Nelson Mandela Blasts Bush on Iraq, Warns of 'Holocaust'

Nelson Mandela, who was one of my heros for his struggle against Apartheid, obviously has lost his mind.

There are so many inaccuracies and lame moral relativist arguments I won't even bother addressing them all. But for him to claim that the United States killed "innocent" people who were fueling the war machine in Imperial Japan is the last straw.

Mandela would have been killed long ago had the Axis won that war. Under today's Saddam, he and his family would be dead.

I suppose World War II (and the threat of our own destruction) was still not a worthy endeavor to fight for. And according to Nelson, nothing is worth fighting for.

What an utter moron.

That seems like a strange jump in logic to make. Mandela is hardly a pacifist but he sees the dangers of US agression both in terms of its direct effect on the Iraqi people as well as the destabalizing effect it will have on the Middle East and Africa...

I salute Mr Mandela for his courage and honesty to speak the truth. He is one of the most respected figures in the world, who would belive Mr Bush or Mr Mandela? I think the choice is simple.

Weapons of mass destruction are also in several other countries including Isreal in that region.There are several UN resolutions outstanding even after 50 yrs like Indian occupation of Kashmir, Israel, etc why not enforce those before we try to kill more innocent people in Iraq.

Over a miilion people including 600,000 children have died in Iraq due to unavailibility of medicnes being banned due to the embargo. Should'nt the life of an Iraqi child or person carry same value as that of any one else including Americans?

If Jesus came back and declared he was against the war, conservatives would demand that he be crucified.

Do the citizens of a rogue nation bent on a war of
aggression deserve to be killed indiscriminately for
the crime of not overthrowing their evil leader(s)?

"Do the citizens of a rogue nation bent on a war of
aggression deserve to be killed indiscriminately for
the crime of not overthrowing their evil leader(s)?"

I'd say yes, but its probably illegal to advocate violence against the United States

Mandela has voiced what millions around the world think of Bush.
Fortunately not everyone assumes what the American President says is Gospel.

Nelson Mandela is a brillant person who obviously knows the truth behind this pointless aggression towards Iraq. First Afghanistan, a fight for land and regional control, next comes Iraq, a fight for 64% of the worlds oil supply, who's next. This is a plot by the US to gain global control, they put the excuse to fighting terrorism. THEY (the USA) created those so-called terrorists by pumping them with money all those years back, and THEY plotted the S-11 attacks in order for this aggression to occur. YOU DON'T BELIEVE IT? Start getting used to believing it, the truth will come out very soon. It is so sad to see ignorant people and stubborn governments supporting the US. I pity them.

The sad truth is that Mandela's true words will probably be silenced by the american propaganda machine, and Washington will continue to string puppet government leaders to their silly warmachine.

But no power is everlasting because power creates it's own opposition. If this opposition will be on a global scale, then perhaps this world war will result in a true democratic world, with no leaders but the democratic laws of a united nations.

What is truly moronic is that many Americans find it better to ignore the facts and blindly support the lunatic who now occupies the Oval office.

Moronic are the attempts to convince the world that Tony Blair is anything but a lap dog for the U.S.

Only a moron would believe that an unwarranted attack on Iraq would NOT result in an increase of terorism here at home. You feel unsafe now?...just you wait!

Can someone point out where can I find the full text of Mandela's speech?

sorry to repeat that message so many times......it was a mistake.....

"Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Ceasar."
- Julius Ceasar

"Shit on those people. Everybody you see these days might have the power to get you locked up....Who knows why? [...] Fuck them."
- Hunter S. Thompson

In spite of yourself, ftual, you make a good point.

It's asinine to be against this impending war--and call it a holocaust--but state your willingness to support if it gets a seal of approval from the UN. Too many stupid ass liberals have taken precisely that position.

That said, it's funny to hear these rightists act so scandalized that Mandela would condemn Bush's war moves.

So long as Mandela was administering neo-liberal austerity on the black working class in South Africa our erstwhile rightists were happy with him. He was one of those "good blacks". When Mandela broke strikes and pushed through legislation beneficial to capital we never heard rightists complain that he's senile. However, the moment he expresses an iota of independence from the "Wasington Consensus" (which, thankfully, is unraveling as we speak) he's suddenly a leper to be repudiated.

You rightists are such lame-asses.

I support the President. We learned the lessons of appeasement decades ago while dealing with Adolf Hitler. Radical Muslims care nothing for your democracy. What they want is for all the world to bow to Mecca five times a day. Rogue states that deal with terrorists are the true enemies of American democracy. Do you want our foreign policy dictated to by terrorists able to nuke American cities? We will be ruled by fear and that's exactly what these people want. It is terrorism linked with weapons of mass destruction that threatens the civilized world. Personally I would rather support someone who's name is on a ballot than someone who's holding a gun to my head.

Will you people idiot proof your Web site and make it plain when you say "Title" you mean the title of your comment and not "Mr.", "Ms." or "Mrs."????

Nothing can defeat the power of stupid.
A cosmic force that will damage any system.
Avoid, don't engage.

If Jesus came back (when is the correct preposition) radical Islam will be no more. Israel will have its rightful place with Jesus ruling and reigning from Jerusalem with a rod of iron. Rev 19:15 And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. He came once as a lamb to save your souls on the Cross of Calvary, but He's coming again in power and great glory and "shall slay that wicked one (the antichrist) with the brightness of his coming". 2Th2:8. So best be on your guard and be ready - "for in such an hour as you think not the Son of man cometh". Matt24:44, "And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." (Act 2:21 KJV)

Why are all the rabid christians so eager
to see the blood that will run up to the knees
of a horse in the 'great' tribulation?
God is a bastard moron I wouldn't ever worship.
I've read the bible and it seems to be written
in blood.

There are so many good comments and some not as good.

First, Mandela was mistaken when he stated Iraq produces 64% of the oil.

Second, the reason Iraqi children do not have medicines or food for that matter is because they have a ruler who chooses to fund his army rather than his people. Saddam is the one who controls that country and HE chooses NOT the US HE chooses to allow his people to starve and live in poverty.

Third, when exactly did the UN become "God" and their approval makes a war morally right? Regardless of who decides, it will be a tragedy for all.

Fourth, you would have to be a fool to think S.H. isn't out to get us and others as well. Oh we don't have the support of the UN? We dont' need it . We support half of the countries in the UN. Did your parents ask your permission for decisions? I think not.

But I do caution and heed Ceasar's remarks. We can not give up to many of our rights for the sake of "safety", once we give them up it would take another civil war to get them back.

Lastly, say thanks that you can say these things on a website. We have that freedom!

Hi

Firstly the UN supervised the rationing of food and medicine in Iraq in accordance with its income FYI and there is no problem there. It is not a problem of S.H. using the countries "capital" on military gain; it is rather that there just isn't enough to go around. Might I that the actual reasons being those oh so “necessary” sanctions that are upon it.
Secondly America is setting double standard; they can have weapons of mass destruction and its friendly allies can as well, but all the other nations cannot practice their fundamental "democratic" right to protect themselves and feel safe.
Thirdly America cannot expect, if they were thinking reasonably, a regime change in Iraq what if tomorrow they don’t like the way South Africa is working and Mandela becomes labeled a fanatic. No power, no matter how strong, can dictate how another country should be run. Who died and made America God to dictate what form of government is best.
Lastly what kind of inanity makes America think that it will be safe after they not only start a war with Iraq but also North Korea. Doesn’t this seem familiar, like when Hitler started a war at two fronts, and if you studied your history boys and girls, Hitler lost the war and made a lot of enemies doing so. Learn from the past, war can never bring lasting peace.

The US helped Hussein's B'aath Party into power in a coup d'etat in 1963.

The US helped financed Hussein's war in the 1980's, supplying his regime with arms, intelligence, and credits. Nary a word about human rights then. It wasn't until Iraq invaded the Kuwait Corp., providing the perfect pretext for a huge build-up in the Persian Gulf, that the US found religion. Suddenly, the US' former ally was the devil incarnate.

During Gulf War 1, the US killed dropped plutonium-tipped bombs on Iraq, deliberately targeted its water treatment facilities, and massacred thousands of RETREATING Iraqi conscripts while giving carte blanche to Hussein to quell rebellions in the north and south of the country. Once the war was "over", the US imposed brutal sanctions on it's former allies' regime, in the process strengthening Hussein's hold on power while causing hundreds of thousand of Iraqi's to die.

If you would like to incorporate these facts into your pitch for war, Chris, it would be appreciated (you hapless clown).

Yo Chris

You said something about how U.S.A is supporting half the countries in the UN. What a joke, if you did you research you would know that America has the luxury of borrowing heavily from the World Bank and actually has the largest dept there. So yeah, they might be supporting those countries, but guess with whose money?

LATER

Does anyone know where I can get the full speech of Nelson Mandela? It seems I can only get bits and pieces everywhere, but not the whole speech.

Please Help

Mendela,before you put down the yanks take a good look at your own country.South Africa the rape capital of the world.I would never visit.Fuck you lefty bedwetters,go get your ass fucked in S.A.

The truth is that the sanctions imposed by the United Nations aka The United States are hurting the American economy more than Iraq's. In order to get cheap oil Mr.Bush has concocted numerous lies about Iraq having weapons of mass distruction.

North Korea has admitted that they have weapons of mass distruction yet Mr. Bush has refused to attack North Korea.

It would seem by the venomous tone in your writing that you are exactly the type of killing machine the US needs in it's Army. I think you should go sign up in one of the services. Maybe there is still hope you can get to Iraq before all the killing starts.

u do not impose a democracy to people by using weapon of mass destruction ( president Bush has the intention to use the atomic bomb in Iraq). U r killing them. Demorcacy in Iraq should come from its own people, an inside revolution. If Bush really cares about the people of Iraq, then he should help them built a true democracy. Bush did not even finish the job in Afghanistan ( the situation over there is getting worse, but guess what, the media ain't talking about it!!!) that he wants to mess up another country. We do ot even know how many of thse terrorists are in the US, and can plot a terrorist attack home. All this is bs, people wake up!! The world needs WISE leaders.

I've searched for ages and can't find anywhere the text of the speech everyone is discussing. It would be nice to hear the words of Mandela in context, rather than second hand, filtered through agendas and editors.

Sounds like he came out and said what most of the world is feeling. Good on him. All these rags about him losing his mind/marbles etc are just silly. He's stating his point of view which is seems to be that of believing in international law rather than arbitrary state attacks on other sovereign nations. This is why he condemns Iraq too. But the old adage of '2 wrongs don't make a right' is obviously underlying this.

If Mandela was 'vitriolic' in his speech, it might be worth considering that vitriol is not the least bit sparing coming from the US establishment at the moment. Such phrases as 'Axis of Evil' are bandied about like currency. If you can't take it back at ya, stop chucking it.

Go Nelson, looks like you're trying to break the cycle of silence which is surrounding the world's apathetic horror of the rogue superpower. If more dudes like you have a crack at our 'glorious leader' we may start to wonder just how glorious his genocidal campaign is.

Admittedly international law is almost impossible to enforce over superpowers like the USA (the only state ever found guilty of international terrorism in the ICJ). That doesn't mean it is a crazy idea. It represents a belief that the rule of force is not the only justice in the world.

Mandela is in a perfect position to see this - he was imprisoned for many years by an unjust but forceful regime. Eventually it was the pressure of the international community that saw to his freedom.

If you don't believe in international law being a worthy thing to uphold, then where does your moral highground for all of Hussein's outrages come from? So what if he used weapons that were banned by the Geneva Convention? So what if he invaded Kuwait? So what if he evades UN instructions?

The deep hypocrisy of using the UN resolutions as justification for a war that is not sanctioned by the UN is understood by most of the world.

Nelson is sane. Listen to him, not your oil hungry, WMD making, autocratic warmongers, who spin hypocrisy like it's going out of fashion.

Don't knoe if this is the whole thing, but here's some of it:

http://allafrica.com/stories/200301310728.html

One thing he says is that the US never undermined the UN "when secretary-generals were white", which is quite untrue. The US has a long history of undermining the UN.

When America attacks Iraq they will be met by the bravest and strongest army in the world. America should surrender now and save their bombs because they will need them for NATO.

When America attacks Iraq they will be met by the bravest and strongest army in the world. America should surrender now and save their bombs because they will need them for NATO.

I think the United States is consumed by a culture of fear. Scared of communists, scared of black people, scared of muslim radicals...scared of itself. When will the US learn it can not control and subjugate everyone it is afraid of with violence and force?! It is bullish and uncivilised. On the American dollar it says, "In God we trust. It would be more truthful to say, "In the military we trust".

Right on...I agree with you!

johnwaynelives snivels:
>>>The truth is that the sanctions imposed by the United Nations aka The United States are hurting the American economy more than Iraq's. In order to get cheap oil Mr.Bush has concocted numerous lies about Iraq having weapons of mass distruction. <<<

The US has not been a consumer of Iraqi oil for at least 12 years now...And the US economy of 1992-1999 was not hurting in the least by the absence of Iraqi oil.

If you want to see who is playing politics with oil...look to iraqs current customers...yes..Germany...France...Russia...sound familiar ??

They don't want any interruptions to their sources of "cheap oil" and they are willing to prostitute themselves to keep it flowing....

So, open a book once in a while...and stop smokin so much herb...

So, open a book once in a while...and stop smokin so much herb... SAUDI ARABIA IMPORTS OIL TO THIS DREADED PLACE...

Actually, saudi arabia EXPORTS (not imports) oil to the US...but what does that have to do with the imbecile johnwaynelives comment that the sanctions imposed on Iraqi oil are hurting our economy ??

Should I type s-l-o-w-e-r so that you can understand the question ??

some delusional person wrote:

"When America attacks Iraq they will be met by the bravest and strongest army in the world. America should surrender now and save their bombs because they will need them for NATO. "


What ?? Did Iraq go out and hire the Turkish army ??

Even Sadaam knows the weaknesses in his own forces...that is why he has confiscated any white bed linens that could be made into a flag of surrender...

He has a good group of soldiers in the Republican Guard, but they will be too few...too late...too dead..

A real waste of fine infantry...

How can you defend Iraq? Not one member of the UN has said that Iraq is in compliance with the resolution that they passed. Sadaam has killed many thousands of his own people, and invaded the countries around him. There is no doubt that he is hiding weapons of mass destruction and if we go to war ,what will you say when he uses them on us? As for Mandela's comments about us killing inocent people, I did not hear him mention the attrocities committed by Sadaam. The Japanese started the war with us. Where is his compasion for the innocent people they killed? War sucks, but I have no problem defending ourselves.

Few people will look at surrounding circumstances when it comes to a war for oil...
Currently America consumes just over one quarter of the worlds total energy resources, with around 40% of this coming from petroleum. So significant is her demand for oil that the US market makes up a quarter of the world’s total demand. In recent years it has imported over half of what it consumes and according to the Cheney report on national energy policy , by 2020 oil imports will account for two-thirds of US consumption. Now this Cheney Report is coupled with written letters to President Clinton and the Speaker of the House ( during the Clinton Administration ) that called for Saddam to be removed from power to secure "american vital interests in the region". This was signed by 8 of Bush's cabinet members.
Saudi Arabia has come under fire from the US after Sept. 11th. Internally too there is a crisis brewing in Saudi Arabia. The royal family is potentially facing a bitter a fratricidal war of its own. With Fahd now reduced to a vegetative state, Crown Prince Abdullah, has swiftly assumed his role as de facto ruler. Yet, his formal ascension to power may not be so smooth. He faces deep hostility from his six Sudairi half brothers (Fahd’s full brothers), who feel they may have a great claim to the throne than him. Consequently, Washington must reduce her dependency on the kingdom while bearing in mind her mounting energy demands. Plainly oil supplies from Saudi Arabia will be uncertain in the next few decades. The 2nd largest supplier of oil is Iraq. Iraq is of vital importance to control terrorist states as it borders 6 countries and is situated in the middle of everything. It ( in other words ) is a great jumping off point in the middle east.
Bush has been campaigning for Saddam to be removed for years and terrorism is the newest excuse.

Darn tootin'. And before they obtain the capability to do so, we'll make sure they don't get the chance. Should have done the same thing with Hitler and the like in hindsight.

Better to buy an alarm system for your home before someone tries to break in rather than afterwards. Thieves are not people who can be appeased.

USA makes the ignorant claim that “There is no doubt that he is hiding weapons of mass destruction... “ Today, the two best current experts on this issue, Blix the UN inspectors and the ElBaradei the IAEA expert both said that they had found no evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Blix went of to say although some chemical and biological materials had not been accounted for, this did not mean that they even existed.

Regarding the Powell aerial pics that Powell made a big deal about, Blix said they did not prove anything. He also said that they had not seen any evidence that Iraq was moving and hiding stuff from inspectors just prior to unannounced UN inspections.

Most all members of the security council supported the French position that the inspectors should be given all the time needed to complete their work. France proposed that the UN should continue inspections as long as progress is being made by the inspectors. To most, war too serious to go off uninformed and half cocked.

These humane rebuttal to the earlier Powell mongering speech, along with the bogus 12-year old plagiarized info from Blair that he praised has blown apart the Powell bubble. Now the racist, oil hungry Bush junta has no credible spokesperson left.

So now when Bush will wrap himself around the flag and go to war on the people of Iraq to boost his poll rating among Americans who have beeen brainwashed bythe pro-war media, his war-profitering will become clear and he will go down in history as the most hated president ever,

Peace

Almost no one is saying Saddam Hussein is a great guy and lets defend him because he's such a top bloke! Mandela was not saying this either. But Iraq is not the same thing as Saddam Hussein. It is a large country filled with human beings who most of the world do not wish to see smashed into a bloody pulp, particularly when we are deeply suspicious that oil, racism and hegemony are the main reasons for it.

I cannot believe that people would actually protest any action by the U.S. Especially after 9-11. Bush is being proactive in his approach to Iraq. Do we need another disaster to bring this point home? It is proven that Saddam harbors terrorists and supports them. Do you think Saddam cried when the World Trade Center fell. I doubt it. I dont want poison gas in my home town before people wake up and realize that Iraq is a real threat and has been since the gulf war. As far as the argument that we want the oil, dont you think we would of taken it last time we were there?

just because the US didn't totally expropriate the oil doesn't prove that oil isn't a factor.

for a while now US oil multinationals have been okay with controlling downstream operations. The US seeks, through massive military might, to control the flow and make sure that oil is denominated in dollars and invested in US assets.

WHO do you think you are Nelson Mandella? A paper puppet, a "has been" politician seeking to get some international "face time"? Every time you open your mouth you seem to play the race card... certainly understandable in light of the fact you have NO OTHER CARDS. Skin color has not one thing to do with the need to deal with Iraq. Once this KOOK gets nuclear weapons whether it is next month or next year the cat is out of the bag, the entire region will be a powder keg of instability. US national interests will be threatened, THAT MEANS OIL; sorry for being politically incorrect but there IS a reality to be dealt with here. Are you so naive to think this man armed with nuclear weapons will GO AWAY? Would more lives be lost taking him out BEFORE he gets them or AFTER?

As to the United States being the worlds policeman.. One can only respond, of course WHO else would do it? South Africa? (Irrelevent and politically incompetent) France? The TWO divisions from Canada? I notice conspicuously absent from your question is another similar query, "Why does the United States think it has the right to provide economic support for developing nations to a greater degree than any government on the planet?" How about that Nelson?

Recall, that in the case of Harry Truman's decision to close WWII with a nuclear weapon, whether you agree or not, it is undeniable the use of nuclear weapons prevented the direct invasion of the Japanese mainland. While the loss of life in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were tragic and undeniably large, another equally undeniable fact is that the direct invasion of the Japanese mainland would have been infinitly more costly in terms of lives lost and property damage on BOTH sides.

Incidently, post war Japan is a poster child for the ability and success of the United States to nation build. The Japanese nation took to free market democracy like a duck to water and grew to be a huge economic power in the region once the yoke of an autocratic regime was lifted; especially by FORCE, this outcome would NOT have been possible with a "diplomatic" solution.

In any event Mr Mandella, you are welcome for the millions the US has generously provided your nation over the years and will likely continue despite any comments of yours.

>Once this KOOK gets nuclear weapons whether it is next month or next year the cat is out of the bag, the entire region will be a powder keg of instability.

Israel already has hundreds of nukes. If nukes were the problem, then Israel would be the target, not Iraq.

Well the ANC was a terrorist organization wasn't it?
so its logical that he would side with the terrorists in any situation.
I think that the people who are good for winning a struggle are not good peacetime leaders. just like winston churchill.

YES Israel is a freely elected democracy, NOT a dictatorship. The fact that israel hold nukes has probably saved thier existance more than once

--Israel proper is a class-divided capitalist democracy within which Arabs are second-class citizens. In the Israeli-occupied territories, millions of Arabs live under a full-blown apartheid state and have few rights to speak of.

--Before Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US had cracked Japan's code and new that it intended to surrender. The Soviets had announced that if Japan didn't surrender by mid-August of 1945 it would join the war against the Japanese. The US bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the first salvo of the Cold War.

--The US occupation of Japan was relatively humane, as occupations go. The US was intent on re-making Japan as a bulwark, politically and economically, against anti-capitalist movements. What's interesting is that in order to do this the US encouraged policies--large scale land reform, protected industries etc--that in most other parts of the world it condemned as socialistic and pulled the guns out to combat. The situation in South Korea, starting in the 1960s, is quite similar. In any event, to call Japan an example of "free market" capitalism is absurd.

--Iraq is utterly degraded, and poses no threat to the US. All the stories of connections between the US' former ally, Hussein, and Al-Quaeda are unsubstantiated bullshit. Hussein's most egregious human rights abuses occured when he was working closely with the US.

--as to South Africa, the US supported the apartheid regime when it was in power. Mandela has been a good little lackey for international capital--engratiating himself to all manner of exploitative scum in the process--but apparently he's now a leper in the minds of brainless rightists for daring to voice opposition to the coming mass slaughter in Iraq.

the fact that Japan didn't surrender immediately after Hiroshima doesn't change the fact that the US knew it had Japan cornered and preparing to surrender. Nor does it change the fact that the entrance of the Soviets into the war and a desire to fire-off some of its new arsenal--and in so doing, sending a global message--were the real impetus for nuking Japan.

Aaron is talking about comments that were hidden because they were posted by "mad mad mad world," who is banned.

Mandela was an impressive figure to me along time ago. He was a man that I admired because of his long hard involvement fighting against Aparthied. Unfortunately, he shows now that he is more a radical than he accuses President Bush of being and he certainly is making no secret that he wants to bring down the United States and George W. I strongly suspect Mandela of having far reaching terrorist ties. Therfor, I withdraw my respect and support for the man.

