can ignore traffic lights if you want to, because 'hey, it's a free country', and you escape to the Republic of California, will you hide in the trunk of a car or dig a tunnel under the fence?

Why Do You Oppose Promoting Liberty and Tolerance in Iraq?

Yes, it is a 'when did you stop beating your wife' but let's use it to show up the way things are anyway.

First, the question really means "Why do you oppose US - ie Bush's - strategies in Iraq".

It means this because the questioner believes that Bush's strategies ARE (by definition) 'Promoting Liberty and Tolerance'. Both because Bush says so and because he cannot psychologically comprehend a world where anything the US does would NOT have this aim in mind. Unless it is a Democrat President doing it.

Unfortunately, it ain't so.

Ironically, the person who really brought a greater degree of 'Liberty and Tolerance' to Iraq was Saddam Hussein. Ok, he was a totalitarian murdering thug - but then the US supported him and that seems to be the job requirement for them - but we are talking about 'Liberty and Tolerance (or are we?).

Women could walk the streets, hell, ANYONE could walk the streets.
Women held top jobs, doctors, professors.
They did not need to wear hijab.

There was a booming economy. People had jobs.
There was one of the finest infrastructures in the Middle East.
Crime was practically non-existent.
Sunni and Shi'i were not killing each other on the streets.
Christian Churches thrived beside Shi'i mosques which stood tolerant by Sunni mosques.

I hear that this is no longer the case. Some say that there is even a correlation between this state of affairs and US efforts in the region.

But the fact is that the Sunni/Shi'i antagonism has existed for 1500 years. In Iraq it has been pretty much contained for that time. The current US admin did not start this feud. They just do not understand it and have NEVER addressed.

They have not addressed it in the last 50 years.
They did not address it pre the Iraq Invasion.
They did not address it post the Iraq invasion.
They are not addressing it now.

So how can the question Why Do You Oppose Promoting Liberty and Tolerance in Iraq? even be asked when no attempt is being made to promote it?

So my answer would be:

I oppose it because it you are not doing it and you are lying that you are.

You can relabel the elephant you put in my room a hamster but I am not going to waste time arguing with you that hamsters do not have tusks and leave dog-sized turds on my sofa.

You put it there, we'll call it a hamster if you like - I don't give a toss. I'm more concerned with getting it (and people who put it there) out of my life.

I can just as easily shout: Get the fucking hamster out of my room as lose that fucking elephant.

All I care is that you stop doing your shit whether you call it 'torture' or 'a present from God'

It revolves - like a torture wheel - just the same.

I believe your rebuttal is what we call a "non sequitur".

Might not be, I'm not an expert on that kind of thing.

[deleted post that would probably get me banned]

If you can get past your selective memory, you will recall that part of what I said was about calling someone on a loaded question if you think it's loaded -- as opposed to putting on a sorry show of stumbling through your response.

And since I'm not running for office, trying to get anyone vote, and expecting to be installed in a position of great responsibility based on my responses, I feel perfectly comfortable doing nothing more than indirectly pointing out the absurdity of the question and leaving the rest as an exercise for the reader.

I hear bertinadi is beautiful this time of year.

Merry CHRISTmas, all, and God Bless the whole Earth. Everyone. We need it.

Wow... awesome idea. I may have to put that in my armory for later... I also oppose tolerance- for statism, Hillary-style European socialism, victim disarmament, limitless taxation, and endless wars against people both foreign and domestic.

Liberty will only come when we leave Iraq; Lock, Stock and Barrel.

Tolerance in Iraq.............


Remove the American presence (occupation) and that should remove the fear.

That is true, at least once the resulting genocide has finished up.

I used quotation marks because I directly quoted you.

However let me take it a step further with the quote feature.



We will note in not answering it that you assign to yourself the same traits you assign to any conservative who won't answer a loaded question; that you are a sorry pathetic person of bumbling incompetence when it comes to handling "tough" questions due to the inherent stupidity of the many positions you are trying to support. You won't answer it because your real answer is itself stupid.

The alternative is you could just admit that loaded questions are a logical fallacy and shouldn't be used to gather information. Of course this would require you to give up the position that Democrats commit logical fallacies just to show how stupid and incompetent Republicans happen to be which is already a pretty ridiculous assertion to make.

That should stop when we leave. Our presence and misguidedness there has caused this, not the Iraqi people. In fact it started in the first days after we entered Baghdad and dismantled Saddam's Baath Party, removing all Baath Party members from positions of authority. The CIA station chief in Baghdad warned the administration that the action will drive up to 50,000 people underground. They ignored that and many other signals that without security in place, the whole country would implode. It did. The acts of violence has abated due to some elements of the Surge, but mainly because of Al Sadr's militia standing down from aggressions toward the US and toward other religious factions.

Though the government is corrupt, and the religious/domestic situation is still tenuous, I believe that if we leave (includes military bases) as soon as the Iraqi army and security forces are ready, the better for Iraq to rebuild themselves.

The longer we stay there, the longer the resentment and violence (which begets fear) that comes with it.

No. I provided a brief, flip answer, and called the questioner on the nature of the question via sarcasm. I did not bumble and stumble as the Republican candidates did.

You're trying to equate not fully answering with answering badly.

In fact, you seem to spend a lot of effort seeking out far-fetched, stretched-to-the-limit equivalences. It's getting to be pathological.

So you think that the Sunnis and Shias are murdering each other because we are there? I really disagree with that, they are murdering each other because of a power struggle that was enabled by the invasion, but not because we are there now. I just don't see any logic in what you are saying: no Iraqi is going "I'm pissed off at the Americans being here, I think I will kill my neighbor to get back at them".

The Sunni/Shia conflict was locked out with Saddam in power - all power and wealth was in minority Sunni hands, and the Shia were unable to rise up. The invasion of Iraq upset the apple cart enough to unfreeze the Sunni/Shia conflict, and the killing won't stop until they reach a steady state again (this time with the Shia in charge). In the end, neighborhoods will be segregated, with the Sunnis getting the shitty end of the stick.

IMHO, the US troops are moderating and slowing down the genocide, it would be a lot worse without us there. If Iraq were a nuclear reactor, the US troops would be the control rods that keep the reaction at a slow manageable rate.

+1

The average Iraqi has no part in the violence. They, unfortunately are the victims. They are the frightened ones and they are the helpless.

The sectarian groups are made up of young men who have no care to: Iraqi people, Iraqi government or the American occupation. Only blind hatred towards other religious sects. They are the ones that are killing their neighbors and American soldiers.

Don't group the average citizen with them.

And...


WE enabled that BECAUSE of the lack of foresight by this administration and the military from the very beginning.

Really?

You didn't answer. Your reply was one long justification as to why you wouldn't answer.


^^^^^^^^^^^^
Aka long justification...


So where is the answer? We have a really long explanation as to why you won't answer, but not an answer.

We didn't enable that. As seg noted while explaining his pre-war wet dream Iraq that didn't exist, the fighting has been going on for 1,500 years. All Saddam did was control everything so the level of violence lower for longer periods but more brutish when it did flair up since he would deal with it, shall we say so much more "efficiently."

Perhaps the U.S. should take a page from his book to keep you happy. Instead of letting some car bombs kill a few thousand of these folks per year, we should just let the dominant group put down any uprising by letting them gas ten thousand or so of them at a time and bury them in a big hole in the desert. During the down times they can just torture them to keep up the fear factor.

The problem according to Seg and yourself is that the U.S. is not authoritarian enough to basically impose death camps and torture chambers.

I want the Democratic candidates to endorse your position. Please put forward any candidate you feel will endorse the position you have, that Saddam should still be in power and that our problem is that we do not do business the way he did.

The ultimately ill disguised leading question!

"Promoting Liberty and Tolerance" was never part of the plan for Iraq. It was, however, a big part of the propaganda machine designed to make the American people feel warm and fuzzy with our wonderful "humanitarian" spirit.

If you still believe that promoting liberty etc. was a genuine reason for the invasion and occupation, then you must have been living on (unnamed planet X outside of solar system) for the last 4.5 years.

The administration should have known (fuck, Bush's father knew) that after 1,500 years of hatred towards one another AND the dictatorship rule imposed by Saddam that this dissension and violence would have reemerged again. They ignored it, they did nothing at all, tossed out 50,000 pissed off Baath Party members in the process and therefore a clusterfuck ensued.


I endorse withdraw of all American troops and military bases from Iraq. Hey wait a minute that's not dem-libro-lefto-me talking, that's Ron Paul.

What's the deal with the capitalization of christ, I mean, do people honestly believe that the word needs that much more help in reminding people what it is about?

Off topic, sorry.

Actually... in my case it is a point toward the capital-ization of Christmas. Meaning Capital, the -ism, as in "Das." Maybe the "capitalismization" of Xmas, something deeper and more insidious than mere commercialism.

I have always had a rather critical opinion of Christians at Christmas. I just want to grab one of these mega-churchers and, in the Woodstock Tradition, scream "IT COULD ALWAYS BE LIKE THIS" when they actually show an abundance of caring for strangers.

So to answer your picking... YES, the world, and especially Christians, need a hell of a lot more "reminding" of what the holiday is about.

And as usual, there are the requisite people who have an overt hostility to religious people. No one expects that anyone, on either side of the culture war, will back down. That battle was joined decades ago. If it is OK for the PC police to dictate our language, then I consider Merry CHRISTmas at least passive civil disobedience.

I am pretty much with shetline, Artman and sammi jo with what they say in their above posts.

I fail to see why the failed policies of this admin. are defended or supported. Americans have no business being in Iraq. America is being taken for a neocon ride and before long we will bankrupt ourselves thanks to our fearless "leaders".

America needs to return to the basics and not use the military and CIA for all these pet projects where we play "world" and dictate the way things are going to be. I would much rather live in a country that has leaders which restrain themselves from these power trips which cost our society and those at large their lives and treasure.

May one day America have a truly humble foreign policy for a change.

Fellowship

Crocodile tears headlines like this (typically manipulative CNN) also put over a unrealistic impression: For every "Youssif" portrayed here, there are 10s of thousands of other maimed-for-life Iraqi kids, whose only "crime" was to pick up a cluster bomblet (which looks similar to some aerially distributed aid packages, printed in English of course....). Does the mainstream media give a damn about those kids? Like fvck they do. They are just putting a "human face" on the politics and reality of the occupation, and insodoing, are appeasing big budget international terrorism and thuggery.

Again.

But I haven't said anything in my above posts... ask trumptman.

I'm sure even he can read between the lines perfectly well what I meant, but he's got to establish that I'm hypocritically just the same as the Republican debaters I've criticized, no matter how great the stretch.

Oh, and Merry Christmas, by the way. Even this atheist doesn't mind saying Merry Christmas.

There is no need for you to explain yourself further in any of your posts in this thread. You have been very clear.

Fellows

ohh and shetline this is for you buddy!

http://spacefellowship.com/News/?p=4075

Watch this video: http://podcast.miamisci.org/podcastmedia/SG0751.m4v

Mars is only 55 million miles away from Earth tonight!!

I am sure you are in the know!