I think it's pretty amazing so many people want to try to dig up some dirt on Mandela just for saying he thought the imminent terrorist attack on Iraq was deplorable, criminal and likely to increase world instability and terrorism. You are really clutching at straws there.

I understand that Israel is the closest thing to a democracy in the middle east right??
Its elections are also real elections.

--I understood that Japan was going to fight house to hose like most defeated states seem to do when faced with total surrender or this sort of war. Since germany fought till the end the burden of proof is with you.(real proof not some wako website)

-- You can call Japan "the invisible hand" form of government if you like but it is totally different from socialism. It is more like facism. Singapore is a more obvious example.

--Iraq
what the us may have caused in the past is irellevant to what they should do in the future. that is basic accounting.

--as to South Africa,
they are decending into their own crime and aids crisis.. and probably sinking into irrelevance.

No market is free. Like a perfect vaccum it is a theory.

A fair arguemant can be made based on civilian deaths on okinawa and in germany that a nuclear attack on japan saved lives. It definately spared us an invasion...

i just want it to reply for this post >>by hmm Thursday January 30, 2003 at 05:54 PM>>
If you trying to say that WE AFRICAN are sceard of your mental slave drivers...... Then they might be danger for us as you said.. But the time will tell,, you come to AFRICA and there is LIONS are waitting for your MENTAL SALVE DREIVERS..

It is pointless to argue with American's, after all, they are the dumbest people in the western hemosphere. I mean comon, 1/3rd of all college students can't even name the two countries that border the US, and the southern US believes that it's ok to marry your cousin. If you can run a ball, you get your education paid for, but if your just plain smart, you get jack shit, oh hell, you can murder some one and only serve ten years in prison, unless you have money like OJ Simpson where even DNA evidence can't convict your ass. They don't know shit about anything outside theire border. The one thing they are good at is waving theire flags, patriotism is like alcohol, the more you have it the blinder you become to your suroundings...OK you rednecks, lets hear the Fuck You and Fuck the World, it's the only word you learnd in school before you droped out, and got your GED

Careful what you say those 1/3 are the people who support you.
Those of us who can name and place almost every country in the world (and draw a pretty good map from memory) think that patriotism is pretty good.
Remember - It is the 2/3 that do know where countries are that oppose you.

X by the way,
If you dont know anyone who can name half the foreign countries then I think you have been hanging around with too many Peace activists!
Those of us who have no peace activist friends seem to be at an advantage here.

Then you're on the wrong site.

The net is full of virtual rocks. Go crawl under one, and creep around with your own kind.

Hey why dont you go say that at the peace marches tell all the activists that if they dont agree with you on all issues they should go home..
Please come on do it for me...

Maybe you have your own special golf club where you exclude jews and you have buses where non comunists have to sit at the back.

It just happens that I dont know people who go to peace marches - alot of them dont support the war and some do support it but they dont march. (which could be for a large number of reasons)

>Hey why dont you go say that at the peace marches tell all the activists that if they dont agree with you on all issues they should go home..


We're not talking ablou "all issues." We talking about one issue, peace. Either you're for it or against it. There's no middle ground.

We're for peace. If you're against it, you're against us. If you're us, get off our site. No warmongers here.

I agree that X is pushing it by writing off the intelligence of americans. I think generally they are no more or less stupid than anywhere else in the world. It seems that a very large proportion of them are seeing through the administration propaganda and standing up to it.

This is admirable and to be encouraged. It is in the professed spirit of the US constitution. It also is likely to be the ONLY force in the world capable of turning BushCo from their disgusting path.

The rest of the world is undoubtedly angry that even though most of the worlds population vehemently opposes this insane path, they must wait to see what the voters in America will do as the final arbiter.

This does not mean that the acts of people outside the US are worthless. No doubt the worldwide opposition is a major stimulus to opponents of military action against Iraq within the US. World leaders who stand up and say what their populations are thinking are doing exactly what leaders in democracies are meant to do.

I was immensely proud to see Schroeder take such a strong line in this - particularly given the history of Germany. Only 60 years ago they, as a people, were led down the garden path of thinking it was OK to attack defenseless countries who pose you no threats. They have bitter experience of the world (and particularly the americans) telling them otherwise. Their pacifism arises from true experience of the horrors of war. Horror at what was done to them, and horror at what they did themselves. It made me proud because it indicated that humanity can learn from its mistakes sometimes.

I was similarly proud to hear Mandela say his piece. It was undiplomatic, didn't mince any words, just went to the guts of the world feeling at the moment. He can afford to be undiplomatic, because he doesn't represent South Africa anymore, so there is no fear of economic reprisals against his country. He is an icon of the struggle for freedom and justice against intolerable oppression. The eventual end of Apartheid was also a shining example of the possibilities of non-violent international pressure.

I felt even more pride when I saw millions of people around the world and inside the US took part in history's biggest demonstration to oppose this war. It made me realize that despite all the propaganda humans still have enough compassion to see through all the fancy words to the dismembered corpes of children in Iraq. I (who am not an american) do not believe for an instant that the american people are too stupid to understand this debate. My experience of americans is that they are mainly very polite, charming, warm and compassionate. Sometimes arrogant, but then who isn't?. Their intelligence would seem to be similar to intelligence everywhere - some people are clever, some aren't, and most are in the middle.

What intelligence around the world seems to be saying is that the UN is the best shot we have at world peace.
What else is there?

Arbitrary use of force by whoever has all the guns? That has been the pattern for human history. But WW2 and nuclear weapons showed us that that game must end, or humanity will end. America just on it's own has a nuclear arsenal that could make our planet fit only for cockroaches. Even Israel has enough nukes to wipe out 90% of the worlds population.

How can we avoid them using it? What is the amazing proposal of the Bush administation as an alternative to the UN, given that they are saying it is irrelevant if it is allowed to operate democratically? Should we perhaps go back to 1905 and treat the whole world as a huge lolly scramble for the superpowers? Should we look at the failure of the League of Nations to prevent WW2 and blindly ignore that it was the actions of the belligerent superpowers against LON resolutions (and the allowing of this by the other superpowers) that led to the deaths of 50 million people?

Such precedents may seem far fetched to apply at this time. But the Ministry of Truth seems to be constantly struggling to find parallels between Hitler and Saddam Hussein, and correspondingly equating Eisenhower and Churchill to Bush and Blair. This rhetoric comes directly from our leaders who seem to see history as being at a similar point.

This is the truly Orwellian twist to the obvious fact that the most fitting analogy is really that of Iraq to Poland, Blair to Mussolini, Bush to Hitler, France to England and Germany to the USA! Iraq is the war wracked and defenceless little country accused of amassing an army to attack Germany. Bush is the 'elected' leader who seeks to exercise a lull in military muscle in his neighbors to drag his country out of a depression, Blair is the running dog who allies himself whimsically to the most powerful neighbor, against the will of his people. France is the superpower who wavers - they don't approve of all this bashing the little guys, but they don't want to anger the belligerent superpower either. Germany is the militarily backward but economically powerful bunch of pacifists, avidly opposed to getting involved.

Of course such analogies, mine and the chickenhawk's, are ludicrous. This is not 1939. The world has moved on. Only through forgetting history can we hope to repeat it. People remember that the last 'mighty conflagration' was probably humanity's lowest point. We behaved generally so badly that if there had been WMDs around then most of the world would be uninhabitable now. It is perhaps a sign of the times that people in positions of power maybe wish we were at such dramatic times and that they could become such dramatic characters in the history of the world. But they ignore the discrepancies between 1939 and 2003.

For starters, the anti war movement has never been so strong as it is today - I can't think of a single war in history which has evoked so much public opposition BEFORE it began.

Secondly, America (despite Bush) is still a democracy. It has the potential to overthrow it's own leadership non-violently. Similarly with Britain. Probably more so, since it is possible for the ruling party to overthrow the prime minister within days, whereas in America impeachment is a far far longer process (and it's never happened). So the potential for averting war is held in the hands of average joe, if only he will make his position clear to the remnants of democracy above him.

Third, we have had that lesson already. Hitler is dead, Mr Bush! We read about it at school.

Fourth, WMDs change everything. They have made military adventurism too costly. A brief list of countries which could nuke America back to the stone age are: China, India, Pakistan, Israel, France, GB, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia. Other countries have WLD (weapons of lesser destruction) such as nerve gas, biological agents, aircraft carriers, nuclear powered submarines, etc...Only fools would think that fighting is the means to prosperity when the most likely outcome is death. Saddam Hussein can see this too, hence his grudging disarmament. However, if death is certain anyway then he'll throw whatever he has got - that is the only promise of Mutual Assured Destruction. He most likely will throw it at Israel, since it would have little effect on military forces (and the chickenhawks wouldn't give a shit if it did). What consequences will arise from that it is hard for anyone to say - they could launch counterattacks on other Islamic states in retaliation, if their response to suicide bombing is anything to go by.
Do we really want to find out?

The Bush Administration, it seems, do wish to find out. This is why Mandela calls them idiots, and says they want to take the world into catastrophe. To me, this doesn't seem like an unreasonable thing to say.

Still wish I could find that speech though. It could go down as one of the great antiwar speeches in the hopeful future of peace and human prosperity.

Ben Wilson, you should run for office, I would vote for some one like you, you are one of the few in this country with brains

The problem is that we can see how the anti war movent does good in basically preventing democratic capitalist states from going to war against each other.
The only thing we worry about is that it seems to have no power at all to control non capitalist or non democratic states. It also doesnt seem willing to encourage the spread of capitalism or democracy (at least not in a practical way).
It seems that this plan is flawed not in its individual issue aplication but in the greater streategic outlook.

no middle ground,
Next time I see a march I might see if i can hand out some nice "sadam is a bad man" flyers..
If they object which they surely will they will have to say "yes your right and it is true but you just not allowed free speach if you want to say that because its not ANSWERs message"
also is "indimedia" a synonym for "no war at any cost"?
finally I am actually pretty marginal on whether there should be a war or not.. it is just that I am attracted to dicredit the stupidest arguments and inveriably they come from people from the far left.
Also I find it repulsive the idea of marching on behalf of anarchists and anti capitalists and other peopel who have plans for the world that just do not work.

Scottie,

You pose the question which people should be discussing. The question currently is "Should we go to war with Iraq?" when it should be "How can we encourage democracy in Iraq?"

The first question assumes two things:
1. That war is the only way to put pressure on another country.
2. That we have the right to force other countries to fit our models.

The anti war position seems to be painted in as agreeing with these basic assumptions, but being morally indignant about the horrors of war to the point of saying we should never do it.

While I agree that some anti-Iraq-war opinions may be of the extreme pacifist mould of "war is never justified" I don't agree that the majority think this. War is sometimes the only recourse - when you are attacked and diplomacy has failed utterly.

But most people see that both these conditions do not apply to Iraq. It has not attacked, nor does it appear to be likely to attack anyone, least of all the USA. Nor has diplomacy failed. Some disarmament has been acheived. Weapons inspections have reduced the military might of Iraq to a third rate power, from a very formidable opponent indeed. Iraq was much more dangerous to everyone in 1990. Now it is merely pathetic.

I would further argue that assumptions 1 and 2 above are also being challenged by a lot of the anti-war lobby.
Clearly war is one form of pressure, but other forms exist, and are much more effective for some purposes. Economic pressure can be exerted, in the form of UN sanctions or the individual sanctions of various countries withdrawing economic dealings. Or even better, economic aid given to fund projects which further our professed aims. Also, taking the point of view of the 'enemy' and seeing if there are some things WE are doing which are causing the problems. War is considered by the UN as the last recourse, and the other means are nowhere near exhausted.

Do we have the right to force other countries to fit our models? In this case, many pro-Iraq-War campers are trying to push that bringing democracy and capitalism to Iraq is our big dream. Where did we get the right to do this forceably? If democracy and capitalism are so great then surely the merits will be obvious to everyone and sustained debate will be all that is needed. Democracy has come peacefully to a number of formerly fascist states. Spain, for example. Singapore is moving towards it. Indonesia is moving that way.

I personally am very fond of democracy as a regime. I think it is the fairest system humanity has every used for government. However, the way of getting there need not be a foreign invasion. It takes a lot of time to build a successful democracy, and the usual motivators are prosperity and peace, not poverty and war, which have only ever played into the hands of the powerful. Yes democracy was installed in Germany and Japan post WW2, but 4 million Germans and millions of Japanese had to be killed to bring it about. It was only because they killed so many millions of their enemies that it was justified to impose such extreme measures on them.

Other than those two I know of no successful democratic projects imposed externally in history. Most democracies form themselves when they are ready. To attempt to speed up this process by bloodshed is usually doomed, not to mention the question of whether it was really worth the bloodshed.

Does anyone have any constructive ideas on how to encourage democracy, short of war? Lets hear them!

Nice to hear someone from the left debating without sliping into conspiricy theories and making some good points.

Now I am not totally disagreeing with you here but here are some of the points that come to mind as i read your piece.
2. That we have the right to force other countries to fit our models.

- hmm this one is the big one in question. I think that if one cultural model happens to be the mass murder of all the citizens that we not only have a right but a duty to infringe upon their freedom (which is really jsut the freedom of a certain leader and not of his people). Of course this must be done in such a way as to be practical you cant fight everyone at the same time. Generally the leader of a despotic country does not represent the people and it is impossible to get a fair opinion from the people as they cant speak and are not informed.

One thing we fear of the lefts argument is that it is in danger of getting out of control and being used in ALL situations. then we have a pre WW2 situation. sure that is not true now .. but if the US 's will is broken on this issue it may be soon.

It is debatable whether war causes more damage than sanctions.. in total life lost (if such a thing can be measured) sactions may cause more loss. It is also possible that if the US's will is broken that even sactions may not be achievable. the UN is unlikely to ever take action even on sanctions without prodding from US. Also sanctions leave alot of angry enemies sitting around for a long time stewing over it.

Taking the point of view of the 'enemy' can create a problem where the enemy is Encouraged to cause problems so that we will look at them and "solve them" in their favour.

-- civil war - one of the other ways to form democracy is often very bloody also.. and often fails. there are often no good options.

It is good to hear someone from the right (or is the centre in the US? I'm not sure, what do you think Scottie?) who is willing to engage with even some of the points offered against this war. Slipping around hard questions can't work forever, and eventually undermines your position.

May I take it then, that you think that:
2. That we have the right to force other countries to fit our models.

is true, as I suspected?

The argument given seems to be that in some cases the other country is so bad that we must forceably otherthrow them. Mass murder of all it's citizens being the example of such turpitude.

Well, I may agree with you about the mass murder case, and still disagree on Iraq. It doesn't look like Saddam is massacring his people, or even about to. So I am left to speculate as to how you think he comes morally close to a mass genocidal maniac. I will grant you that he is not a great guy and Iraq would possibly be better without him (although not necessarily, depends who the replacement is). But his crimes fall well short of that offered. So the question is whether the lesser charge of being an oppressive dictator is enough to warrant an invasion.

Once again, the question begs us to look at the alternatives to war. Invasion is only justified if there is no other way. This is an article of faith within the UN, but seems to need proving to the undecided. The alternative offered was that sanctions+Saddam are more damaging to the Iraqi people than invasion. I actually agree with this one. There is a lot of evidence that sanctions have killed a huge number of Iraqis (coupled with distruction of a lot of civilian infrastructure, such as water supplies and bridges). However, the sanctions are imposed by the UN as a means of disarming Saddam. Given that he seems to be disarming as a result of the inspections process, there is clearly little further need for them, and they should be lifted. At least the humanitarian sanctions, like blocking of medical supplies and food. Following this path the slaughter of Iraqis due to effective biological warfare AND the slaughter through an invasion can be avoided. Iraq may actually start to recover. Weapons inspections should be ongoing, of course. They are a very cheap means of keeping the Iraqi military weak.

None of this requires the forced regime change which was assumed as a right, without proof.

I'm very interested by the final argument that the right to overthrow a regime must be exercised because otherwise it will seriously undermine future attempts to do so. This seems to be the right wing's fear of the warhawks 'Will breaking'.

So far as I can see, this is not an argument at all, but what is called 'begging the question'. You have assumed the conclusion as one of your premises...sorry, not logical Scottie!

If the US has it's will broken, then that would lead us back to 2000, not to 1939. We are in the position of wondering what to do about Saddam, and have rejected the question of attacking him against the opinion of most of the population of the world. Seems like a victory for democracy to me. We may choose to reward Saddam for his recent compliances by reducing a large number of sanctions. This may in turn encourage him to destroy what's left, even the remaining chemical weapon stocks.

In fact, the breaking of the US will seems to be the most important issue at stake here. I'm not sure if you missed my whole rebuttal of imagining ourselves back in 1939. I pointed out that there are some extremely important differences which have the potential to avert the disastrous reoccurence of WW2. Worldwide antiwar feeling is one thing. The existence of WMDs is the other. WMDs have increased the risks of the 'regime change' approach immensely. So much so, that the world is screaming out loudly that this hawkish will MUST be broken or it will lead to not WW2, but WW3 which will not have the fairytale ending for the US that WW2 had.

None of us want to see the UN reduced to a joke that nations like China and Russia see no point listening to. Quite the opposite, the world is suddenly seeing that a new world order is possible, where the UN is given it's due weight as a representative of world opinion. Even within the US the UN is still revered, just not by this hawkish establishment. Why? It is obvious - there is nothing else anywhere near so good. It is not perfect, but there really isn't any alternative, other than tyranny of the USA.

Outside of the USA it is pretty clear why such a tyranny would be undesirable. But I'm glad to see that even inside it, it is generally perceived that this empire isn't worth having. It will only lead to hard times for everyone due to another stupid, pointless round of arms proliferation, and probably to a rise in non-state-terrorism, which will undermine civil rights in every country attacked.

Break their wills I say! This war must be stopped, and the US can prove it's democratic mettle by listening to the people of the world, and the people of the USA.

Centre i guess but It is like tax cuts suck but war is ok .


May I take it then, that you think that:
2. That we have the right to force other countries to fit our models.

Yes you can take that. To lay out the basic assumptions---- I believe that the natural state for humans like you could see in papua new guinea is one of constantly murdering each other. it is only the poliece that provents taht from occuring in our society. similarly the world cannot be "let to run as nature intended" as it too will decend into nation states murdering eachother without some sort of coersion from those with a bigger world view.


Well, I may agree with you about the mass murder case, and still disagree on Iraq.

- now here is a position that i can find reasonable

So the question is whether the lesser charge of being an oppressive dictator is enough to warrant an invasion.

- the problem is that it is easier to take action in some situations than others. most of the hawks blame bush fully for deaths under sanctions as they see the sanctions as a tactical decision on his part to maintain weapons of mass destruction. and then assume that he will try to use these. Personally I dont think that iraq is an immediate threat to us or more specifically it is only an immediate threat because we are an immediate threat to it. However it certainly is an immediate threat to iis own people. this is presumably the immediate moral argument that we can effectively kill less people than would have died due to sadam / sanctions. The more significant longer term argument is that there may be a strategic gain to overthrowing him. By strategic gain i mena strategic gane for democracy and if you can classify such a thing "goodness" since the world as i see it is under constant threat of falling into the kill or be killed logic (the current moral situation i believe is artificially imposed by britain and the USA) there is in effect a need for some degree of strategy. personally I dont buy the "arab street will revolt" idea I think it is far too stable to revolt for this reason now.

I believe somewhat contry to you I guess that the UN is a structure that cannot achieve what i want it to achieve. I want a powerful UN not one that is jsut a talk shop. and also one that does not give despots equal votes with democratically elcected leaders etc etc. I unfortunatly cannot see the countries ever getting together over the UN.. I had had hopes for the EU but it too seems to have boged itself down in this consensus government.

It may be nessercary to destroy the UN to start again
I dontthink the world will fall apart without it. anyway I want a better more significant replacement.

droping of sanctions - actually I supported this previously - my argument is that basically we taught him a lesson and that is all we needed to do.. but he hasdone it again. we asked him for things and he played games with us. in a sense he has obliged us to teach him again.

The logic behind the will breaking argument is that before WW2 one can consider it to have been a time when everyones will was broken. no9 one wanted war at any cost - it took years to develop but what i consider the natural state of affairs emerged being Naziism and that took on and almost defeated us. Unfortunatly for us Naziism is vastly superior to democracy (it took a weak country and made it the most powerful in the world , possibly, in a few years) in the same way that singapore for example has done well with a certain version. Therefore we must always have our guard up. I argue that if you "break the will" then you remove the guard, not from those who would fight us but only from ourselves.
I suggest that answer and other similar groups actually have a huge amount of power and that they can actually take us back to 1938 as opposed to jsut 2000 and that worries me greatly.


Worldwide antiwar feeling is one thing.
- this only exists and is effective in the same countries that would be our allies

The existence of WMDs is the other. WMDs have increased the risks of the 'regime change' approach immensely.
-US not using the reigeme approach will have little effect on stoping others from using it and that would be the source of your WW3 remember WW1 WW2 etc were not results of someone attempting reigeme change they were abnd almost always are alligned states conflicts getting out of control or evil taking it to us. reigeme change or anything like that has always been a limited conflict because of the nature of how the super powers view it.

So much so, that the world is screaming out loudly that this hawkish will MUST be broken or it will lead to not WW2, but WW3 which will not have the fairytale ending for the US that WW2 had.

- world opinion is seldom a goood jusdge of what will or should happen. I expect public opinion was heavily against war before WW2 in all contries until they were attacked and started dying. frankly the vast majority of the world was fataly wrong.

It seems that at present the liberals clain that the UN is the tool of usa tyrany (with some reason) and the US see it as a tool of tiny despotic states (with some reason).
As with the above dog eat dog world that I propose exists if the US has no empire it will be someone else. we have had a very artificial period of peace the pax americana where we have artificially created some law and order and artificially proped up a UN that is turning against us. sure it would be nice if we were totally self sacrificing - but being the hegemon already costs us lots of money and the slow decline of our power. Being the superpower is a burden because it suddenly becomes your responsibility and in your interests to prop up order in the world. If we abandon that role and give it to lets say china then it will be a different sort of order that will prevail. maybe that is inevitable but i had hoped that we would have a strong meaningful UN type system by them.. the un however is no longer threatening to be able to do that.
USA overseas military has prevented asia from rearming with nukes etc(for example japan) if USA was isolationist then presumably the evidence indicates that would cause proliferation. in the same way if we always refused to take action our troop placements would not be credible and so they would have to rearm anyway.

Centre left for me - tax cuts are OK, but only if it's coming out of the military budget :-)

There's so much in what you say Scottie I need to crystalize or this post will run into the tens of thousands of words.

These seems to be your points:
1.The natural state of humans is murdering each other
2.Killing people in Iraq to topple Saddam will kill less people than sanctions
3.We can't lift sanctions because Saddam plays games
4.The mere deaths of Iraqis due to war is less important than the strategic picture of bringing democracy
5.Iraq can't liberate itself
6.The UN should be more powerful or not exist at all
7.Breaking the US willpower will be a setback for democracy
8.Only the allies of the US are against this war, the rest of the world is for it, or unconcerned
9.If the US can't cause regime changes then we will have WW3
10.World opinion is wrong and should be ignored
11.Pax Americana is the only alternative to world conflict
12.American military occupations have kept Asia from nuclear armaments.

I'll do them one by one, then add my final thoughts on your analysis.

1.The natural state of humans is murdering each other

Violence during anarchy may seem natural, but anarchy itself is not a natural human state. We have always formed into groups for mutual benefit. Anarchy only occurs when there is a power vacuum, like the collapse of the Roman Empire. Destroying the leadership of countries will often cause power vacuums.

2.Killing people in Iraq to topple Saddam will kill less people than sanctions
3.We can't lift sanctions because Saddam plays games

These 2 points go together. The first is only true if the second is. So is 3 true? I can't see why. Everyone plays games. The US is playing a game right now. In fact, they are playing it more as a game than Saddam is (who stands a good chance of getting killed as a result unlike the Washington chickenhawks). There are repeated US violations of UN agreements too, just in case you thought Saddam was the only naughty boy on the block. For starters, the US is already bombing Iraq, which is against the ceasefire. Also, the US invented the 'no fly' zone - this has no official status in the UN at all. Also, Saddam has been justifiably nervous about allowing American agents to be present during weapons inspections, as the sites are often attacked afterwards with accurate GPS measurements having been taken.
But outside these little games are the big game that everyone is watching - that real disarmament is being acheived. This seems to me to counter point 3 and therefore render 2 untrue as well. The sanctions could now be lifted - particularly those which are humanitarian in nature.

4.The mere deaths of Iraqis due to war is less important than the strategic picture of bringing democracy

This might be true if anyone believed that democracy were actually coming. I say MIGHT quite pointedly too. You have ignored my arguments that democracy can come to formerly fascist countries through other means than foreign invasion. This is the normal way to do it, in fact - the USA is an obvious example. Also, this weighing of deaths against democracy seems to be an assumption. Democracy is not superior if it requires too much death to acheive it. I disagree utterly with you on this one. Otherwise we should just nuke China now.

Is democracy coming? Given the blatant disregard by the Bush kabal of democracy at the moment, it seems very unlikely to me that Iraq after a US invasion will have anything other than a military dictatorship running it, just with US generals replacing Saddam. Such was the model of Japan.

5.Iraq can't liberate itself

Probably not at the moment. Sanctions greatly strengthen the ruling party, because people don't want to starve to death and the government has all the food. But it could be worth the UN seeing if self liberation is possible by insisting on free elections, with inspections. Only a guarantee of safety would ever prompt Saddam to do this, of course. Perhaps they should be discussing a democratic constitution rather than bombing.

6.The UN should be more powerful or not exist at all

I agree that the UN should be more powerful, but I don't think it is completely useless until then. Sure it has a number of drawbacks in it's voting methods, but it is still a lot better than the alternative of international military anarchy. If you are pushing for reform of the UN then I would agree with you - the veto should either go, or be extended to more countries. Also, the number of votes should be somewhat biased towards population sizes. Maybe not directly proportional, as Asia would totally dominate it (China + India + Indonesia = majority vote!). But the current imbalances are obvious. Perhaps it should also have a standing army, which is formed internationally by a levy on all nations, who would pay proportionally to their incomes. 1% should be enough - it would lead to a huge drop in military spending (countries would feel safer), so the countries would actually have a much higher income. Imagine the prosperity in the USA if you didn't spend so much on the military.

7.Breaking the US willpower will be a setback for democracy

The US is not the only democracy in the world, and it is acting very undemocratically at the moment. So I think the opposite is the case - breaking the US Will will be a great stride for international democracy.

8.Only the allies of the US are against this war, the rest of the world is for it, or unconcerned

Huh? Did I misunderstand you? You are saying the the US and it's allies (England and Australia + diplomatic support from the most impoverished nations in Europe) are actually against a war, even though they have amassed over 200,000 troops in the Gulf and are daily issuing statements about their 'Shock and Awe' tactics? You seem to be smarter than this, so I'll give you some credit and suggest that you meant that the most vehement opposition to the war is from the populations of those countries? The biggest demonstrations, the most rhetoric.
This is true. Huge marches in England, America, Australia, Italy etc have been seen recently. This is quite natural when the government completely ignores it's population. In my own country, the government is against a war without a UN mandate, and thinks such a mandate would be unjustified. Naturally the protesting is less violent - there's no one to convince. Our ambassadors in the UN are saying what we as a nation think. The only violence so far has come when leaders from the pro-war nations have come here trying to drum up support - yes then the roar of the crowd could be heard from within the parliament chambers.
I completely disagree that the world is unconcerned outside of the triumvirate of military action in the Gulf. Both Russia and China have expressed opposition. Germany and France are opposed. The British Commonwealth (besides England and Australia) are mostly opposed. Almost every country in the world has expressed some opposition at the UN.

9.If the US can't cause regime changes then we will have WW3

Try it on Russia! Or China! or France! This regime change you speak of seems to be limited to the weakest nations of the world, who pose no military threat externally. Like Somalia, or Cuba or Nicaragua or Haiti. Or Iraq. I really can't see WW3 arising from the inability to control Iraq from having poison gas stockpiles (which are notoriously useless in actual battle - they are really only effective against unsuspecting civilians). If any of these weak countries gets aggressive, they are crushed (as Iraq was crushed in 1991) by 'conventional' weaponry.

What to do about countries developing WMDs? Like North Korea and it's nuclear program. I'll admit that nuclear war becomes more likely, the more countries that have them. My opinion is that the approach to countries developing weaponry is to remove their reason for doing so. North Korea has only done so due to recently being labeled as part of an 'Axis of Evil' and (I speculate) a genuine, justified fear that they will be next after Iraq.

Demilitarization and less foreign interference, more foreign diplomacy is the only sane answer to military proliferation.

10.World opinion is wrong and should be ignored

The hypocrisy of this opinion being held by someone wishing to to bring democracy to a country is self evident to everyone.
Despite being hypocritical, is it even true? How did a monopoly on truth suddenly end up in the hands of a clique of almost-not-elected rich dudes in the US? Did God give them a vision - 'Go forth and bomb civilians to effect democracy, against the wishes of the bulk of the world's population, for your courage and valour in battle, whatever those calling you chickenhawks say, will be a shining example to the world of why they should wish to throw down their arms and abase themselves before you. Let not the pussy footed pacifists who have amassed such legions of dissenters dissuade you from your righteous path of bloodshed, misery, and privation, for in my name (and MY NAME ALONE) you shall purge the world of the infection of peace'?
Sorry man, I can't buy it. I'd love to give you a speech from one of the founding fathers of the US about why democracy is so important and why you should listen to the people, but I imagine you've already heard them in primary school.

11.Pax Americana is the only alternative to world conflict

If America starts the world conflict then this statement is true, so long as America wins, of course. Otherwise it is quite possible we could muddle our way into a better, more ordered world without this decisive smashing of the authority of the UN that fires the apocalyptic imagination. I'm not a fan of apocalypse as our best way of sorting things out. I'd rather Pax Internationala. Less people will die, the planet will be less destroyed, and there is something mighty promising about beginning a new age of peace with a universal laying down of arms, rather than a brutal war for all the chips, in which the rest of the world will just have to trust that the USA won't then hold them in thralldom for eternity.

12.American military occupations have kept Asia from nuclear armaments.

Only in the countries they occupy. The rest have raced for nukes to avoid occupation. Or fought protracted conventional wars with huge casualties, leading to massacres and dictatorships. It's a poor model of behaviour and the sooner it ends the better for everyone.


So we are back to where we started - what is the alternative to the UN if smashing it is such a great idea? Are we talking American military dictatorship? Or perhaps a new, improved UN? I find it hard to see how the new improved UN will be an encouraging body to join for any other powers, given that the previous one will have been destroyed by the whims of the temporary leadership of one superpower.

But imagine, or dream might be a better word, that this imaginary body is created by the US after the collapse of the UN, and the US reclaiming the UN buildings in NY etc... Imagine this body has been reconstituted without the famous flaws of the UN (the veto, the lack of population proportionality and the lack of an armed force). What do you think such a body would have to say about this war against Iraq? Most likely it would come up for vote, and be squashed by the huge weight of opinion against it. The body would insist on weapons inspections, and use menace to protect it's inspectors.

Of course, it would also do the same for all the superpowers. America would have to abandon it's nuclear arsenal. Suddenly it would seem one hell of a lot less relevant what America thought about everything, having been relegated to a mere industrial powerhouse. Americans would continue to be amongst the wealthiest people in the world (probably more so, in fact, because they would not need to give such a huge piece of their wealth to military budgets) and their influence would mainly be by example rather than by force.

It sounds like a dream world. Isn't it interesting that the dream world would also oppose war against Iraq? And isn't it possible to get to this dream world without American conquest? It would be unprecedented in human history, but then so would a nuclear war. I know which one I would prefer.

Did i get deleeted? oh well here is the jist

3.We can't lift sanctions because Saddam plays games - seems sadam and many despots get a kind of a self rightious thing going on - so yes he does.

4-5 liberation

Dont worry USA wont go insane and try to liberate china. also revolutions are becoming less and less possible with modern technology. without USA sticking its nose in anywhere revolution would have become a thing of the past and despotism would be rampant.


6.The UN should be more powerful or not exist at all

yes - seperate the voting for UN from the voting for government so that they dont get so caught up in politics.

7.Breaking the US willpower will be a setback for democracy

8.Only the allies of the US are against this war, the rest of the world is for it, or unconcerned

What i mean here is that you can only hurt the countries that are the ones that support your ability to act. those who oppose citizens ability to say what they want are and will only grow stronger as you weaken your allies.

9.If the US can't cause regime changes then we will have WW3

10.World opinion is wrong and should be ignored

Just want to increace average human nwelfare now and into the future - sometimes that requires hard headed decisions. as spock would say sometimes the good of the many outweighs the good of the few. or somthing like that.
usually public opinion is rather short sighted that is why we have elected representatives

11.Pax Americana is the only alternative to world conflict

Who is better than america (if america dissapears then what then?) pax international is not ready yet. how about an admission of reality and votes acording to net worth? as undemocratic as it sounds its kind of like reality... who knows maybe it would work as a way to get sensible decisions from world government

12.American military occupations have kept Asia from nuclear armaments.

isnt it odd that over recent years unlike almost any other time in history countries are intentionaly having weak militaries? without the special weapons? thats pax americana for you I suggest that you wont see it under anyone else. and if you think different you are at least taking a very risky roll of the dice onthe worlds future much greater than that that peace activists accuse the USA of on iraq.

All the rich guys would just vote themselves a tax cut.. ahh maybe its just impossible to have a democratic world government. problem is fair voting would probably result in a government eager to establish a form of comunism. and not even a good type of comunism. There is too much bitterness in africa, superiority complex in asia, religious self rightionsness in the middle east and who knows what from everywhere else.
Guess it needs a constitution... and maybe a really big computer running it.

...just a little bit of a shift to the concept of peace? I hope so. Looks like a war is inevitable now, but the more people that think it wasn't OK the better.

>3.We can't lift sanctions because Saddam plays games - seems sadam and many despots get a kind of a >self rightious thing going on - so yes he does.

I didn't and don't deny this. All I was asking was "is this relevant?". The playing of games is a universal in politics. I think forging evidence of a nuclear programme is a kind of game playing that is equally morally reprehensible to the drawn out disarmament of Hussein. But at the end of the day - disarmament was happening. I imagine that Hussein will also deeply regret giving up those missiles now - other despots will not be so foolish in future.

>4-5 liberation
>
> Dont worry USA wont go insane and try to liberate china. also revolutions are becoming less and less >possible with modern technology. without USA sticking its nose in anywhere
> revolution would have become a thing of the past and despotism would be rampant.

I don't know why you think revolution is difficult. The only barrier is usually foreign intervention, which gives military aid to the counterinsurgent forces. Attack helicopters, poison gas, satellite intel, diplomatic support etc. Ask Castro why it was difficult to have a revolution, and the answer will be immediate - the USA opposed it. Nothing else stood in the way.
I'm glad you hope that your establishment won't go as insane as to engage with China. But it does seriously undermine the morality of the situation - many more millions of people than even live in Iraq have died as a result of Chinese oppression. But not one peep of criticism of them is forthcoming at the moment.

>6.The UN should be more powerful or not exist at all

> yes - seperate the voting for UN from the voting for government so that they dont get so caught up in >politics.

Not sure what you mean by this. We don't vote for the UN now.

>What i mean here is that you can only hurt the countries that are the ones that support your ability to act. those who oppose citizens ability to say what they want are and will only grow
stronger as you weaken your allies.

I'm sensing we are in agreement on this point. You are saying that the antiwar effort is particulary effective in the countries whose governments are pushing for war. I agree.

>10.World opinion is wrong and should be ignored
>
> Just want to increace average human nwelfare now and into the future - sometimes that requires hard >headed decisions. as spock would say sometimes the good of the many
> outweighs the good of the few. or somthing like that.
> usually public opinion is rather short sighted that is why we have elected representatives

Spock's word were a profound declaration of the principles of Utilitarianism, but he didn't also say 'the opinions of the few outweigh the opinions of the many' which would appear to be a declaration of the principles of Fascism.
I disagree that public opinion is short sighted. The public has to live with the decisions for a far longer period than the politicians who will have no stake beyond the end of their term. This antiwar stance is a long term view - 'let's blow up Saddam' is a very short term fix for a much more complicated problem. The antiwar folks are more inclined towards more considered actions, involving diplomacy and international coordination. This pro-war clique is rushing headlong without any planning into a potentially disastrous international crisis, which is alienating the entire world and damaging the US economy. The timetable seems to be dominated by US presidential election campaigns rather than by consideration of the interests either of the world or of the people of the USA. It seems horribly shortsighted to me. As to being 'hardheaded', this seems to mean 'pigheaded'. 'Brutal' could be another word. 'Hypocritical' is the word most of the world are using - given the long history of US support for Saddam, especially during his much discussed atrocities.

If there is an amazingly planned out future vision which the Bush administration is privy to, why don't they share this with the population? Surely the population has some right in a democracy to know what their leaders are planning for them.
So far the only discussion I have heard of the post war future of Iraq is that there will be a US military dictatorship, and a number of American big-business interests will profit from government expenditure in the 'rebuilding' of Iraq, which seems to mean the complete foreign ownership of their country. This seems to be the epitome of an undemocratic system - exactly the kind of fascism we are trying to overthrow. It will only be less brutal because it will be more precise in it's suppression of dissidence than Saddam is. Consequently it will probably be less effective, and the cost of an occupation will steadily escalate until the US public can stomach it no longer. Then what?
The fact that a number of administration officials have their personal fortunes staked on the rebuilding only adds to the undermining of the democratic process.

>11.Pax Americana is the only alternative to world conflict

> Who is better than america (if america dissapears then what then?) pax international is not ready yet. >how about an admission of reality and votes acording to net worth? as
> undemocratic as it sounds its kind of like reality... who knows maybe it would work as a way to get >sensible decisions from world government

Obviously the UN is a better world government than the tyranny of the US. With all the UN's flaws it is still a million miles closer to being a 'world democracy' than having a cabal of non-elected draft dodgers choosing who gets to be collateral damage, and what leadership each country will have.

Your suggestion as to how to reform the UN is not untenable. It is, as you say, undemocratic too. But it would be one step closer to a democracy - at least it would destroy the veto flaw of the UN. It would remove some of the more obvious imbalances, such as France having a veto, but Germany, Japan and India not having one. Your suggestion would also be a major decline in US power - since it only represents a fraction of the world's economy and population.

Personally, I would favour a democratic system, rather than a plutocratic one. I mentioned in an earlier post some discomfort with a pure proportional representation, on the grounds that China and India would wield undue power. I should temper this by saying that I am not opposed to this on racial grounds, but rather on the grounds that their countries are not particularly democratic - if the will of the people of China could be accessed without the intervening dictatorship, then I would have no qualms. It's a long term goal and would require a lot of intervening controls, but it's an inevitable consequence of believing in real democracy.


This whole discussion is academic, of course. The acceptance of the UN having any authority can only come from a free decision to give it power from those who currently hold it. The world's most powerful nation seems to be opposed to it (although the population may have a different opinion) so it's unlikely in the short term.

I fear that the analysis of Bertrand Russell of the future is scarily more likely - he recognised that humans never freely give up power, so a world government would only ever come from complete conquest by one group. He predicted the USA, or a USA/British alliance would eventually seize power after a Russian economic collapse. This was predicted in 1935 (prior to WW2).

I am more optimistic that humane and peaceful association can be acheived. The EU is a counterexample to Russell's maxim. So was the US, when it was originally formed by the free association of the states, for mutual benefit. The only barrier is anti-democratic forces within the superpowers. These forces are caused by the concentration of wealth and power into the hands of a few, and the lack of accountability of those in power. They are fueled by fear and hate, with racism, religious bigotry and violence as the inevitable outcomes.

If these issues are addressed and rectified then a future of peace and prosperity for all is possible.

Just thought you guys might like to know, that Caesar quote is a fake, no where will you find that quote in any historical documents, nor will you even find it in any of Shakespeare's version of Caesar.

On another note... I think leftist suck, not because their ideas are wrong... in a good world they would be all but law... but we don't live in a good would, nor will it change any time soon. I believe the fact they try to change the world from within the governments is a very dangerous thing to do.

Now for a real Caesar quote...
"Men freely believe that which they wish to be the truth."
- Julius Caesar

I favour the left cause it's less stupid and reactionary these days. In times past I have been a right winger, when our government almost bankrupted itself to pay old-age pensioners off for their votes. Humourously it was actually a conservative government at the time, but left-wing expenditure was the norm in the 70's and early 80's so they got away with it.

The left used to be stronger and more dogmatic when there was communism in Russia. I disliked it then. I still dislike fascisms like the Russian communists imposed. But since their collapse the dogma has shifted to the right. It seems that being right-wing has become more of a religion than a reasoned view, where abstract entities like markets or corporations are revered, but the concrete examples of these entities are monopolistic and anti-competitive. The freedom and democracy of the west is touted, but never actually allowed in the third world. Our major support and trading partners in the third world are the least democratic and free countries.

It seems that the whole left-right argument has turned away from the economic (and more measurable) aspects and is now reverting back to the origins of left and right wing discourse - right wingers were those who stood on the right wing of the French court, and supported the King (his right hand men), and the left wing was for those who did not support him.

The King is now the supreme power of the US, personified by the President. Right wingers are behind this force, and typically wish for more power to become centralized towards it. Left wingers oppose this single point of absolute power and push off in a number of natural directions - human rights, legal rights, freedoms etc. They also tend to oppose whatever the King is doing. Hence the current peace movement being associated with the left.

I personally think all talk of left and right is becoming less and less useful. It obscures the fact that however you might like to categorize views as left or right, this tell you nothing at all about those views. It is quite possible to be in favour of a free and open market, and also against illegal wars and also against terrorism. Is such a view left or right wing? Who cares? What matters about each of those views is IS IT CORRECT?

Therefore, Mr Nobody Important, I think it's wrong to write off the peace movement because you think it is leftist and therefore idealistic, or whatever other connotations you have in mind for the left. You should think about the actual issue of waging an illegal war which has been the subject of this forum so far.

Tell us why you think in our imperfect world that blowing the crap out of Iraq was the right thing to do?

Btw, you're right that quote does look fake. It also would have been a stupid thing for him to say. The quote is basically saying 'beware of me' which is pretty much asking for a knifing!

If the African American Community feels that the US should pay them for the injustices perpetrated upon them by previous generations of Americans, then I suppose the Jews should be going after Egypt for the ancient atrocities Egyptions put upon the Jews. Is there a statute of limitations for reparations?

If the African Community could see the writing on the wall they would know that the only way to transcend this terrible episode on their culture is to rise up and show the world they have integrity, class and intelligence by attaining toward greatness with great deeds and noble actions, which would gain them respect and position.

Alas, the attrocities these native people inflict upon their own in African nations abroad, by hacking each other to death by the millions. How can we lend credibility to a race who exhibits animal instinct above reason and compassion for their fellow man on so many fronts. Can we use the excuse of poverty for their behaviour?

We need legitimate leaders from the African American Community, not charlatans like the Reverand Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to set examples for the young African Americans.

I want to believe the Black Community has something to offer society other than race riots and cries for revenge money.

Show me!

I want to love you brother!

Rich Miller

If the African American Community feels that the US should pay them for the injustices perpetrated upon them by previous generations of Americans, then I suppose the Jews should be going after Egypt for the ancient atrocities Egyptions put upon the Jews. Is there a statute of limitations for reparations?

If the African Community could see the writing on the wall they would know that the only way to transcend this terrible episode on their culture is to rise up and show the world they have integrity, class and intelligence by attaining toward greatness with great deeds and noble actions, which would gain them respect and position.

Alas, the attrocities these native people inflict upon their own in African nations abroad, by hacking each other to death by the millions. How can we lend credibility to a race who exhibits animal instinct above reason and compassion for their fellow man on so many fronts. Can we use the excuse of poverty for their behaviour?

We need legitimate leaders from the African American Community, not charlatans like the Reverand Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to set examples for the young African Americans.

I want to believe the Black Community has something to offer society other than race riots and cries for revenge money.

Show me!

I want to love you brother!

Rich Miller

"I don't know why you think revolution is difficult. The only barrier is usually foreign intervention, which gives military aid to the counterinsurgent forces. "

- how long before nth korea revolts do you think? how about never in a million years? also how long will a revolt last against a government and an army that doesnt cae if it shoots civilians.
Finally how many civilians would it take to take out a troup of well armed and equiped seals wiht air support?
Revolutions are only possible with outside support or against governments that are so conflicted internaly that they are trying to change now.cuba for example was not done independantly of foreign influence.

"Not sure what you mean by this. We don't vote for the UN now."

- Exactly. your politicians pick the representatives

"I'm sensing we are in agreement on this point. You are saying that the antiwar effort is particulary effective in the countries whose governments are pushing for war. I agree."

-yup

"Obviously the UN is a better world government than the tyranny of the US."

- I would not bet on that. the UN is the average of all of the countries of the world unweighted by population is it not? That means you will get hte average morals of that group. Hmmmm if it made good decisions though I would agree I ma not sure of that though.

" Your suggestion would also be a major decline in US power - since it only represents a fraction of the world's economy and population."

- Could be. that may or may not cause practical problems.

"The world's most powerful nation seems to be opposed to it (although the population may have a different opinion) so it's unlikely in the short term."

that is half of your practical problem the other half is are the chineee & indians etc misinformed (by their government or by circumstances) as you hinted at before.

that is half of your practical problem the other half is are the chineee & indians etc misinformed (by their government or by circumstances) as you hinted at before.


Clearly I am racist. Just keep reading this and see what you think about it.

Read the post to which it was a reply.
by the way when I said "etc" I meant "and all of those who currently have less power"
just 2 billion odd indians and chineese tend to be a large part of that. (as opposed to the americans french english etc who - relitively speaking on average - do have power)

You had better go and read your bible again. Israel rejected the messiah, they will rule nothing with a rod of iron. As a matter of fact, they are soon to be judged by the beast, which is Islam and anything else siding with it.
As for the former marxist Mandela, he had some good points. Funny he didn't say another holocaust like the one in WWII. He must be an anti-semite, but then again he's 84.

scotty,
revolutions don't necessarily need assistance from outside meddlers to succeed. they necessitate generalized opposition and hatred of the ruling class coupled with revolutionary organization (as opposed to "a" revolutionary organization). mutinies and sabotage from within the military are both the cause and effect of effective revolutionary struggles and are indispensible to their success. did the russian revolution succeed because of "foreign influence"?

my point aaron is that your "revolution" WAS possible in the early 1900's when 100000 pesants with forks could fight an army and win now 100000 pesants with forks will just get slaughtered. Or in any country which is still at that sort of a level developmentally.

Can you name a sucessful revolution in the last 30 years that has NOT required outside interferance?

If it is truly a bad leader, it is just a matter of how much will the government of the moment will compromise to foreign powers and "stay its hand".
You can however still have a revolution which isnt really a revolution if you want. For example if cheney revolted against bush and kicked him out of office. but there will be no "peoples revolt".

Nelson Mandela lashed out and claims of 'Holocaust'

we only have to look at the actions of Nelson's wife "Winnie" who ran and extortion ring and ran a murder for hire syndicate while nelson was in prison
she also carried out several political assinations to keep rivals out of office.

what else are the Mandela's not telling the world????

Did you pick 30 years for any particular reason? The means of repression of an unarmed population date back much further than this. I think perhaps of the Spartans oppressing the Helots in ancient Greece, as a pertinent example of an impossible 'pitchfork' revolution. Or the americans oppressing their slaves.

You probably picked 30 years so you didn't have to include Cuba which easily expelled the american juggernaut, with next to no significant arms, but an ample helping of public support. It doesn't square too well with your models of foreign interference or US benevolence to talk about Cuba, so you've conveniently framed it out of your argument. Also it's probably a bit embarrassing to mention the place, since it seems to be the site of america's version of Saddam's torture chambers.

I am not entirely against foreign interference for humanitarian reasons. And there are some good examples of it around the world - the vietnamese putting an end to the killing fields is a good one. But when it is being done for reasons which you have completely neglected to mention - power, oil, control (both of the middle east and of your local population), personal gripes with Saddam cause he 'tried to kill my dad', more military bases, personal profit from the reconstruction and so on, then I am very much against it. I am especially disgusted to find that the evidence used to swing local support was largely fabricated.

Re the UN: I think you are saying that populations should vote for representatives at the UN? I think this is not a bad idea.

>"Obviously the UN is a better world government than the tyranny of the US."
>
> - I would not bet on that. the UN is the average of all of the countries of the world unweighted by >population is it not? That means you will get hte average morals of that group.
> Hmmmm if it made good decisions though I would agree I ma not sure of that though.

I actually don't think the UN as it stands now would be a good world government. It has numerous flaws. But it's still more representative of the people of this planet than the US government is. It's the best shot we've got at the moment. Yes it is an unweighted average. But the US running the show is a far more unweighted average. It represents pretty much one race (over 80% Euro), one religion (over 80% christian), 1/20th of the world's population. Around 50% of it's people can't be stuffed voting so it's leadership represents at most 1/4 of that country anyway. But since the electoral system is not proportional either, in practice 1/3 of those who vote go completely unrepresented anyway, since they don't vote for one of the two major parties. So 1/3 of 1/4 of 1/20th of the population of the world get to run the show? Add to that the issue that the better funded you are the more likely you are to be able to advertise yourself to the people effectively and you are talking about the tiniest fraction of the world running all of it. Personally, not being a US citizen, I prefer that my country gets at least 1 vote in world affairs.

Does the UN make good decisions? Well, how bout you suggest one really bad decision it has made to illustrate your point? I would venture that the US government has made numerous bad decisions, such as invading Vietnam, or backing Israel's repression of the Palestinians, against overwhelming world opinion. You can of course disagree and say that Vietnam was a great idea and those Palestinians deserved to have their country taken off them at gunpoint with decisive american support, to be rounded up and stuck in the equivalent of the ghettos that Hitler put the Jews into, prior to their Holocaust.

I simply disagree.
I disagree that the US has the right to shoot down Iranian passenger airliners.
I disagree that they have the right to drop depleted uranium weapons anywhere except in genuine self defence. I disagree that they have the right to invade countries to prevent possible future war.
I disagree that american citizens are outside international law.
I disagree that they can ignore the Geneva convention and hold prisoners from other countries for as long as they like without trial, using torture to get information out of them.
I disagree that they should give decisive diplomatic and military support to fascist regimes with no regard for human rights.


This forum seems to have taken a nasty racist turn (not you scottie). I don't really care to comment further on stupid bible basher's apocalyptic antisemitism, or ridiculous statements that Africans are too immoral and animal-like to have a say in anything.

Scottie wrote: "Can you name a sucessful revolution in the last 30 years that has NOT required outside interferance? "

What about Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union?

The only reason Mandela was ever let out of jail was because he was black. He was a terrorist and many people died at Sharpeville. The ANC only has more legitimacy than the IRA because of the crazy dumb left wing idea that being black means that you may live by different rules. Arafat, Sadat, Mandela are all the same going from terrorist to peacemongerer; the shift to conservatism that acompanies the responsibility the experience of age.

>But when it is being done for reasons which you have completely neglected to mention

-Your reasons are generally speaking figments of your imagination or rather standard reasons that the non skeptical people make up for accusing the right. They bring them up no matter what the evidence is.

> I am especially disgusted to find that the evidence used to swing local support was largely fabricated.

- speaking of fabrication at this level. The stuff your talking about was always incidental to people like me.

> Personally, not being a US citizen, I prefer that my country gets at least 1 vote in world affairs.



Does the UN make good decisions? Well, how bout you suggest one really bad decision it has made to illustrate your point?

It let that zimbabwae guy go back to zimbabwae after he had tourchered peopel in bosnia. it has failed to censor alll sorts of despots around the world. It has been unable to take action abgainst alll sorts of events such as rwanda etc etc

I would venture that the US government has made numerous bad decisions, such as invading Vietnam, or backing Israel's repression of the Palestinians, against overwhelming world opinion.

Vietnam was not invaded. they provided support for a south vietnameese faction. eventually they lost public support

" What about Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union? "
Ridiculous amounts of outside interfearance.
Most importantly the Russian interferance that proped it up and then the western pressure that brough them down in the absence of the russian suppport.
democracy and comunism are not things that emerge at random they exist as a result of outside pressure in these places.

> Palestinians deserved to have their country taken off them at gunpoint with decisive american support

Palestine was taken from the syrians and the egyptians or from the british or from the turks depending on how you look at it. Now I support the fact that israel should leave palestine. but then again the palistinians should take reasonable measures to stop terrorists. pleanty of opportunity for circular arguments here.

> to be rounded up and stuck in the equivalent of the ghettos that Hitler put the Jews into, prior to their Holocaust.

-They are not equivilent. You can argue that what the israelis are doing is wrong but it is inappropriate to start saying it is the same thing.

> I disagree that they have the right to invade countries to prevent possible future war.

Nazi germany was possibly the fastest growing economy in the world for a number of years. Their technology and army expanded even faster relitive to everyone else.
Unfortunatly Total abuse of human rights eugenics and all sorts of other things is a superior economic strategy no matter how repulsive it might be morally.
f you leave these people alone until they physically actually attack you you may find by then you will loose and youll have to settle in for a life under facism. Anyway why would you care so little aboout their citizens and so much about short term interest of your own?

Even if that was not true with developments in technology a country that started developing bioweapons with the intention of using them against you (because they have some insane leader lets say) cannot be left for a few decaded until they actually do it. If you do that when they do it may be too late for you to even bother with self defense.

I'm struggling now to know what your position on anything is. So far as I can see, u don't especially like the UN, and reckon the Iraq 'war' was all right by you. Perhaps it's just patriotism that's barking now. I can't tell, sorry.

>-Your reasons are generally speaking figments of your >imagination or rather standard reasons that the non >skeptical people make up for accusing the right. They >bring them up no matter what the evidence is.

Good on you. You've issued a knock down argument for my points! My god, I must be wrong because what I say is perhaps supported by the left! Well known to be unskeptical and to depise evidence and rationality.

Perhaps not, too, if you consider that the staunchest american ally in this war was the British Labour party (traditionally regarded as leftist). Am I a leftist myself?...refer to previous post for discussion.

> - speaking of fabrication at this level. The stuff your talking about was always incidental to people like me.

What r u trying to say? That u never believed any of it either? Or that it doesn't matter that it was all lies? Or u have deeper sources than mere leftist mortals?

>It let that zimbabwae guy go back to zimbabwae after he >had tourchered peopel in bosnia. it has failed to censor alll >sorts of despots around the world. It has been unable to >take action abgainst alll sorts of events such as rwanda >etc etc

Perhaps u might want to examine exactly whose veto was behind all these failures to censure and failures to act, before u accuse the 'United Nations'. You do have a point, only in that the very existence of this pervasive and constantly wielded veto renders the UN less effective. Haven't I already agreed with you on that?

> Vietnam was not invaded. they provided support for a south vietnameese faction. eventually they lost public support

Interesting sophistry....similar to 'liberating Iraq' by installing a US military dictatorship. This 'support for a faction' wouldn't have formed the lions share of the military might wielded? It wouldn't have fired more bullets at the enemy than all those fired during WW2? It wouldn't have crossed the world biggest ocean to pick that fight? It wouldn't have resulted in over a million dead vietnamese and somewhere round 50,000 americans in 'transportation tubes'?

Ah well, if u want to call that 'supporting a faction' rather than a frightening invasion, i don't mind. I'm used to reading such twists in the papers.

>Nazi germany was possibly the fastest growing economy >in the world for a number of years. Their technology and >army expanded even faster relitive to everyone else.
>Unfortunatly Total abuse of human rights eugenics and all >sorts of other things is a superior economic strategy no >matter how repulsive it might be morally.
>f you leave these people alone until they physically actually >attack you you may find by then you will loose and youll >have to settle in for a life under facism. Anyway why would >you care so little aboout their citizens and so much about >short term interest of your own?

I take it that Iraq is our modern Nazi germany? We're talking about a country that had waged no foreign aggression for about 10 years, was crippled to starving point by US imposed sanctions and war damage, had a military budget that was about 10% the size of Kuwaits? These guys are being held up as comparable to the threat that the Nazis posed to the world? Do you have one little skerrik, one tiny smidgeon of evidence that they posed this kind of threat? Or is this perhaps a slight twist of - and I quote:

">-Your reasons are generally speaking figments of your >imagination or rather standard reasons that the non >skeptical people make up for accusing the [switch right for peaceful]. They >bring them up no matter what the evidence is."

I'm constantly amazed that Nazi germany keeps getting brought up in connection with Iraq. Germany was a military superpower. It was aggressively invading everything it could. Iraq may have been a regional superpower back in the old days when it had protection and supply from the US. Certainly a threat to it's own very weak neighbors. Not much of a threat to the US, given it's lack of any method of delivery of it's pissly hoard of not very effective gas (put a mask on and that's neutralized. Doesn't really compare to nukes etc). But Gulf War 1 ended that. At the start of this year it was a complete basket case militarily which is how it fell to a US invasion, managing to take about as many lives as would have been lost in an average day in the Vietnam war, or a few minutes in WW2.

This comparison is a joke. Are u implying that if Bush hadn't killed 10,000 Iraqi civilians, a few hundred american soldiers, then some 'domino effect' would have occurred? Iraq would have somehow applied your amazing science of eugenics to become an invincible horde, raging across Eurasia to eventually challenge even the mainland USA? Man, I don't think I've ever heard anything quite as fantastic even in science fiction.

Or is it the more tired and much lesser claim that maybe they would get together some WMDs and in collusion with Osama they'd sneak it into the US? Just to go 'hah hah, we got u a good one' about 30 minutes before the massive arsenal of WMDs which resides in the US dropped from space with impunity flatttening their civilization back to sand? This claim which so far has drawn an absolute blank when it comes to finding any proof of either WMDs or a connection to Osama, or even an intention to hurt the US on the part of Iraq? So far as anyone can see all that Saddam had been doing for the last 10 years was oppressing his own and preparing his bolthole.

Enough about the actual history this year. How 'bout your strange claim that Nazism is an amazing economic strategy? Hardly.

It might be one response to a neverending depression, caused by sanctions and a massive international capitalist crash. But it does seem to me that it was the huge lift in interventionist government (via military expediture) that caused the recovery. Eugenics didn't really help matters, that was just a nasty twist the Nazis added cause they were a rotten bunch of bastards.

Not surprisingly , when the allies began the exact same strategy of interventionist government via military expenditure (minus the eugenics) their economies bounced amazingly.

>Even if that was not true with developments in technology a >country that started developing bioweapons with the >intention of using them against you (because they have >some insane leader lets say) cannot be left for a few >decaded until they actually do it. If you do that when they do >it may be too late for you to even bother with self defense.

That's exactly what the Nazis said about Czechoslovakia :-).

Seriously, now u r starting to scare me. There is absolutely no end to the right you have claimed to waste everyone here. Who is to say who is the 'insane leader'? It sounds like a very convenient way of just being aggressive. And given the non-existent standards for your proof of any kind of real threat, I'm starting to wonder if 'people like you' aren't the crazy people setting US foreign policy (scottie...not the press secretary by any chance? :-)

Besides being completely dubious as a justification for aggressive invasion (or liberation, as I believe the Japanese used to call it), the actual application of what u r suggesting is completely hypocritical. There are plenty of real serious threats to world peace outside of Iraq. The growing nuclear arsenal is extremely worrisome, and the response of making more nukes, bashing up weak countries to show off your weapons etc will only make this worse. Who could blame Iran for wanting nukes right now? Their neighbor just got smashed over by a nuclear superpower who has been lining them up for years. Yes, let us not forget that the Iran-Iraq war was waged by Saddam with decisive US support. And whilst they are making extremely aggressive moves towards Iran over a 'nuclear program' they coddle up to their other nuclear-ARMED buddies in the region (Pakistan and Israel). What message is this sending to the world? Nuke up or get wasted.

So what's my answer? Should we just let them get the nukes? NO. The answer is so obvious is kicks you in the balls. Reduce the level of world armament. And obviously, this starts with the most armed countries FIRST. You must lead by example or else be hypocrits, and ultimately the fascists which you so love to deride.

>I'm struggling now to know what your position on anything is. So far as I can see, u don't especially like the UN, and reckon the Iraq 'war' was all right by you. Perhaps it's just patriotism that's barking now. I can't tell, sorry.

Hey this place is full of anarchist so you should be used to people who oppose basicallly alll of the normal positions.

> Good on you. You've issued a knock down argument for my points! My god, I must be wrong because what I say is perhaps supported by the left!

- Funny thing is that I am not really on the right (depends on how you define it). I just note that the left (and the right at times) are equiped with a standard set of stupid arguments for any eventuality. Stupid arguments are stupid arguments I just call them as I see them.

> Perhaps not, too, if you consider that the staunchest american ally in this war was the British Labour party (traditionally regarded as leftist). Am I a leftist myself?...refer to previous post for discussion.

Haha yes but go ask any anarchist on here where the labour party is and they will question its claim to "left" Having said that I would have voted for blair and gore in the last set of elections if I could So I obviously dont include gore and blair in my "crazy left" or whatever I called them.

> Or u have deeper sources than mere leftist mortals?

apparently so

>Perhaps u might want to examine exactly whose veto was behind all these failures to censure and failures to act, before u accuse the 'United Nations'.

Can you honestly say that the UN makes decisions based on some higher moral grounds no matter what part of it you refer to or who you exclude. The UN is made up of all sorts of "capitalist pigs" "crazy pinkos" "islamofacists" "US puppets" or however else you would like to insult them. dont suddenly become their buddies now.

> Interesting sophistry....similar to 'liberating Iraq' by installing a US military dictatorship.

Hmm You could equally refer to the liberation of france or any other country.

> This 'support for a faction' wouldn't have formed the lions share of the military might wielded? It wouldn't have fired more bullets at the enemy than all those fired during WW2? It wouldn't have crossed the world biggest ocean to pick that fight? It wouldn't have resulted in over a million dead vietnamese and somewhere round 50,000 americans in 'transportation tubes'?

- Yes why not? Why should you care less if people are going to be opressed across an ocean or need more bullets to protect them.
poor vietnamese they were lambs to the slaughter. Thanks to the chineese and the north vietnamese.

> Ah well, if u want to call that 'supporting a faction' rather than a frightening invasion, i don't mind. I'm used to reading such twists in the papers.

- suppporting a faction and an invasion are not mutuallly exclusive. I guess you can say if you arive in a friendly country and offer to defend it that could be considered an invasion. If you then start to fight rebels and eventually the countries poeple get pissed off at you (as they do) maybe it morphs into an invasion. Sure. Use the word if you like as long as you know what it means

> I take it that Iraq is our modern Nazi germany?
- not really. we could have ignored iraq it would have taken a long time for iraq to grow srtong and it would only have killed arabs (as if thats an excuse) but it is a bad principle.

> We're talking about a country that had waged no foreign aggression for about 10 years, was crippled to starving point by US imposed sanctions and war damage, had a military budget that was about 10% the size of Kuwaits?

Are you suggesting it would have lost a war against kuwait ? Anyway they were weak because we put sanctions on them. that was a mistake because for them to be effective they would have had to have existed forever perpetually making the iraqis suffer.

>I'm constantly amazed that Nazi germany keeps getting brought up in connection with Iraq. Germany was a military superpower. It was aggressively invading everything it could.

- wE DO NOT COMPARE IT WITH GERMANY WHEN IT INVADED POLAND
We mean germany when it invaded the rhineland (ie the no fly zone in iraq) or chekslovakia (streaching it now but maybe kuwait)

> Iraq may have been a regional superpower back in the old days when it had protection and supply from the US.

It is Irrelevant why.

> Certainly a threat to it's own very weak neighbors. Not much of a threat to the US

- Same with Germany until VERY shortly before poland and it was still a ways from beating the US even at its peak.

> At the start of this year it was a complete basket case militarily which is how it fell to a US invasion, managing to take about as many lives as would have been lost in an average day in the Vietnam war, or a few minutes in WW2.

- would you prefer the US lost a thousand extra people just to make you feel it was a "fair fight"?

This comparison is a joke. Are u implying that if Bush hadn't killed 10,000 Iraqi civilians, a few hundred american soldiers, then some 'domino effect' would have occurred?

A) 10,000 my arse

> Iraq would have somehow applied your amazing science of eugenics to become an invincible horde, raging across Eurasia to eventually challenge even the mainland USA? Man, I don't think I've ever heard anything quite as fantastic even in science fiction.

- some would have said the same of germany pre WWII

How 'bout your strange claim that Nazism is an amazing economic strategy? Hardly. It might be one response to a neverending depression, caused by sanctions and a massive international capitalist crash. But it does seem to me that it was the huge lift in interventionist government (via military expediture) that caused the recovery.

- you havent really backed up the "hardly" claim. As to the rest where you sort of support my point have you forgoten that military expenditure is a hall mark of facism?

> Eugenics didn't really help matters, that was just a nasty twist the Nazis added cause they were a rotten bunch of bastards.

- I was not refering to eugenics. Genes effect all sorts of things but selecting for blond hair gene or the blue eyes genes is obviously just aesthetics. You could breed smart people (no reason why they would be part of any specific race) and that would probably make a difference Lets hope no one actually starts doing that because you would have to have a disgustingly facist government to strategically breed its people.

> Not surprisingly , when the allies began the exact same strategy of interventionist government via military expenditure (minus the eugenics) their economies bounced amazingly.

- What do the anarcists say it is when the military builds up and the countries move into production mode and things get sacrificed to the high god of production? do I hear the word facism? you you got it! but of course the US and britain do a half baked version a facist country can do it more "efficiently".

> Seriously, now u r starting to scare me. There is absolutely no end to the right you have claimed to waste everyone here.

- the things preventing people from doing it are the same

>Who could blame Iran for wanting nukes right now?

- Because you iunderstand someone does not mean you cant oppose them anyway. Understanding is just a measure of your intelligence. not a measure of their morality.

>> So what's my answer? Should we just let them get the nukes? NO. The answer is so obvious is kicks you in the balls. Reduce the level of world armament. And obviously, this starts with the most armed countries FIRST. You must lead by example or else be hypocrits, and ultimately the fascists which you so love to deride.

Here is the scenario
Europe 1930 somthing chamberlin looses the elections to pres bill wilson. Bill immediatly starts disarming inoorder to set a good example for germany. "If we dont disarm we will be hypocrites to tell germany to stop attacking people!" a nice catch cry it is.
germany agrees and starts disarming
1940 somthing germany nukes london with 50 nukes that it doesnt have and overruns russia which fighting valiently with no western support is unable to hold out.
1950 somthing new president of the US Mr Ben willson notes that the US must abandon nuclear weapons or else germany wont disarm.

I suggest disarming the most armed countries last.
Why?
well A) it is easier - big countries can encourage small countries to disarm encouraging big countries to do it is alot harder
B) if you take away the military strength of china and the US and other regional powers you will create an imbalance - that is all of the deals that were based on power will have to be renegotiated. the stronger country will find that hard to accept and sometiems it will result in war.
C) Total imbalance means 1- war is unlikely 2- if t does happen it is over fast.
D) US and the EU are unlikely to try to take over the whole world. If they disarm due to social pressure It is hard to say the same of the next group of countries. So you can lean on US/EU while you have the chance it wont last forever

>Can you honestly say that the UN makes decisions based on >some higher moral grounds no matter what part of it you refer >to or who you exclude. The UN is made up of all sorts of >"capitalist pigs" "crazy pinkos" "islamofacists" "US puppets" >or however else you would like to insult them. dont suddenly >become their buddies now.

The world is made up of such groups...I believe in democracy. So yes I do think that UN decisions come from a higher moral ground than those of a more limited group, like the 5 most powerful, for example. I am not the 'buddy', as you put it, of any group other than those that represent my interests. But I believe that since there is disagreement with all those others, a forum that includes all of them and then applies some democratic principles to forming an agreement is superior to having it all decided by non-elected Whitehouse advisors. I thoroughly agree that regimes I despise should have representation. My only real qualm with the UN is that the democracy is not proportionally representative. And vetos can be wielded only by a few. But watered down democracy is often a stepping stone to more/better democracy.

>- Yes why not? Why should you care less if people are >going to be opressed across an ocean or need more >bullets to protect them.
>poor vietnamese they were lambs to the slaughter. Thanks >to the chineese and the north vietnamese.

Do you deny that the US army/Air force killed hundreds of thousands? Why should I care? Almost impossible to answer that - I guess because I have compassion.

>Use the word if you like as long as you know what it means

Dude i just use words to convey ideas....i don't really care what it says in the dictionary, so long as people understand me. Invasion implies an unwanted outside military attack. Yes I suppose there are often a few toadies that liked it. I suppose hookers made more money from GIs than from the Viet Cong. If 'helping a faction' makes one of the biggest wars in history look nicer to you, then help yourself - it wasn't me that wanted to get into the semantics.

>Are you suggesting it would have lost a war against kuwait ? Anyway they were weak because we put sanctions on >them. that was a mistake because for them to be effective >they would have had to have existed forever perpetually >making the iraqis suffer.

Yes I think they wouldn't have beaten even Kuwait in a war, in the state they were in. Kuwait openly said they didn't fear them, and didn't want the US to crush them.
Yes it was sanctions that did it. Yes they sucked. What was wrong with a settlement? A decision that Iraq had suffered enough for what they did in 1991? An end to all the hostility? Everyone wanted that except the US and Israel. God knows what Britain gets out of it - it was and still is extremely unpopular over there.

>We mean germany when it invaded the rhineland (ie the >no fly zone in iraq) or chekslovakia (streaching it now but >maybe kuwait)

In a tiny microcosm there is some comparison....Iraq once was an aggressive country. And I think Gulf war 1 had a lot of justification, although I think many of the things done were reprehensible, such as using depleted uranium, bombing sanitation and water utilities, bridges and so on.

But we are talking about Gulf war 2 aren't we? No comparison with Germany and Rhineland there, unless after invading Rhineland they had been crushed completely and had 10 years of sanctions imposed. At that point, after keeping a low profile for about 10 years, whilst desperatly trying to hold onto some pissly weaponry supplies if the allies had decided to invade Germany, then we might have a similar situation to what happened this year. And it would have much less support than opposition to the Nazis did. For good reason.

>> Iraq may have been a regional superpower back in the >old days when it had protection and supply from the US.

>It is Irrelevant why.

It's not irrelevant. The fact that the US was Iraq's major sponsor for it's Gulf aggression is vitally relevant to the history of the region. It shows the depth of hypocrisy in the sanctimonious criticisms of the Saddam regime. Especially when we consider that the US establishment now were even the same actual people that were involved - there are plenty of photos of Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam after selling him chemical weapons. Sorry if I have a memory!

> > Certainly a threat to it's own very weak neighbors. Not >much of a threat to the US

> - Same with Germany until VERY shortly before poland >and it was still a ways from beating the US even at its peak.

Hard to say. The Japanese dragged the US into the war. If they hadn't joined in then, they would have still been very weak by the time Hitler had conquered all of Europe (if he could have pulled it off - who knows?). And the Germans could have developed nukes too - they were working on it. They were working on long range missiles and had the leading edge too. I think that America was somewhat threatened by WW2. I continue to maintain that it was much much more of a threat than a near-death Iraq, and therefore irrelevant as a comparison.

> - would you prefer the US lost a thousand extra people >just to make you feel it was a "fair fight"?

Well it would seem like a fair fight if that happened - although possibly closer to 10,000 if you want to include all the civilian deaths - check out http://www.iraqbodycount.net/bodycount.htm if you don't believe me. As it is, it looks exactly like what it was - a violent cakewalk.

> - some would have said the same of germany pre WWII

U can't give up this comparison can you? OK some fools might have said that Hitler was no threat to Europe. But the main reason he wasn't stopped was because the other countries were TOO WEAK. The Russians were only just emerging as an industrial nation, the English were in the grip of the depression (as was the US), and the French simply had a lamentably bad defence strategy of building a big wall, that didn't quite surround their country. None of this applies to the Iraq situation.

>- you havent really backed up the "hardly" claim. As to the rest where you sort of support my point have you forgoten that military expenditure is a hall mark of facism?

It is one indicator. I don't think it's sufficient, otherwise you would have to call the US a facism, since it has the biggest expenditure in the history of man.

My 'hardly' is backed up by the fact that it was a depression. I personally think a much better, more lasting and humane response to the depression was what the US brought in with the New Deal. I think generally that the government taxing a lot and spending it on social services will boost an economy that is flagging. A big military is another way of redistributing wealth, which will often end the ridiculous excesses that capitalism can fall into. It is, however, a bad way, because you need to use the military all the time to justify it. That inevitably results in waste, death and misery. If WW2 could have been avoided, it should have.

>- What do the anarcists say it is when the military builds up >and the countries move into production mode and things >get sacrificed to the high god of production? do I hear the
>word facism? you you got it! but of course the US and >britain do a half baked version a facist country can do it ?more "efficiently".

US and Britain did actually win the war, you know. I think this 'fascism is more efficient' thing is just a right-wing mantra sometimes. Why are all the world's wealthiest countries democracies? Fascism is full of inefficiencies of it's own kind.

>> Seriously, now u r starting to scare me. There is >absolutely no end to the right you have claimed to waste >everyone here.

>- the things preventing people from doing it are the same

Lets hope so. You mean it's all just talk and the US doesn't really mean to waste everyone they can? You've been proved wrong once this year....lets hope it doesn't continue.

>- Because you iunderstand someone does not mean you cant oppose them anyway. Understanding is just a measure of your intelligence. not a measure of their morality.

Agreed. We differ on how to oppose them though - i favour the carrot, and u seem to like the stick. U never get kicked if you use a carrot.

>Here is the scenario
>Europe 1930 somthing chamberlin looses the elections to >pres bill wilson. Bill immediatly starts disarming inoorder >to set a good example for germany. "If we dont disarm we >will be hypocrites to tell germany to stop attacking people!" >a nice catch cry it is.
>germany agrees and starts disarming
>1940 somthing germany nukes london with 50 nukes that >it doesnt have and overruns russia which fighting valiently >with no western support is unable to hold out.
>1950 somthing new president of the US Mr Ben willson >notes that the US must abandon nuclear weapons or else >germany wont disarm.

Prime Minister Wilson (he couldn't be the US president since he wasn't born there) probably wouldn't follow a much different course vis a vis the Germans than what actually happened in the 1930s.

However, if he was around in the 20s he might have averted WW2 altogether. He would have ended the stupid and bitterly resented sanctions on Germany. He would have ended the depression through taxation reform and the introduction of a safety net. He would have engaged with the League of Nations as a forum not to impose aggressive sanctions on a few temporarily weaker nations, but rather as a way of developing closer economic and military relations with them. Britain would still be the world's formost superpower, and would be entering into and dominating a European Union which would surpass the US in industrial might. Nuclear weapons would be hypothesized but nobody would have tried it, seeing no point in their existence. Russia and the EU would be on very good terms, as they would have allowed the communist experiment to progress unhindered by war - it may even have worked, possibly transforming into socialism. Or collapsed back to democratic capitalism. The US would be an industrial powerhouse, without needing an enormous miltiary to drain it much of it's vitality. Asia would be similarly prosperous.

Scenario 2 1990s-present
President Scottie defeats Saddam convincingly, thrusting the iraqi army from Kuwait. He explicitly forces the military not to bomb civilian targets, nor use depleted uranium. Saddam is undefeated but humiliated and contained. Rather than then imposing crippling sanctions, he settles for oil reparations to the tune of somewhere near whatever Kuwait lost, and what the military venture cost. Iraq is able to afford this. A military base is maintained in Kuwait, as a constant reminder to Saddam not to try it again. A huge uprising in Iraq, supplied with american hardware overthrows Saddam, and installs a democratic government. This government enters into talks with the US for closer economic relations. Cheap oil continues to flow from the region, and eventually the american military presence is withdrawn as the region becomes more peaceful.

I suggest disarming the most armed countries last.
Why?
>well A) it is easier - big countries can encourage small countries to disarm encouraging big countries to do it is alot harder
>B) if you take away the military strength of china and the US and other regional powers you will create an imbalance - that is all of the deals that were based on power will have to be renegotiated. the stronger country will find that hard to accept and sometiems it will result in war.
>C) Total imbalance means 1- war is unlikely 2- if t does happen it is over fast.
>D) US and the EU are unlikely to try to take over the whole world. If they disarm due to social pressure It is hard to say the same of the next group of countries. So you can lean on US/EU while you have the chance it wont last forever

It's definitely and interesting question as to what is the best road to disarmament.. I'm not so sure of myself about this question. If we think of the disarmament of civil society, it is usually imposed by the most powerful, who hang on to all the guns/legions/whatever. That does require conquest though. I think in some cases that a laying down of arms can be something that is mutually agreed on, and followed through. It has to be done step by step though, and to a clear plan. I suggest the stronger nations first, because they have the least to lose by laying down some arms. They still have heaps. Still plenty enough for a deterrent.

It would be very unusual for things to happen this way though. Bertrand Russell's observation was that humans never have behaved this way in history, and he guessed in about 1930 that one day the US or a US/British alliance would take over the world. This seems to be the vision of the Administration..

But just because it is unusual doesn't make it wrong. Perhaps if the most powerful humans in the world decided to change the rules and not act like our primitive ancestors, things would be better. This is a general vision of the left, I think.

> The world is made up of such groups...I believe in democracy. So yes I do think that UN decisions come from a higher moral ground than those of a more limited group, like the 5 most powerful, for example.

If they were all democratic that would make sense but if they are not democratic then you are just arbitrarily giving lets say the president of china 1 billion votes and the president of some african state maybe 10 million votes that they will of course block vote with.
If they were all democratic well sure its hard to have a moral argument against that except for working out a decent the system of representation.

> Do you deny that the US army/Air force killed hundreds of thousands? Why should I care? Almost impossible to answer that - I guess because I have compassion.

- Do you deny that the north vietnamese and the chineese killed alot of people also? should not an attempt have been made to stop that or was it "A" OK? We know what Mao was up to. Do the current thai's and malaysians wish the US had just let the chinese roll through south east asia unopposed?

> Invasion implies an unwanted outside military attack.

- ugh I am sorry then you have chosen the wrong word. the US were invited by the official representitives of south vietnam.

read below
"Civil war took place in Vietnam and Diem, leader of South Vietnam asked for assistance from the United States. Under Eisenhower, 650 military advisors went to Vietnam. President Kennedy increased the number to 15,500. President Johnson was swayed by his foreign policy advisors, believing the United States had an obligation to battle Communism. He, therefore, escalated the war by having Congress pass the Gulf of
Tonkin Resolution allowing the president to take all necessary measures."

Note in the above that one of the first step was the official representitive of south vietnam ASKING for help. Soon you will be running around complaining about the US invasion of thailand because they have a base there.
The US was even polite enough to have all sorts of restrictions on the operations of its forces.

> Yes they sucked. What was wrong with a settlement? A decision that Iraq had suffered enough for what they did in 1991? An end to all the hostility?

I would have been OK with that. except Iraq (saddam) didnt seem to want a settlement. Sadam was making pleanty of money as it was so I am not entirely surprised.

>> But we are talking about Gulf war 2 aren't we? No comparison with Germany and Rhineland there.

- UM turn a couple of pages back in your history book. Germany WAS crushed and it DID have er about 20 years of being slapped around by the allies. twice as long as iraq. However the problem is not really their physical threat it is A) that the leadership is a threat to its own people
B) that he is a fruit cake so you could leave the sanctions and kill many people slowly or you could lift them and let him rebuild his military until he attacked someone again.
frankly a war to get rid of him kills alot less people than many years of sanctions until he dies of natural causes.

>> It's not irrelevant. The fact that the US was Iraq's major sponsor for it's Gulf aggression is vitally relevant to the history of the region.

- but not relevant to any decision we would make now. I could debate technicalities here but really it is irrelevant. It is a well known accounting mistake when people look at their past commitments and throw good money after bad so to speak. the initial investment may have been a mistake but now that you know its a mistake it is worse than a mistake to continue to suport it.

>> It shows the depth of hypocrisy in the sanctimonious criticisms of the Saddam regime.

- that too is irrelevant. unless you are saying that if you were hypocritical in the past you must continue to be hypocritical

> Especially when we consider that the US establishment now were even the same actual people that were involved

Oh your saying if a person makes a mistake he has to continue making mistakes until he dies.. er.. no sorry that one doesnt fly either.

> Well it would seem like a fair fight if that happened - although possibly closer to 10,000 if you want to include all the civilian deaths - check out
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/bodycount.htm if you don't

- I know the site however do you know how he collected those figures? if you believe him it is because you havent seen his origional data he is well known for taking the largest estimate then double and tripple counting and then rounding up.
Besides that this the actual death rate is a low death rate for the conquest of a country. the US tried not to kill as many people as it could have we all know that.

> OK some fools might have said that Hitler was no threat to Europe. But the main reason he wasn't stopped was because the other countries were TOO WEAK.

Too weak? germany was getting relatively stronger constantly until they got tied up in russia. there is no such thing as "too weak" when you are stringer than your enemy.

> It is one indicator. I don't think it's sufficient, otherwise you would have to call the US a facism, since it has the biggest expenditure in the history of man.

- biggest expenditure total but that because its the biggest country (GDP) you are using the wrong point of comparison and you know it.

> I personally think a much better, more lasting and humane response to the depression was what the US brought in with the New Deal.

- I totally agree with you on the humane part but not on the lasting side. Facism was only stopped by military defeat. How has the USA compared to the "fake democracies" of east asia in economic growth since the US started its "new deal"?

> I think generally that the government taxing a lot and spending it on social services will boost an economy that is flagging.

- Dont assume I'm anti tax. tax is our friend :)

>> US and Britain did actually win the war, you know. I think this 'fascism is more efficient' thing is just a right-wing mantra sometimes. Why are all the world's wealthiest countries democracies?

- I am a long way from right wing. I jsut dont know if I want to divert this onto tax and social policy. I just think you should not underestimate your enemy that is the fast track to getting your ass kicked. You also should not confuse what is good or right or moral and what is efficient or resilient or strong. there is no reason why they should match except within the head of a person who forces them to match due to cognitive dissonance.

>> Lets hope so. You mean it's all just talk and the US doesn't really mean to waste everyone they can? You've been proved wrong once this year....lets hope it doesn't continue.

- I didnt say they can't "waste" Iraq. There is no proof there besides aren't all the leftists saying they will get kicked out of iraq? Cant you get your stories straight?
But check how expensive it is politically and economically to try to rebuild iraq and look like the good guy and yet they are doing it anyway. A proper evil empire would flatten their enemy and get out except to leave a few cronies in there to bleed them of their oil.

> Agreed. We differ on how to oppose them though - i favour the carrot, and u seem to like the stick. U never get kicked if you use a carrot.

hmm what carrots are you planning on offering? You seem to be under the impression that being nice to everyone will mean that evil people never appear. trust me not all the people who get killed in the world are evil an awful lot of them are innocent people who never did anything to deserve it. They just got in the way of some one who wasn't so nice.

-----Haha Mr Wilson sorry you were not elected that early you got in after chamberlin had already screwed it up. I would have done the same things as you probably except If the Nazi came to power anyway i would still have kicked their ass. Oh and I would have built nukes anyway because do you really think pakistain and india built nukes because britain has them? they buit them so they can make threatening gestures at each other all the time (but not to actually use them interestingly enough).

> the communist experiment to progress unhindered by war - it may even have worked.

- haha haha er NO best you could have got would have been russia becoming like china.

-as to the scottie scenario. President scottie might have made sure sadam was out of power.

> I suggest the stronger nations first, because they have the least to lose by laying down some arms. They still have heaps. Still plenty enough for a deterrent.

- Oh sure the US can lay some arms down as long as the balance of power remains basically the same.

Heh, this forum seems to have become our personal one-on-one. Ah well, here goes.

>If they were all democratic that would make sense but if >they are not democratic then you are just arbitrarily giving >lets say the president of china 1 billion votes and the >president of some african state maybe 10 million votes >that they will of course block vote with.
>If they were all democratic well sure its hard to have a >moral argument against that except for working out a >decent the system of representation.

Once again, I favour reform within the UN. But I still think it's the best international forum we have. Nothing else has the formality required. Practically speaking, there is no alternative other than ad-hoc alliances with no formal processes at all. Or military alliances like NATO which only include some groups and don't deal with non-military matters.

>- Do you deny that the north vietnamese and the chineese >killed alot of people also? should not an attempt have >been made to stop that or was it "A" OK? We know what >Mao was up to. Do the current thai's and malaysians wish >the US had just let the chinese roll through south east asia >unopposed?

I don't deny it. I am not saying that the 'other side' from the US was the good guys. But it was a stupid war to have, a waste of lots of life. Most of the negotiations of it were done outside the UN.

As to what the Thais and malaysians think, I don't know. Perhaps they could have done something about it themselves? I don't know any malaysians, but the Thais I have spoken to opposed the US involvement, except in so far as US bases there contribute to their own local economy, particularly their sex industry. Generally they seem quite politically apathetic, and probably couldn't have cared less if they were exploited capitalists or exploited communists.

>> Invasion implies an unwanted outside military attack.

>- ugh I am sorry then you have chosen the wrong word. the >US were invited by the official representitives of south >vietnam.

Still seems like sophistry to me. You may choose whatever 'official representatives' you like to invite your war to look like it wasn't an attempted invasion.

>Note in the above that one of the first step was the official >representitive of south vietnam ASKING for help. Soon you >will be running around complaining about the US invasion >of thailand because they have a base there.
>The US was even polite enough to have all sorts of >restrictions on the operations of its forces.

DId the 'official representatives' of North Vietnam ask to have napalm dropped on them? I don't complain about the Thai bases because the population of Thailand don't seem to object to them very much. Okinawa is a different matter.

>I would have been OK with that. except Iraq (saddam) didnt >seem to want a settlement. Sadam was making pleanty of >money as it was so I am not entirely surprised.

Saddam had been suing for peace ever since Gulf War 1. He didn't want sanctions, and he didn't want war. He tried quite hard to avoid it, short of just handing himself in. The whole justification for this 'Saddam wasn't complying' line was the completely unfounded (so far) claim that he was developing WMDs.

>- UM turn a couple of pages back in your history book. >Germany WAS crushed and it DID have er about 20 years >of being slapped around by the allies. twice as long as >iraq. However the problem is not really their physical threat >it is A) that the leadership is a threat to its own people
>B) that he is a fruit cake so you could leave the sanctions >and kill many people slowly or you could lift them and let >him rebuild his military until he attacked someone again.
>frankly a war to get rid of him kills alot less people than >many years of sanctions until he dies of natural causes.

I would hardly say Germany was crushed after WW1. And the slapping around you refer to resulted in WW2, hardly a good result for the allies.

As to Saddam being a fruitcake, I could say the same of Bush. Saddam may have been cruel but not suicidal. Frankly a war was unnecessary, as weapons inspections had destroyed the whole WMD threat, and there was just no justification for sanctions or invasion left.

>>> It's not irrelevant. The fact that the US was Iraq's major >sponsor for it's Gulf aggression is vitally relevant to the >history of the region.

>- but not relevant to any decision we would make now. I >could debate technicalities here but really it is irrelevant. It >is a well known accounting mistake when people look at
>their past commitments and throw good money after bad >so to speak. the initial investment may have been a >mistake but now that you know its a mistake it is worse >than a mistake to continue to suport it.

You are being selective about what technicalites matter - for some reason the US invasion of Vietnam was technically not an invasion, but its just technical to call the US treatment of Iraq hypocritical.

>>> It shows the depth of hypocrisy in the sanctimonious >criticisms of the Saddam regime.

>- that too is irrelevant. unless you are saying that if you >were hypocritical in the past you must continue to be >hypocritical

It is hypocritical to conveniently forget your own involvement in the past. If you wish to apportion blame and guilt to someone for an action, all the causes of the actions must be considered, including your own ones.

>Oh your saying if a person makes a mistake he has to >continue making mistakes until he dies.. er.. no sorry that >one doesnt fly either.

Good to finally hear u admit the US made the mistake in arming up Saddam. Now u r suggesting they made amends to the region and the iraqi people by invading? Funny that the people of the region don't agree with you.

I was saying that these people are hypocritical to use Saddam's actions as justification for action when they themselves had a large hand in those actions.

>- I know the site however do you know how he collected >those figures? if you believe him it is because you havent >seen his origional data he is well known for taking the >largest estimate then double and tripple counting and then >rounding up.

I have actually checked out a lot of his data and found it pretty much to be as he had reported - he gives and upper and lower bound.

>Besides that this the actual death rate is a low death rate >for the conquest of a country. the US tried not to kill as >many people as it could have we all know that.

Three cheers for only killing thousands of innocent civilians. You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs! I guess Bin Laden has similar reasoning.

Too weak? germany was getting relatively stronger constantly until they got tied up in russia. there is no such thing as "too weak" when you are stringer than your enemy.

No, the allies were too weak to stop him. Stalin was delaying all he could to give himself time to arm up. The Brits and French were in a depression, and weren't spending tons of cash on military.

>- biggest expenditure total but that because its the biggest >country (GDP) you are using the wrong point of >comparison and you know it.

I don't think so. Current estimations are that the US has as much military force as the rest of the world put together. But it does not have anywhere near half the world's GDP. Anyway, I think total amounts are as important as percentages when u r dealing with the kinds of hardware the US has. Obviously it is much more than enough.

>- I totally agree with you on the humane part but not on the >lasting side. Facism was only stopped by military defeat. >How has the USA compared to the "fake democracies" of >east asia in economic growth since the US started its >"new deal"?

Still the biggest economy in the world, as u point out. But also, these countries had a long way to go, they leverage huge growth off being hugely backward. All of the technology they need has already been developed at the expense of the rest of the world.

Besides that, what makes u think America is now so much less of a 'fake democracy', as you put it. Your NAFTA seems to resemble the economic structure of SE Asia quite closely. Most of these countries have representative democracy. The only thing u guys seem to have left over them is the guns and (currently) most of the money.

>- Dont assume I'm anti tax. tax is our friend :)

Agreed. So long as it isn't blown on stupid expenses that give us nothing back except cadavers.

>- I am a long way from right wing. I jsut dont know if I want >to divert this onto tax and social policy. I just think you >should not underestimate your enemy that is the fast track >to getting your ass kicked.

Agreed. But to overestimate your enemy enormously is just plain old paranoia.

>You also should not confuse >what is good or right or moral and what is efficient or >resilient or strong. there is no reason why they should >match except within the head of a person who forces them >to match due to cognitive dissonance.

Heh, I think this kind of dissonance resounds in the White House right now....but the confusion goes even further. Not only do they confuse 'moral + resilient = powerful', but also 'what we do is moral + resilient' .

I don't personally argue that moral resilience = strength. But I also don't feel that you have proved the contrapositve - that immoral britteness = strength. I take the USSR collapse as a good example of this case failing.

>- I didnt say they can't "waste" Iraq. There is no proof there >besides aren't all the leftists saying they will get kicked out >of iraq? Cant you get your stories straight?

lol, it's not my story but I guess I'm a bit of a soft leftist. I also don't get down on SUVs or Genetic Engineering. I reckon the US can hold Iraq almost indefinitely from a military point of view (they still nukes don't they?), but maybe it won't seem worth holding soon.

>But check how expensive it is politically and economically >to try to rebuild iraq and look like the good guy and yet they >are doing it anyway. A proper evil empire would flatten their >enemy and get out except to leave a few cronies in there to >bleed them of their oil.

Sounds like the current script! And this economic expense of rebuilding (which is the only political expense, in every other way everyone thinks that the americans SHOULD rebuild Iraq) is really quite lame. Most of it goes straight into military expenditure to keep the place oppressed, very little into bridge building, sewerage services etc. Which the US destroyed in the first place, incidentally.

>hmm what carrots are you planning on offering? You seem >to be under the impression that being nice to everyone will >mean that evil people never appear.

I'm no Chamberlain, don't get me wrong. But I also think there has to be a pretty strong reason to justify self defence. 'He looked at me funny' isn't enough. 'We think they may have a weapons program despite the reports of our own intelligence services' isn't enough.

>- haha haha er NO best you could have got would have >been russia becoming like china.

Might have been better than what they had. Hard to say though....the Russians were largely bankrupted by their military needs. But I have to say I wouldn't have wanted communism myself.

>-as to the scottie scenario. President scottie might have >made sure sadam was out of power.

A compassionate president scottie wouldn't have given him crucial support in the Iran-Iraq war, that's for sure.

>- Oh sure the US can lay some arms down as long as the >balance of power remains basically the same.

Even a token gesture would start to make a lot of difference. Also it would cost u less.

the problem with your :vietnam wasnt invaded: formulation is that it is premised upon the idea that an invitation extended by a puppet is legitimate.

here is something chomsky had to say on the matter:

:Consider the following facts. In 1962, the United States attacked South Vietnam. In that year, President John F. Kennedy sent the U.S. Air Force to attack rural South Vietnam, where more than 80 percent of the population lived. This was part of a program intended to drive several million people into concentration camps (called "strategic hamlets") where they would be surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards. This would "protect" these people from the guerrillas whom, we conceded, they were largely supporting.

The direct U.S. attack against South Vietnam followed our support for the French attempt to reconquer their former colony, our disruption of the 1954 "peace process," and a terrorist war against the South Vietnamese population. This terror had already left some 75,000 dead while evoking domestic resistance, supported from the northern half of the country after 1959, that threatened to bring down the regime that the U.S. had established. In the following years, the U.S. continued to resist every attempt at peaceful settlement, and in 1964 began to plan the ground invasion of South Vietnam. The land assault took place in early 1965, accompanied by the bombing of North Vietnam and an intensification of the bombing of the south, at triple the level of the more publicized bombing of the north. The U.S. also extended the war to Laos and Cambodia.

The U.S. protested that it was invited in, but as the Economist recognized in the case of Afghanistan (never in the case of Vietnam), "an invader is an invader unless invited in by a government with some claim to legitimacy," and outside the world of newspeak, the client regime established by the U.S. had no more legitimacy than the Afghan regime established by the USSR. Nor did the U.S. regard this government as having any legitimacy; in fact, it was regularly overthrown and replaced when its leaders appeared to be insufficiently enthusiastic about U.S. plans to escalate the terror. Throughout the war, the U.S. openly recognized that a political settlement was impossible, for the simple reason that the "enemy" would win handily in a political competition -- which the U.S. therefore deemed unacceptable.:

>If they were all democratic that would make sense but if they are not democratic then you are just arbitrarily giving lets say the president >of china 1 billion votes and the president of some african state maybe 10 million votes that they will of course block vote with.
>If they were all democratic well sure its hard to have a moral argument against that except for working out a decent the system of >representation.

Again I say I favour reform of the UN. But until then, what else do we have that is better? Let's hear your actual real existing example of a better forum for decisions on world matters of peace and security. I also favour reform of the voting system in the US, but I prefer the democracy they have which is flawed, jerrymandered, has low participation, is not proportional, is plutocratic etc. I prefer it to no democratic system at all.

> Do you deny that the north vietnamese and the chineese killed alot of people also? should not an attempt have been made to stop that or was >it "A" OK? We know what Mao was up to. Do the current thai's and malaysians wish the US had just let the chinese roll through south east >asia unopposed?

I've never said the north vietnamese or the chinese were the 'good guys'. But I still think the Vietnam war was a stupid waste of life, completely avoidable by the US. And we don't know what Mao was up to.

I don't know what the Malays and Thais thought about it all. They have their own armies for self defence. I don't know any Malaysians, but every Thai I have ever met says the Vietnam war was a stupid thing for the americans to do. They themselves profited from it from the dollars flowing from GIs in bases in the region, but mainly in their sex industry, which they usually don't regard as a great boon to their civilization.

>- ugh I am sorry then you have chosen the wrong word. the US were invited by the official representitives of south vietnam.

I don't really care what 'official representatives' you can drag out to invite you into a war. The north Vietnamese did not invite the americans to drop napalm on them, and the majority of the vietnamese population did not want the war either.

>Note in the above that one of the first step was the official representitive of south vietnam ASKING for help. Soon you will be running >around complaining about the US invasion of thailand because they have a base there.
>The US was even polite enough to have all sorts of restrictions on the operations of its forces.

I don't complain about the Thai bases because the Thais don't complain about them. Okinawa is a different matter. But if the US starts killing hundreds of thousands of Thais, whether some 'official representative' asks them or not, I'll start calling it an invasion, whatever your apologist dictionary says.

>I would have been OK with that. except Iraq (saddam) didnt seem to want a settlement. Sadam was making pleanty of money as it was so I am >not entirely surprised.

Saddam was trying to settle the entire time from the end of Gulf War 1. He didn't want the sanctions and he didn't want a war. He may have been a cruel tyrant, but he was not suicidal. He complied with most of the impositions, as we can see from the almost complete absence of the WMDs that were the casus belli.

> UM turn a couple of pages back in your history book. Germany WAS crushed and it DID have er about 20 years of being slapped around by the >allies. twice as long as iraq. However the problem is not really their physical threat it is A) that the leadership is a threat to its own >people
>B) that he is a fruit cake so you could leave the sanctions and kill many people slowly or you could lift them and let him rebuild his >military until he attacked someone again.
>frankly a war to get rid of him kills alot less people than many years of sanctions until he dies of natural causes.

I wouldn't have said Germany was crushed in WW1, and if you wished to actually read those intervening pages in the history book you'd see that the 'slapping around' that the allies did during the interwar period is often cited as a major cause of WW2. At some point you are going to have to give up on this increasingly laughable comparison.

>>> It's not irrelevant. The fact that the US was Iraq's major sponsor for it's Gulf aggression is vitally relevant to the history of the >region.

>- but not relevant to any decision we would make now. I could debate technicalities here but really it is irrelevant. It is a well known >accounting mistake when people look at their past commitments and throw good money after bad so to speak. the initial investment may have >been a mistake but now that you know its a mistake it is worse than a mistake to continue to suport it.

You might like it to be irrelevant, but that doesn't make it so. If you want to talk about the crimes of Saddam as justification for an aggressive invasion, you have to look carefully at those crimes and ask how they happened. The US/UK support of Saddam during almost all of his major atrocities is far from irrelevant, it is in fact the cause of a lot of it. I am NOT saying the US should continue to support Saddam, but there is obviously an enormous middle ground between that and invading.

>>> It shows the depth of hypocrisy in the sanctimonious criticisms of the Saddam regime.

>- that too is irrelevant. unless you are saying that if you were hypocritical in the past you must continue to be hypocritical

You are continuing to by hypocritical. The past hypocrisy was to support Saddam, lying about what a good guy he was, whilst he gassed Kurds, attacked Iran etc. The present hypocrisy is to ignore that you gave that support, saying his track record is of inhumane cruelty. You are trying to twist something that is not particularly unclear.

>> Especially when we consider that the US establishment now were even the same actual people that were involved

>Oh your saying if a person makes a mistake he has to continue making mistakes until he dies.. er.. no sorry that one doesnt fly either.

I'm not saying that, even though the establishment seems to be trying to prove it. I say that if they make mistakes, they should make amends. You seem to think they should just make some even bigger mistakes to hide their old mistakes.

>- I know the site however do you know how he collected those figures? if you believe him it is because you havent seen his origional data he >is well known for taking the largest estimate then double and tripple counting and then rounding up.
>Besides that this the actual death rate is a low death rate for the conquest of a country. the US tried not to kill as many people as it >could have we all know that.

I was suspicious what you say might be true so I checked out what they posted on a good selection, and found it to be very accurate. They give upper and lower bounds, after all. Choose the lower bounds if you like - 7,840 is still somewhere around 2 x September 11, which was considered such an outrageously shocking toll of innocent life. With good reason. It is. Just because they are coffee coloured camel jockeys or whatever you want to say doesn't mean they aren't both innocent, and worthy of huge moral consideration. Bin Laden would be a friend of the kind of reasoning you use here, I am not.

>Too weak? germany was getting relatively stronger constantly until they got tied up in russia. there is no such thing as "too weak" when you >are stringer than your enemy.

I meant the allies were too weak, sorry if it was unclear. The allies were too weak to stop Germany in it's initial conquests, even if they had wanted to. Britain/France were in the depth of economic depression, and RUssia was only just emerging from third world peasantry. It was arming as fast as it could, but could easily have fallen if Germany had attacked them earlier. I think by 1930 the die was cast, and the allies acted almost as rationally as they could. But comparing this past Gulf war with WW2 is farcical. Why do you persist? 50 million lives were lost in WW2, as compared to around 15,000 in this latest one. Germany was a military superpower. Are you simply at a loss for noble examples of American military ventures, and want to squeeze the life out of the one war that most of the world thinks that the good guys won?

>- biggest expenditure total but that because its the biggest country (GDP) you are using the wrong point of comparison and you know it.

What point of comparison do you favour? I'm only referring to the fact that america has between 1/3 and 1/2 of all the world's military power. It's GDP is nowhere near that large. But proportional counts are not any more meaningful anyway - the preponderance of power the US has is so far in excess of what it needs, that it is silly to say that it isn't armed to the teeth. An absolute reckoning of the arsenal is a valid count. But I didn't say America was a fascism anyway, i just questioned saying that having untold guns made you automatically into one.

>- I totally agree with you on the humane part but not on the lasting side. Facism was only stopped by military defeat. How has the USA >compared to the "fake democracies" of east asia in economic growth since the US started its "new deal"?

Still the world's biggest economy, at the last count. That's even during a 'recession'. Those other countries growth rate is always going to be able to kick america's arse, because they are starting from such a low point. They are leveraging off existing technology without having to put the enormous cost of inventing any of it in. They will naturally taper off, as did Japan, once they start being innovators, rather than just copiers.

As for the wonderful economic success of fascism, tell me why it really hasn't worked anywhere else? Like in Argentina for instance? I repeat my point that Germany used military expenditure as one way out of depression, at a time when other countries weren't prepared to. Once they realized they had to, they were able to beat Germany without reverting to fascism. I really don't think it is sustainable, as evidenced by the collapse of the British economy after the war. Constant military expenditure only works if you are in a state of constant war (and winning).

>- Dont assume I'm anti tax. tax is our friend :)

It certainly isn't always the enemy. I think it can be the enemy, especially when it is unfairly spent on unpopular things like wars.

>- I am a long way from right wing. I jsut dont know if I want to divert this onto tax and social policy. I just think you should not >underestimate your enemy that is the fast track to getting your ass kicked. You also should not confuse what is good or right or moral and >what is efficient or resilient or strong. there is no reason why they should match except within the head of a person who forces them to >match due to cognitive dissonance.

Overestimating the enemy is simply unjustified paranoia. Have you surrounded your house in a huge concrete wall and put yourself in a deep underground concrete bunker? Do you carry a gas mask with you? Or have you come to the obvious conclusion that really no-one is going to bomb/gas you? Only people who ask for it need that kind of stuff, and the best way out is to stop asking for it. Israel take heed.

I don't confuse good/right/moral with efficient/resilient/strong. Nor do I confuse bad/wrong/immoral with efficient/resilient/strong.

>- I didnt say they can't "waste" Iraq. There is no proof there besides aren't all the leftists saying they will get kicked out of iraq? Cant >you get your stories straight?

It's not my story. Call me a false leftist. I don't have dope-inspired visions that Iraq is any match for the US militarily. The US can stay as long as they like in Iraq, hell they've still got untold more weaponry to chuck. Still got all those Nukes I assume?

>But check how expensive it is politically and economically to try to rebuild iraq and look like the good guy and yet they are doing it >anyway. A proper evil empire would flatten their enemy and get out except to leave a few cronies in there to bleed them of their oil.

Sounds very much like the current script. Only a minority don't see the US as the bad guy, I'm sorry. Very sorry really, because the US really does have a lot to offer, if only it could wake up to it's own blindness.

>hmm what carrots are you planning on offering? You seem to be under the impression that being nice to everyone will mean that evil people >never appear. trust me not all the people who get killed in the world are evil an awful lot of them are innocent people who never did >anything to deserve it. They just got in the way of some one who wasn't so nice.

Carrots like an end to sanctions, economic cooperation, freedom to cross-immigrate, inclusion into military alliances. I don't think you need to be nice all the time, and I thought Gulf war 1 was somewhat justified. Some reparations could have ended the whole sorry affair.

>- haha haha er NO best you could have got would have been russia becoming like china.

Who knows really? Communist Russia was bankrupted by it's military expenditure. Perhaps it would have transformed into a more democratic form (as it did eventually, and as China is doing now), if it wasn't constantly threatened.

>-as to the scottie scenario. President scottie might have made sure sadam was out of power.

President scottie wouldn't have sold him nerve gas in the first place.

>> I suggest the stronger nations first, because they have the least to lose by laying down some arms. They still have heaps. Still plenty >enough for a deterrent.

>- Oh sure the US can lay some arms down as long as the balance of power remains basically the same.

That's the idea...laying down in proportion. The ultimate hope is that no arms would be needed by anyone, and they'd all be held in trust by the world govt of the people, as a defence against fascism. Long way to go though...but mutual trust is possible - does the US really need defences against Canada? Does NZ really need defences against Australia? Even cooperation between France and Germany seems likely now, who would have thought it 50 years ago? I could see Iran and Iraq having a common interest (they have much in common culturally), and integration between them, if only they weren't encouraged to fight each other all the time. Hell, America would have a lot to gain from US/Cuban cooperation, if only they could give up on their imperialistic ambitions. What do you fear so much?

Looks like I replied twice to the same post saying almost the same stuff!

aaron: the player hater

Pity the rules of your game make no sense.

Ben

>As to what the Thais and malaysians think, I don't know. Perhaps they could have done something about it themselves?

- against china? do the words blood bath mean anything to you?

> But the Thais I have spoken to opposed the US involvement.

- easy to oppose war. We all oppose war. But thailand for example did a lot better than vietnam since the war. the question would be would you want to have lost your king and looked like vietnam or not.

> Generally they seem quite politically apathetic, and probably couldn't have cared less if they were exploited capitalists or exploited communists.

- Hmm some of them yes.

> Still seems like sophistry to me. You may choose whatever 'official representatives' you like to invite your war to look like it wasn't an attempted invasion.

- well in a sense the US is invading thailand right now with its service people but no sensible person would call that invasion. Just like when the us first arrived in south vietnam that was as much an invasion as the service people in thailand.

> DId the 'official representatives' of North Vietnam ask to have napalm dropped on them?

origionally the US had alot of rules of war
you knw -- Don't fire 'til you're fired upon first.
don't give Jane Fonda ammunition.
That firing is from Cambodia -- you can't fire back
leaflets must be dropped over the area of the next operation to warn innocent people
You cant attack noth korea beyond some point
Ok well maybe not all of those but the US did tie its own hands in order to stay the "good guys" And remember that Nth vietnam was the agressor.

>> Okinawa is a different matter.

yeah get out of Okinawa. Pesky americans wasting money you would otherwise spend on buying our goods on protecting okinawa hahahaha.

>> Saddam had been suing for peace ever since Gulf War 1. He didn't want sanctions, and he didn't want war.

- Then why did he act as if he was hiding somthing. south africa did not have trouble egypt did ok iraq just had to be 100% cooperative for a few months and then he could have got back to building his nukes and bioweapons. but oh no.. he had to keep stopping the inspectors and making a pain of himself even when he had already got rid of (or really well hidden) his weapons.

> You are being selective about what technicalites matter - for some reason the US invasion of Vietnam was technically not an invasion, but its just technical to call the US treatment of Iraq hypocritical.

No I am saying future events mater not past events. If the vietnam war was a mistake (which it may have been) that doesnt mean that the US only makes mistakes.

> Good to finally hear u admit the US made the mistake in arming up Saddam.

Yes it probably was a mistake in hind sight but may not have been an irrational decision.

> I was saying that these people are hypocritical to use Saddam's actions as justification for action when they themselves had a large hand in those actions.

-- No it isnt. for example it has been argued that the US in part caused the holocaust but it would be stupid for the US to say.. oh well the holocaust is ok because we dont want to be hypocritical. The holocaust is still a perfectly good reason for opposing the NAZI

> I have actually checked out a lot of his data and found it pretty much to be as he had reported - he gives and upper and lower bound.

Actually I dont know his iraqi ones but I saw an analysis of his afgani ones and it was very badly done.

> Three cheers for only killing thousands of innocent civilians. You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs! I guess Bin Laden has similar reasoning.

- jsut saying that they did try not to kill too many people.

> I don't think so. Current estimations are that the US has as much military force as the rest of the world put together.

Most of the extra spending on military is designed at allowing the US to fight peopel without killing too many innocent people (smart bombs etc) if you did not care you would go the cheep way with "stupid bombs" etc.. or just use one nuke per conflict declare victory and go home.
If the US made itself weaker it would kill more people when it had wars

> SE Asia - Most of these countries have representative democracy..

Just because you have the infrastructure and the elections doesnt mean that there is a democracy.

> And this economic expense of rebuilding is really quite lame.

Hmm why are you (the USA) doing it then? its not as if Bush WANTS to run a massive deficit proping up some middle east country.

> A compassionate president scottie wouldn't have given him crucial support in the Iran-Iraq war, that's for sure.

Probably not I would be more stingy with my support. Still most of the iraqi weapons came from russia france and china did they not?

> Even a token gesture would start to make a lot of difference. Also it would cost u less.

- sure lets do it (hehe fat chance though).

Aaron

> the problem with your :vietnam wasnt invaded: formulation is that it is premised upon the idea that an invitation extended by a puppet is legitimate.

- Iraqs reigeme was also supposed to be a puppet reigeme so his refusal to "alow armies to march back and forth on his ass" was similarly illegitimate.
Your pulling an "america" by declaring reigemes illegitimate when it suits you.
The simple fact is that there were two states and one got invaded and asked for help. In a world where we dont accept that you are allowed to annex anyone you like helping that country is not an "invasion"

scottie--by your definiton of "invasion," the Soviet Union never invaded Afghanistan.

i would respond to your analogy to Iraq, but it was indecipherably cryptic. (i thought you right-wingers believed in RULES--like, for instance, those governing basic grammar, sentence construction, and spelling. but, alas, no.)

your argument about the US trying to spare civilian life in Vietnam is both despicable and laughable. somewhere around three million Vietnamese were killed in the "American War." the US' use of napalm, agent orange and other defoliants, as well as its carpet bombing, massacres (etc etc) belies your lies.

and it's not as if Vietnam were the first or last instance of american barbarity.

your comparison of thailand and vietnam's development is fallacious. thailand didn't have years of war and sanctions waged against it by the world's hyperpower (nor was it ever colonized). it must be remembered that the US' strategy is to not simply destroy movements that the american ruling class deems threatening to its interests; it is equally to punish entire societies for daring to chart a course independent of the hegemon, and in the process, hammer home that resistance is futile.

looking at the facts it appears it was a different situation It appears that a new socialist leader (Amin) was overthrown and killed By a coup backed by Soviet troops.
That is that The soviets moved into afganistan killed the leader and then attacked the rebels.
If the case had been the afgani government seeking help to stop foreign agression from lets say iran I would have had no problem with the soviet move if you can show that to be the case I would be willing to look on their actions more favourably. However at the time they invaded it seems that afganistan was being ruled by a socialist who was seemingly legitmate representitive of afganistain even if he had only recently achieved power and so their invasion was presumably illegitimate since he did not invite them (i assume).
the fact that the soviets (like the americans in vietnam) were unable to win (somewhat against their predictions) does not make the action any better or worse.

>> your argument about the US trying to spare civilian life in Vietnam

- the lesson in relation to that is that lots of people die when you tie your arms behind your back and then enter a war. the lesson in iraq is if you smash them quickly then less people die.
That doesnt mean that vietnam was definitively a nessercary war - it just was not an invasion and it was worse because the US tried to act as people like you wanted it to while still defending south vietnam.
So your logic is incorrect.

>> thailand didn't have years of war and sanctions waged against it by the world's hyperpower (nor was it ever colonized).

- indeed. it also was not invaded by the number three power. of course the US did not plan to invade thailand (except with their base, come on guys they are subsidizing the economy) so that is not an issue, China on the other hand probably did in the long run. They also would have "iced" the royal family I'm afraid that would have gone down REALLY badly.

What is invasion? Scottie, you seem to think it's not invasion if there's some form of 'legitimate' invitation, whilst Aaron and I have been arguing that this is just hegomonic discourse following a time honoured tradition that dates back to the ancient world.

I'll admit it's not a particularly clear concept, mainly because 'invasion' carries a negative connotation, whereas 'liberation' may involve all the same actions and yet carry a positive one.

Where do we agree? What are some 'invasions' that we agree on? It seems so far:

Undisputed invasions:
-Germany in WW2 invaded other European countries and Russia.
-Iraq invaded Kuwait
-The US invaded Iraq in Gulf War 2.


Disputed invasions:
-The US invaded Vietnam.
-The Russians invaded Afganistan
-The North Vietnamese invaded South Vietnam

Undisputed liberations:
-The allies liberated Europe from the Germans in WW2
-The coalition liberated Kuwait from Iraq in Gulf war 1

So far the difference between a liberation and and invasion seems to be this concept of 'legitimate invitation', according to Scottie. The similarity between the two involves the fact of troops operating in territory outside of their own 'legitimate boundaries'. ie Vietnam is outside the US, Afganistan is not in Russia, Kuwait is not in Iraq etc.

Does this distinction hold water? Or is it just an excuse? Is it just cunning diplomat-speak which really makes no difference to the facts at all? Is it, indeed, always possible to paint invasion as liberation, or vice versa, depending on what side you are on? We are beginning to widen our pool of examples - why not go even further?

Were the Jews 'invited' into palestine?
Were the Japanese 'invited' into Manchuria?
Were the Christians 'invited' to liberate the holy lands during the crusades?
Were the americans 'invited' to attack Cuba?
Were the Chinese 'invited' into Vietnam?
Were the English 'invited' into Ireland?

In every case it is possible to see some sort of invitation. Definitely some power group would have wanted it. So the question becomes whether the inviting group has 'legitimacy'.

What is this legitimacy? Is it the existing government? What if there is a civil war? Who is the government then? Is it the will of the people? What if this is different from that of the government? What if the government isn't democratic? What is democracy?

These questions all serve to render the concept of legitimacy very vague. In fact, in the days prior to modern democracy, they were equally vague and just centred around divine authority, birthright, social contracts etc.

The only thing that really seems to lead to an undisputed agreement over legitimacy is a victory. Which makes it very clear that legitimacy is just part of hegemonic language to apologize for war.

My opinion is that legitimacy is almost irrelevant to the discussion, and the simple existence of troops pushing onto foreign soil qualifies an invasion. Our only real question about invasions should be whether they are for the good or not, in which case they become liberations.

Hence I refer to the aliied invasion of Europe as a liberation. It was better that the allies took Europe than Hitler had it. I also refer to Gulf War 1 as a liberation, if the purpose of it was to discourage Iraq from invading it's neighbors.

As to the other invasions, their goodness is not so clear. Were the motivations clearly one-sided, dominated by the ideologies of the invading countries rather than those of the invaded? Was there an intention to plunder resources? Was it in 'self defence'?

In the case of Russians in Afganistan, Japanese in Manchuria, and US in Vietnam, the Christians in the crusades, the Jews in Palestine, it is pretty clear that the wars were over some ideology that the invader did not want to see spreading or an ideology the wanted to spread themselves, rather than the wishes of the actual occupants of the invaded territory.

The Russians wanted to extend their communism, the Japanese wanted to curtail the chinese communism, and provide themselves with plunder, the christians were seeking to halt the spread of Islam, and the US was trying to halt the spread of communism, both in Vietnam and Cuba. The Jews wanted to create a jewish state.

All these cases were pretty much against the wishes of the inhabitants of the region, who usually didn't want to be expendable pawns in a big war of ideologies. This makes these invasions wrong in my eyes.

WW2 and Gulf war 1 are different. They weren't really ideological, but rather wars about self defence. In the case of WW2 it was a matter of survival for England and Russia. Possibly even the US too. Hitler had made it abundantly clear he had global ambitions.
Gulf war 1 was also a war against naked aggression. It wasn't because the Baath party is secular or Iraq is non-democratic or any crap like that. It was because most of the world saw that invasion without any credible pretext is just wrong.

How does this bear on the current invasion - that of US in Iraq? Is it about ideology? Do the Iraqis want it? Was there a case for self defence? Does the invader gain any plunder?

I push that the answers are Yes, No, No, and Yes.

The ideology pushed seems to be a mixture of capitalism and democracy (which are not synonymous).
There are some disputes over whether the Iraqi people wanted it - since no credible polls were taken either before or after the invasion. It is pretty clear that the population of the surrounding region didn't want it, nor the rest of the world.
Tthe self defence case wavers between ridiculous and farcical. If the Russians at the height of their military power didn't have it in them to attack the US, then the weakest country in the middle east certainly doesn't.
As to plunder, you could argue that it costs the US. But then it wasn't the US pushing for the invasion, it was the current establishment. And they so far have gained much plunder, in the form of construction contracts, disruption of arab oil competition, political mileage, the advancement of neoconservative domestic agenda in the US under cover of patriotism.

I only hope that the truth will out, and the plunder will turn into a political cost for the current clique of rich guys running America. To my eyes, that is the only hope for ongoing security and prosperity for the startled masses of both the US and the rest of the world.

> What is this legitimacy? Is it the existing government?

this legitimacy problem is solved every day in international affairs so it is not as big a problem as you imagine. legitimacy must be considered for many more reasons than just whether invasion is possible for example who do you comunicate with on official levels and who makes laws etc.

>> The only thing that really seems to lead to an undisputed agreement over legitimacy is a victory. Which makes it very clear that legitimacy is just part of hegemonic language to apologize for war.

- As i said legitimacy is for the vast majority of the time, a subject of who gets to organize things and who do you talk to on trade and political matters. Very rarely is it applicable to invasion.

> How does this bear on the current invasion - that of US in Iraq? Is it about ideology? Do the Iraqis want it? Was there a case for self defence? Does the invader gain any plunder?

I push that the answers are Partly Yes, Yes, No, and No.

OK as to ideology your argument that it spreads capitalism would seem ot be somewhat based on the last point and runs totally contrary to the previous strategy (sanctions) which was totally against capitalism.
do the iraqis want it? well it would seem they wanted saddam gone (although I am not entirely sure) and now they want the US gone too (just like me and everyone else whether you believe it or not) the problem is while iraqi opinion can be that the US are gods and can pop in and out and make everything right in a day, actually they are not. If the US leaves today the iraqis might get the unexpected concequence of a colapse of their political infrastructure. If that happens who will the US give all their billions to? If a group of people demand that you hand them a live grenade they will still hate you after it goes off. better they hate you for not giving it to them and still have their limbs.
was there a case for self defence? for the US itself?Not really but that is a bit of straw man argument.
does the invader gain any plunder? - No. if you want have a look at the share prices of the companies that are supposed to be making money out of all of this. i think you are likely to find that they are loosing. Besides that if they do benifit you have to show that they for some reason have some advantage in power over all of those big companies that did not benifit. When it comes down to it capitalism is on your side in this issue. it is democracy that is on the other side.

>this legitimacy problem is solved every day in international >affairs so it is not as big a problem as you imagine. >legitimacy must be considered for many more reasons >than just whether invasion is possible for example who do >you comunicate with on official levels and who makes >laws etc.

OK, if it's so obvious, spell it out. All you've said here is legitimacy comes down to who you deal with. That's no definition at all. I know u should deal with the legitimate government, but who are they? If you stop dealing with them do they stop being legitimate? Or if they stop dealing with you? To say it is obvious is to ignore the entire point which questions what it is.

>- As i said legitimacy is for the vast majority of the time, a >subject of who gets to organize things and who do you talk >to on trade and political matters. Very rarely is it applicable >to invasion.

It is always applicatble to invasion, and it is a very political subject itself. For instance, the US may prefer to deal with the english tory party over trade rather than Labour. Does this make Labour irrelevant? Or wrt say Venezuela they may choose to deal on trade matters only with business leaders and and the WTO, ignoring the elected leadership. Does that make it illegitimate?

>OK as to ideology your argument that it spreads capitalism >would seem ot be somewhat based on the last point and >runs totally contrary to the previous strategy (sanctions) >which was totally against capitalism.

Lets be clear - the ideology that is being 'pushed' is democracy + capitalism. Whether this is actually being followed by the establishment is another matter. I can't see running a military dictatorship that gives contracts to buddies as exemplary of either system.

>do the iraqis want it? well it would seem they wanted >saddam gone (although I am not entirely sure) and now >they want the US gone too (just like me and everyone else >whether you believe it or not)

I'm glad to hear it, if a little confused about your position. Did you or did you not support the war? Why then do you want the US out?

>the problem is while iraqi opinion can be that the US are >gods and can pop in and out and make everything right in >a day, actually they are not. If the US leaves today the iraqis >might get the unexpected concequence of a colapse of >their political infrastructure.

I think that only the most foolish history ignorers would say this was unexpected. We can't know for sure whether Iraqis themselves wanted a US invasion, even if we can be reasonably sure they wanted Saddam gone. I suspect that most likely they wanted an end to the sanctions which were linked to Saddam by the US. The sanctions could just have been ended and possibly life under Saddam would have been a whole lot better.

>If that happens who will the US >give all their billions to? If a group of people demand that >you hand them a live grenade they will still hate you after it >goes off. better they hate you for not giving it to them and >still have their limbs.

How 'bout the US keeps their billions and uses it for their own ailing economy, or tax cuts, or even on actual defense projects? And stops handing out live hand grenades?

>was there a case for self defence? for the US itself?Not >really but that is a bit of straw man argument.

Not at all sure what u mean.

>does the invader gain any plunder? - No. if you want have a >look at the share prices of the companies that are >supposed to be making money out of all of this. i think you >are likely to find that they are loosing.

I don't think it's enough to point that out. That could be as a result of a downturn in the economy, or a million other reasons. It doesn't stop these particular projects, which are in the form of huge grants of money, from being profitable.

>Besides that if they >do benifit you have to show that they for some reason have >some advantage in power over all of those big companies >that did not benifit.

I don't have to show that at all. I can say they profited without showing they suddenly became the biggest companies in their industry.

>When it comes down to it capitalism is on your side in this >issue. it is democracy that is on the other side.

Has capitalism personified into someone who's going to post on this forum?

It is a disaster for me. Markets are never so unfree as when they are controlled by the military. And the state must levy much tax to pay for wars, which restricts individual choice over where to spend their own money.

Don't make me laugh. A superpower run by a man elected by less than a quarter of eligible voters in his own country, invades a tinpot third world country which is no threat to his own country, installs a military dictatorship, with the support of a few political buddies who overrode the expressed wishes of most of their own populations is a beacon of democracy and freedom for the region?

This same country that installed the tinpot dictator in the first place? Whose main regional mates are either monarchies or religious apartheids? Who has held hundreds of political prisoners himself (almost for the first time in his countries history) without trial or representation?

I think the system you are referring to is called Hypocracy.

If only there were a Hypocracy party. Then we could use to work out who all the legitimate governments were!

>>OK, if it's so obvious, spell it out. All you've said here is legitimacy comes down to who you deal with. That's no definition at all.

Name a country and I will tell you who is "legitimate" government. It may sound hard to explain but its not difficult to recognise. If it is possible to do that in every country in the world your objection is void.

> If you stop dealing with them do they stop being legitimate?

- No The fact that you deal with them is jsut a practical indication of their legitimacy. their legitimacy is more complex than that. Important factors include who controls the infrastructure who controls the police etc..

> Does this make Labour irrelevant?

- haha any deal the US makes with the tory party is irrelevant. the tory's couldnt win an election if the labour party all came on tv smoking dope and singing kumbyyahhhhh!!

> I'm glad to hear it, if a little confused about your position. Did you or did you not support the war? Why then do you want the US out?

Not confused. Everyone wants them out. I never supported the annexing of iraq I just support saddam getting deposed. As far as I know only in the minds of people like you are there people who want them to stay indefinitely or any longer than they absolutly have to. Every one else only intends on being there until saddam gets caught and the country has had some infrastructure built.

> How 'bout the US keeps their billions and uses it for their own ailing economy, or tax cuts, or even on actual defense projects?

- You dont want them to give the money to iraq? what kind of a socialist are you? iraqis in general are poorer than you are. fork the damn money over.

> Not at all sure what u mean.

- Iraq immediatly attacking the USA was never the threat so it is irrelevant to go on about that.

> I don't think it's enough to point that out. That could be as a result of a downturn in the economy, or a million other reasons.
> It doesn't stop these particular projects, which are in the form of huge grants of money, from being profitable.

If they have that sort of power over the US government they could make more money by asking them to lower interest rates a point or somthing . a war doesnt make them all that much money (relitively speaking) and on average hurts american capitalism.

> I don't have to show that at all. I can say they profited without showing they suddenly became the biggest companies in their industry.

- The point is someone is ALWAY doing ok. pointing to someone who does well (although you arent even doing that) and saying "you are doing well so you must be the cause of all the bad things" is somthing you could do no matter how innocent they were. for example if someone blew up the world trade centre and you got a job cleaning up the rocks(for a few bucks an hour) that in no way says that you are guilty of killing the people in the WTC. Similarly if a company got a contract for picking up of rocks (in order to pay you your few bucks) they also would not be guilty.
I see conspiricy theorists pointing to truisms and saying "hey look there is more evidence that I am right"
actually it is evidence of NOTHING because it is ALWAYS true.
The point is the important people (the big insurance companies etc) lost BIG TIME. So global capitalism on the whole got screwed in iraq and in the WTC ithe people that matter would not have planned either unless you are arguing there is a massive power imbalance where the small group is overpowering the richer and bigger group of bigger companies. I'd like to see how you think that is happening.

> It is a disaster for me. Markets are never so unfree as when they are controlled by the military. And the state must levy much tax to pay for wars, which restricts individual choice over where to spend their own money.

indeed

--democracy is wrong though. how many people voted for bush is irrelevant because bush isnt the person being changed saddam is. saddam was not democratic and he is being replaced by at least a vaguel democratic system. as a result democracy wins. capatilism is right though. it is loosing best solution for capitalism would be to be saddams best buddy.

Scottie, sorry man I've lost the thread on where you are coming from completely. I can only make out that you are:

1. An anarchist who favoured the US attacking Iraq
2. Both for and against a US withdrawal
3. Disbelieving that anyone in the US establishment could have had anything but the purest of motives.
4. Some form of oracle on governmental legitimacy. Which is obviously an art rather than just a simple set of criteria which you could share with us.
5. Suffering some memory loss about having compared the danger of Hitler to the danger of Saddam as a casus belli.
6. Still labouring under some illusion that I'm american, despite my having denied it several times.
7. Like to put words in my mouth, like i'm a socialist, a conspiracy theorist, don't think the US should pay for Iraq now, think that the world economy has profitted from GW2, I'm a pacifist, a Saddam and Bin Laden supporter

In case my position isn't clear, I'm:
1. Economo sceptic. Neither capitalist nor socialist. I support whichever one works. Currently leftward leaning because I think neoconservatism has gone too far (certainly has in my country).
2. Liberal. In the social sense, not the australian sense:-). In the John Stuart Mill sense. ie Freedom and rights.
3. A democrat. Not in the american sense, but in the sense of thinking that the only fair system, from which any real legitimacy derives, is one which represents the interests and wishes of the people. I personally favour participatory democracy, but representative is at least better than no democracy.
4. Not a pacifist. I follow the line of the UN charter regarding defense, which is that it is justified in some cases. Only in self defense, or with the support of the vast majority of the world's people.
5. Not a conspiracy theorist. I do not hypothesize an invisible conspiracy pulling all the strings. But when one is shoved in your face, so openly that you have to have good training to be able to ignore it, I think that some small groups can exert undue, unfair and unaccountable influence over the government. and the world, usually for personal gain.
6. Not a Saddam supporter. But as anyone older than about 7 can see, it is possible to not support someone, and yet still say that you shouldn't go to war with them. I don't support many world leaders, but see it as stupid and futile to go to war with them (the USA included).
7. Not a Bin Laden supporter. Whatever his vision for the world is, I'm pretty sure I don't like it. Unless it is, as he says, merely for the US to desist in it's invasion and oppression of the middle east..But his other views, such as the acceptability of innocent death for his cause, his radical islamic fundamentalism I thoroughly dislike.

To clarify my position re GW2:
I think the US should NOT have gone to war with Iraq. But now that it has, I feel it has a moral obligation to rebuild Iraq, simultaneously with as quickly as possible transferring power to a democratically elected government.

This will NOT make the US the good guys, and they still should not have done it. The cost in innocent life was too great, the risks were too great, and still are. This game is by no means over, and an Iraqi insurrection will be a bloody and avoidable disgusting waste. I hope it does not happen and I am angry that hoping is all we have, since the wishes of the world's population, and the middle-east population were completely ignored. The increased terrorism (it's not a risk, it's a reality) is another unacceptable cost.

As you point out Scottie, it is also an economic disaster. Americans have lost a lot of money over it. Iraq's economy is almost completely gone. This also was predicted by opponents of the war.

So why did they do it? You seem to be highly confused over my saying that the warhawks in Washington hoped to gain from it personally, as some sort of conspiracy theory. Yet it is too open and well known to be a conspiracy theory. I am merely stating what is well known, that many friends and avid supporters of the neocon inner circle have profited from this war. They may have simultaneously lost money, but I've never said they are economic geniuses. Quite the opposite, I imagine they are the kind of corporate idiots that usually end up in politics.

Clear as mud?

Haha Ben we are not really all that far apart. Maybe thats why you are confused to be arguing with me.

> Both for and against a US withdrawal

Im somewhat for getting rid of saddam I just like pretty much everyone else against them annexing iraq to become a state of the USA. they can get out whenever is best taking into acount what they will leave behind. Rushing out might result in the people who are bombing the UN etc taking over for all I know so if there is a risk of that hanging around for a while is ok but not too long.

>3. Disbelieving that anyone in the US establishment could have had anything but the purest of motives.

-No i disbelieve that they only have impure motives.
What happens here is that people who already disagree with a policy or person project the most hateworthy motives onto that person inorder to justify their hate for them. Then they begin to believe their own propoganda.
This is as true for the people who talk about bush benifiting from this war as it is for the far right in israel or hamas.

>5. Suffering some memory loss about having compared the danger of Hitler to the danger of Saddam as a casus belli.

- Hitler was not an immediate threat to the US either but he would have been in the future. particularly when he invaded the rhineland and other early stages (when he should have been stoped and it would have been easier than he iraq war was for the USA).
I think the big difference is I think there SHOULD be a global policeman. whether that is the UN or not. Ideally it would be a fullly representitive global policeman but if that is impossible an unrepresentitive one in the mould of hte USA is better than none at all. (I am sure lots of people will disagree here).

>7. Like to put words in my mouth,

Sorry if I did that.

> like i'm a socialist

Sorry my definition of socialist is a VERY wide one. anyone who votes left of center and argues on "social/humanist" lines is a socialist to me.

> a conspiracy theorist

To say that companies benifited is not a conspiricy. to imply that they caused the war in order to make that money IS.

> don't think the US should pay for Iraq now

just trying to flesh out your position on that one since it seemed to be getting confused with wether they should leave which everyone from bush to me agrees with you on.

> a Saddam and Bin Laden supporter

- I certainly dont think that. You dont seem to be a fruitcake too me.

> Economo sceptic. Neither capitalist nor socialist. I support whichever one works. Currently leftward leaning because I think neoconservatism has gone too far

- Just because the conservative are wrong doesnt make the left right. ahh so frustraiting you get to choose in between one bunch of fruitcakes or another bunch of fruit cakes each with extra nuts in their philosophy.

> 2. Liberal. In the social sense, not the australian sense:-). In the John Stuart Mill sense. ie Freedom and rights.

Just about everyone who debates these things has a pretty similar base it is jsut a matter of how we think is best to get there. non anarchists generally just think anarchy doesnt work and non comunists think comunism doesnt work. It would be hard to find a person wher who was against freedom against rights and against the other main humanistic things except where they contradict eachother.

> 3. A democrat. Not in the american sense, but in the sense of thinking that the only fair system

I think the most important part of democracy is that it on the whole makes governments less likely to "misbehave" etc.. Less likely to breach the generally accepted humanistic rules.

> from which any real legitimacy derives

- Here is an interesting question. if you could get a computer to run the economy and government and you KNEW it would never go evil and it would always make the right decision (based on whatever humanistic things you wrote into it) would you do it or would you prefer a democracy which you knew was going to get it badly wrong from time to time and cause a lot of suffering?

This question to a lesser extent exists in the current systems and even in our current debate.

>>To clarify my position re GW2:I think the US should NOT have gone to war with Iraq. But now that it has, I feel it has a moral obligation to rebuild Iraq, simultaneously with as quickly as possible transferring power to a democratically elected government.

- Fairly similar to my own. I was not 100% for the war (there is probably even record on here of that) I just accepted the legitimacy of taking on people who do what saddam did.

> This will NOT make the US the good guys.

No one is ever "the good guys". Anyway if you set the US bars that are attached to the cealing they wont try to jump over them.

> I am merely stating what is well known, that many friends and avid supporters of the neocon inner circle have profited from this war.

that is possible but also many anti war people have benifited from it (infact I could name maybe a hundred off the top of my head) many no war for oil badge makers, and people who are rich but left leaning, michael moore, fisk, pilger and chomsky for example are probably richer because of the war because in the current climate their work is considered good.

I guess it is possible that A.N.S.W.E.R. moore fisk pilger and chomsky made the US attack iraq in order to get money and support.. but I doubt it.
It is not the facts but the conclusions that make no sense.

>Haha Ben we are not really all that far apart. Maybe thats >why you are confused to be arguing with me.

I suspected u weren't really a raving fascist. Just arguing about particular points really. I guess the tone of argument comes across that since u wanted to dispute many of my points your were against the overall view too.

> Both for and against a US withdrawal

>Im somewhat for getting rid of saddam I just like pretty >much everyone else against them annexing iraq to >become a state of the USA. they can get out whenever is >best taking into acount what they will leave behind. >Rushing out might result in the people who are bombing >the UN etc taking over for all I know so if there is a risk of >that hanging around for a while is ok but not too long.

I guess I'm also for getting rid of Saddam, I just differ on whose job it is. I think it's the responsibility of the people to do it in such situtations. This can be immensely difficult in some situations. I think sanctions strengthened him, and for that reason, as well as their human toll, they should have been lifted. I'm not against outside influence sometimes, but it should be done very carefully under the auspices of the UN. It does look like there were a number of other ways he might have gone too - recent reports show that he made an offer to hand the country to democracy under third party supervision, weeks before the assault began. That would have been vastly preferable to the carnage that actually happened/is happening.

>-No i disbelieve that they only have impure motives.

Agreed. Hell they might even really believe in God :-)

>What happens here is that people who already disagree >with a policy or person project the most hateworthy >motives onto that person inorder to justify their hate for >them. Then they begin to believe their own propoganda.
>This is as true for the people who talk about bush >benifiting from this war as it is for the far right in israel or >hamas.

I think it can be true sometimes. But I also think u overstate the case. I dislike the neocons in my own country, but don't credit them with 'the most hateworthy motives'. I just think they are completely wrong about what will acheive their noble aims (and also on what some of those aims are).

In the past I would have given the US establishment a lot of slack. But I really do think this particular bunch are not only fools but also have bad motives. Nothing else can explain such a wilful and complete disregard for the opinions of others, who warned against this.

>- Hitler was not an immediate threat to the US either but he >would have been in the future. particularly when he >invaded the rhineland and other early stages (when he >should have been stoped and it would have been easier >than he iraq war was for the USA).

I don't think so. The US military was rather backward at that time. And Hitler really was a genuine and credible threat to mainland USA. Enough! No more Hitler comparisons. It's just silly!!

>I think the big difference is I think there SHOULD be a >global policeman. whether that is the UN or not. Ideally it >would be a fullly representitive global policeman but if that >is impossible an unrepresentitive one in the mould of hte >USA is better than none at all. (I am sure lots of people will >disagree here).

Yep, me included. Only if the choice is between the policeman being someone else or the US should we be forced into such a choice. The possibility of a representative policeman is currently dictated by what extent america actually believes in democracy. They could choose to follow the UN, legitimizing it further until yes, it could even be a proxy world govt. But constantly undermining it or ignoring it follows the tradition of the League of Nations and Germany and Japan's thoughts about it.

>Sorry my definition of socialist is a VERY wide one. anyone >who votes left of center and argues on "social/humanist" >lines is a socialist to me.

Heh...yep that's pretty wide...so around half the world are socialists? :-) I guess I must be one then.

>To say that companies benifited is not a conspiricy. to >imply that they caused the war in order to make that money >IS.

Only if I say it's the sole/main cause. I'm just saying it's one cause. I think the main cause is the clique of deluded ex-oil executives who run america really think that the american people would love them for this war. Or enough people anyway.

>just trying to flesh out your position on that one since it >seemed to be getting confused with wether they should >leave which everyone from bush to me agrees with you on.

My position is: They should immediately agree to handing control of the situation to the UN. The UN should (and says it will) draft a constitution (they have huge experience in this matter) with those representatives that they can find, and then hold an election forthwith. Lots of other countries have offered to send troops to Iraq in a 'peacekeeping' role, under UN control. This will relieve the pressure from the US military and more of the money slated for Iraq can be used as reparations for this aggressive war, in a civilian way. Then ultimately, when order is more restored, withdrawal of foreign troops.

>- Just because the conservative are wrong doesnt make >the left right. ahh so frustraiting you get to choose in >between one bunch of fruitcakes or another bunch of fruit >cakes each with extra nuts in their philosophy.

Yep...that's why I say I'm a sceptic. I think expenditure shouldn't be so charged with idealism, and more with realism - what programs will produce obvious results etc...

>Just about everyone who debates these things has a pretty >similar base it is jsut a matter of how we think is best to >get there. non anarchists generally just think anarchy >doesnt work and non comunists think comunism doesnt >work. It would be hard to find a person wher who was >against freedom against rights and against the other main >humanistic things except where they contradict eachother.

Yep, although many cultures still have a sort of worship for monarchies of a sort. But, as the English found, that doesn't mean u have to let them run the shop!.

I guess I could be more specific about what rights I believe in, but it's not really relevant to the debate.

>I think the most important part of democracy is that it on the >whole makes governments less likely to "misbehave" etc.. >Less likely to breach the generally accepted humanistic >rules.

It's a good 'bare minimum' standard for democracy. Also seems to be how it is practised most places - we really are just choosing between competing elites, rather than choosing 'representation'. But I'm still idealistic, I think it could and should go further. Elites still represent their own interests far more than the majority's.

>- Here is an interesting question. if you could get a >computer to run the economy and government and you >KNEW it would never go evil and it would always make the >right decision (based on whatever humanistic things you >wrote into it) would you do it or would you prefer a >democracy which you knew was going to get it badly wrong >from time to time and cause a lot of suffering?

Like in Asimov's Robot novels? Hard to say. You might know it would never go evil. But how could you know it would always make the right decision? You are the ultimate arbiter as to whether it's decisions were right in the first place. It would need to be able to explain the reasoning, or provide a demonstration of the rightness to you somehow. And this should always be available - kind of like debug printouts. But it is theoretically possible that you could gain sufficient trust to let it handle a lot of decisions.

I think most of the decisions would be firstly small, and secondly subject to human review though. The big questions are actually important enough that it is worth human time to think about them.

As an analogy, you could decide to let a computer drive your car for you. Put a camera on it, give it access to the power steering, accelerator and brake, and there u go. But in the early days, I'd always want dual controls, in case it just stuffed it up and killed me. Even after a long long time i think u still need manual override, like they have in airliners. They seem to have got almost to that point with planes, but I can't see a 'pilotless plane' for quite some time...It still has to be able to handle contingencies that weren't thought of.

So in answer to the question, I would probably not agree with a 'blackbox' running the government, but a 'whitebox' with manual override could possibly be a useful tool.

>This question to a lesser extent exists in the current >systems and even in our current debate.

Well I sort of treat democracy as a blackbox, I will grant u that. But that comes back to a recognition that the combined minds of the nation can outthink me. And I can always leave if I really don't like the people's decisions.

>- Fairly similar to my own. I was not 100% for the war (there >is probably even record on here of that) I just accepted the >legitimacy of taking on people who do what saddam did.

Perhaps the only dispute is over how to take him on.

>that is possible but also many anti war people have >benifited from it (infact I could name maybe a hundred off >the top of my head) many no war for oil badge makers, and >people who are rich but left leaning, michael moore, fisk, >pilger and chomsky for example are probably richer >because of the war because in the current climate their >work is considered good.

>I guess it is possible that A.N.S.W.E.R. moore fisk pilger >and chomsky made the US attack iraq in order to get >money and support.. but I doubt it.
>It is not the facts but the conclusions that make no sense.

Heh, now THAT's a conspiracy theory. But I think the difference between these guys profitting from the war and, say, Haliburton, is that they argued against the war, whereas Haliburton lined up to help.

I think you're trying to confuse something that's not confused again. If I was a war supporter, and the war happened, and I profitted from it, and I was in a position of influence, then I think it is fair to say I was one of the causes of it. In fact, even if I was an inflential supporter, and the war happened and I lost money from it because I was a fool, I could still be said to have been one of the causes.

On the other hand, if I argued against it, and it happened, and I profitted from it being a disaster, then it's stretching it a lot to say I was a cause. The 'I was openly against it' part is crucial here. Unless you think that opposing something is not different to supporting it.

I only mention the profiting part because profit is a powerful motive. It would have motivated Haliburton's support, and it could have motivated Chomsky's opposition (a different kind of profit though). They were just gambling on different outcomes. But it's the support that makes u a cause, because that happens prior to the event. The profit happens after.

> I suspected u weren't really a raving fascist.

I note when I am discussing Israel and I talk to ANGEL for example we actually have the same end solution in mind we know where the boarders are we know what each side considers unacceptable we both realise that there is blame on both sides. It is just a matter of who do we focus the blame on when we post on Indy media. And what are the first steps in the plan.

> I guess I'm also for getting rid of Saddam, I just differ on whose job it is. I think it's the responsibility of the people to do it in such situations. This can be immensely difficult in some situations.

> I think revolution without outside interference is becoming impossible as militaries get stronger. rebellion will eventually (if it isn’t already) just be the fast track to getting everyone who supports you slaughtered.

I think sanctions strengthened him, and for that reason, as well as their human toll, they should have been lifted.

- sanctions were next to useless for overthrowing Saddam but not having sanctions would not have overthrown him either basically it was not possible to overthrow him from inside.

> recent reports show that he made an offer to hand the country to democracy under third party supervision, weeks before the assault began.

- This has a bit of a catch 22. either you are a country that attacks other countries or you never get these sorts of offers. but the history of saddam implies this was just a stalling tactic anyway.

> I just think they are completely wrong about what will achieve their noble aims (and also on what some of those aims are).

- Indeed. I object to this "we oppose you therefore you are evil and we hate you" mentality. I am much more willing to accept the possibility of the above.

> I don't think so. The US military was rather backward at that time.

- you keep on confusing Hitler during WWII and Hitler a couple of years before WWII but never mind we wont use the analogy then.

> I think expenditure shouldn't be so charged with idealism, and more with realism - what programs will produce obvious results etc...

- let's start a political party heh

> We really are just choosing between competing elites, rather than choosing 'representation'.

- Only in as far as you define your elite as being "those who have the power to represent you". Most politicians believe what they say sure they might give themselves pay rises but on the whole they don’t rule in self interest they rule based on ideology (for good or bad)

> Like in Asimov's Robot novels?

yes a "whitebox" is ideal but you get my point eh?

> Heh, now THAT's a conspiracy theory. But I think the difference between these guys profiting from the war and, say, Halliburton, is that they argued against the war, whereas Halliburton lined up to help.

It depends on how daring you are with your conspiracy theory. A) I don’t think Halliburton "lined it up" per se at least I think things would have gone down basically the same if Halliburton existed or not.
B) that is what conspiracy theories are all about. what you say doesn’t matter it is what you do that matters.
I doubt Halliburton came out with a PR statement
"kill them and give us their oil!"

> In fact, even if I was an influential supporter, and the war happened and I lost money from it because I was a fool, I could still be said to have been one of the causes.

- It depends on if you are accusing them of causing the war for legitimate reasons or for illegitimate reasons.
I am saying you cannot leap to the illegitimate part from the cause part.

for example Churchill caused UK to join WWII but presumably he did not do it just so he would get an extra political term.

> On the other hand, if I argued against it, and it happened, and I profited from it being a disaster, then it's stretching it a lot to say I was a cause.

-Now you are going to force me to nit pick here..............

- well there is an argument to say something along the lines of hamas causes Israeli retaliations because it is against Israeli retaliations and yet they profit from those retaliations in political support and donations.

- But that is a bit besides the point because my point is the opposite--- you are stretching it to convict a person of having evil intent and evil action just because they had theoretical motive and theoretical opportunity.

>> I think revolution without outside interference is >becoming impossible as militaries get stronger. rebellion >will eventually (if it isn’t already) just be the fast track to >getting everyone who supports you slaughtered.

I'm not sure if anything is fundamentally changing in the world regarding this. I think of Edward Gibbon pointing out that Rome held its huge empire with a few hundred thousand soldiers, who represented about 1% of the total population. It's hard to imagine one person oppressing 99 others with a spear. The subjection came from the fact that it was often better to 'get with the Roman program' than to oppose it. But in areas that they didn't get with the program, the Romans had a lot of difficulty, despite a clear military advantage.

>- sanctions were next to useless for overthrowing Saddam >but not having sanctions would not have overthrown him >either basically it was not possible to overthrow him from >inside.

I venture sanctions were worse than useless - they had a negative effect. A people in the complete grip of poverty have no one else to turn to but a despot.

I really can't see that revolution was impossible. There have been so many revolutions and coups against dictators as vicious as Saddam. Did he have some secret fascist technology?

>- This has a bit of a catch 22. either you are a country that >attacks other countries or you never get these sorts of >offers. but the history of saddam implies this was just a >stalling tactic anyway.

It's also a catch 22 that if you never take up these offers they will never be made. What crook would surrender to the cops if the standing method was always to blow them away anyway? I think the history of Saddam is more disputable than the warhawks portray it. He was in an increasingly desperate situation, and he knew it.

>- Indeed. I object to this "we oppose you therefore you are >evil and we hate you" mentality. I am much more willing to >accept the possibility of the above.

It's a stupid mentality, which can only lead to interminable fighting. Sensible and responsible decision makers won't indulge in it.

>- let's start a political party heh

The Pragmatism party? LOL it would just end up splitting the left vote! If only the US had proportional representation, like my country does. Then the Democrats could merge with the Republicans, and fade into insignificance, as they have done here.

>> We really are just choosing between competing elites, >rather than choosing 'representation'.

>- Only in as far as you define your elite as being "those >who have the power to represent you". Most politicians
>believe what they say sure they might give themselves pay >rises but on the whole they don’t rule in self interest they >rule based on ideology (for good or bad)

I mean elite as in 'those in positions of privilege'. The rich, basically. I mean if govt was actually 'representative' then u would expect statistical proportions to be similar to population statistics - 1/3 of congress hispanic, 1/10 black, half women, etc.

I agree that the current rule is ideological. Which I think is generally bad for democracy, better would be if they were simply representative. Especially since the dominant ideology of the elite is not especially popular, this whole neocon thing. Democrats since (and including) Clinton just seem to be neocon-lite.

yes a "whitebox" is ideal but you get my point eh?

I'm not sure I do. I'm sorta thinking u r bringing up the age old paradox of how Government should be a specialist position, rather than representative. That political decision making is a kind of expert task, and the question is about who can best perform that task. The debate goes back at least as far as Plato's 'Republic'.

My favourite critic of the Platonic dilemma is Karl Popper, whose objection is that the question of 'who should rule' begs the question. A better question should be 'what system would be least likely to lead to tyranny?'. He doesn't answer his own question decisively, but indicates that institutional limitations on power of particular groups is one of the best guarantees of ongoing freedom. The institutions could be a periodic plebiscite (as in our 'democracies'), the separation of powers, the universal applicability of law. Or they could be more far reaching, with anti-trust legislation, guaranteed legal representation etc. He definitely didn't like monarchy, or any 'catch all' idealistic system like communism. I imagine that he wouldn't like a computer program either, as the guarantee of freedom would be less clear. The programmers would have undue influence over government, as do the 'programmers' of an ideology (the original philosophers, usually).

>It depends on how daring you are with your conspiracy >theory.

I'm extremely undaring. I'm no conspiracy theorist, I just call the ones u can see, that no one really disputes.

>A) I don’t think Halliburton "lined it up" per se at least I think >things would have gone down basically the same if >Halliburton existed or not.

Would they have gone down the same if the current ruling party wasn't the Texas Oil establishment? I can hardly imagine the Silicone Valley establishment having bothered with Iraq. They sure had the chance. Whether it was Haliburton or the next company is not the question - I'm suggesting the crooks are in the White House. The Haliburton Board are just doing what they do, pushing their interests, fair enough.

>B) that is what conspiracy theories are all about. what you >say doesn’t matter it is what you do that matters.
>I doubt Halliburton came out with a PR statement
>"kill them and give us their oil!"

Why bother with PR statements when u have government contracts?

>> In fact, even if I was an influential supporter, and the war >happened and I lost money from it because I was a fool, I >could still be said to have been one of the causes.

>- It depends on if you are accusing them of causing the >war for legitimate reasons or for illegitimate reasons.
>I am saying you cannot leap to the illegitimate part from the >cause part.

>for example Churchill caused UK to join WWII but >presumably he did not do it just so he would get an extra >political term.

Legitimacy of the reasons is a different question than cause. I would hold strongly that Britain did a lot to cause WW2, Churchill included. They must wear a lot of blame for the whole sorry affair. However, once Hitler made it clear that it was submit to Germany or fight with the Brits, then I know whose side I would have been on.

>-Now you are going to force me to nit pick here..............

I think it's usually called being forced into a corner :-)

>- well there is an argument to say something along the >lines of hamas causes Israeli retaliations because it is >against Israeli retaliations and yet they profit from those >retaliations in political support and donations.

I find it an even more spurious conspiracy theory than the simpler ones about the establishment profiteers. I suppose u could take your conspiracy even further and say the Palestinians support their oppression because their religion says they are guaranteed a place in heaven if they oppose the enemys of Islam. Or that the Jews wanted to be gassed by the Nazis so they could have a justification for creating Israel. Or that the Germans set up the Nazis so that they could be crushed, thus forcing the Americans into the Marshall Plan, leading ultimately to German economic power. Maybe JFK was assassinated by the Beatles so they'd have something to sing about?

Yes there are clearly some stupid conspiracy theories out there. But also there are some actual conspiracies, and u don't even need a theory to point them out. For instance, the Republican party is a conspiracy, an open one. They have conspired to make sure that working as a unit they wield more power than individual independent senators could. Nothing in the US constitution even says that parties could or should exist. But they are an obvious reality.

>- But that is a bit besides the point because my point is the >opposite--- you are stretching it to convict a person of >having evil intent and evil action just because they had >theoretical motive and theoretical opportunity.

What's theoretical about the motive of Haliburton to make a profit? I'm sure you'll find it in their mission statement. What's theoretical about their opportunity to profit from the Iraq war? They have hundreds of millions of dollars in uncontested contracts from it. There's nothing secret or theoretical about any of this. You have to have the words 'conspiracy theory' on your lips for every occasion to avoid seeing it.

but no problem to imagine it with a nuke and/or a fighter jet. What if revolutions are a thing of the past though? does your logic change? Besides that almost all the revolutions in history have been one general overthrowing another one not people's uprisings. The peoples uprising thing is on the whole just a bit of comunist propoganda code for "we subsidized a nice little army".

> I venture sanctions were worse than useless - they had a negative effect. A people in the complete grip of poverty have no one else to turn to but a despot.

Do you honestly think they would have overthrown sadam in the absence of santions? I dont think you are talking of odds worth considering.

> There have been so many revolutions and coups against dictators as vicious as Saddam.

- who? and how many of these were "because he was vicious"? Unless you mean US and USSR subsidized coups.

> The Pragmatism party? LOL it would just end up splitting the left vote!

- Keep the bias under control man... most people vote in self interest left and right.

> I mean elite as in 'those in positions of privilege'. The rich, basically. I mean if govt was actually 'representative' then u would expect statistical proportions to be similar to population statistics - 1/3 of congress hispanic, 1/10 black, half women, etc.

not always. for example you would expect that despite 50% of the population having below average skill an election might not vote in 50% below average skill people.
Difference in representation for example might in part be a hangover from historic education level differences etc. Of course there may be a racist area of society that is preventing proper representation I know there is lots of racism left in the USA some of it is based on "blacks are more likely to be criminals" or "jews are more likely to have money and be influential" or "asians are more likely to work harder and make you look bad" or "whites oppressed us" (I was trying to think of somthing more current for whites but damn they are so boringly in the middle!).
One could say these are all hang overs too.

> Especially since the dominant ideology of the elite is not especially popular, this whole neocon thing.

The problem is the populous on the left has no reasonable answer to it either. If the people voted for every issue they would vote on each issue to spend and wonder why they have a massive deficit at the end.

> I'm not sure I do. I'm sorta thinking u r bringing up the age old paradox of how Government should be a specialist position, rather than representative.

- I am asking if you are willing to sacrifice welfare (true welfare) for your political ideology or is the ideology just a mechanism for achieving welfare. IF the computer was always right (and you KNEW there would never be a problem) would you take it?

> Would they have gone down the same if the current ruling party wasn't the Texas Oil establishment?

- Haha you and your imaginary associations... But if you mean the republicans. then probably not.

> Legitimacy of the reasons is a different question than cause. I would hold strongly that Britain did a lot to cause WW2, Churchill included.

- you are holding figures of history to a standard that you or anyone you know could not hope to live up to. Its all fine and dandy to look back on history and say "I would have done it better" but I bet you if you had been there it would have all gone sour anyway people would be on this board telling everyone how they would have done it much better.

> But also there are some actual conspiracies, and u don't even need a theory to point them out. For instance, the Republican party is a conspiracy, an open one.

- Haha you are confusing "conspiricies" (people planning to do somthing) with "conspiricy theories"

> What's theoretical about the motive of Haliburton to make a profit?

- you know that isnt the point being made here. That is true about every company and the vast majority of humans You are repeating the same point that I have already adressed because you are avoiding the weak link in your logic.

> They have hundreds of millions of dollars in uncontested contracts from it. There's nothing secret or theoretical about any of this.

That is not the conspiricy theory. Lots of people as I said made money from the war so your point is nonsense. Haliburton by the way made millions of dollars of deals with sadam as well acording to an article I found. seems it was unlikely that their charter says "and we want to kill sadam"

hmm and self interest is not national interest.
And no offense meant at hte end of hte last post I think that it is normal thing to do to be hyper critical of people in the past. but just think if there is noone in the past who did it right - chances are it was impossible.
Oh another one for that list of things that people might say to result in bias is
"women are beter at school than men but keep taking time off for having babies"
The problem with all if this is that it isn't wrong statistically speaking. So what to do about it? a person rationally doesnt want to hire as many women for example to vital roles because they are slightly more likely to go and have a baby and take a couple of years off.
although they dont have to and this is not usually all that Huge a problem but it is a rational one. IE you might have to force companies government institutions and individuals to make irrational decisions in order to enforce equality.
If you want to protect these groups how about other groups like equality for short people? or equality for weak or mentally deficient people. It is largely genetic anyway.
Hmm Im not entirely sure how to deal with that but the fact that it is still systematic does mean that it is not surprising that the US has not dealt with it yet.
Most ocuntries seem to have a fairly good "balance" system. But if you look at where the jobs are it will still show up.

>What if revolutions are a thing of the past though? does >your logic change?

I'm not claiming to know the future. I don't think u can either. Revolutions may be a thing of the past, or may not - who can say what will happen? Military ventures are notoriously unpredictable, except in the cases of hugely overwhelming force.

> Besides that almost all the revolutions in history have >been one general overthrowing another one not people's >uprisings. The peoples uprising thing is on the whole just >a bit of comunist propoganda code for "we subsidized a >nice little army".

Yes there is often outside help. But I don't think it is necessarily a decisive factor in all cases. I think the Russian revolution was mostly internal. And the Cuban one. And the American one (although outside help from the French may have contributed).

>Do you honestly think they would have overthrown sadam >in the absence of santions? I dont think you are talking of >odds worth considering.

I don't think anyone really knows for sure. Not the CIA, and not you. It is also quite possible that in the absence of sanctions Saddam might not have been worth overthrowing. If the Iraqi people were generally prosperous they might not bother. It could follow the Singapore model. Or the Saudi one.

>> There have been so many revolutions and coups against >dictators as vicious as Saddam.

>- who? and how many of these were "because he was >vicious"? Unless you mean US and USSR subsidized >coups.

U want a list of revolutions generally, or just the 20th century ones? I'll just do the former so as not to be accused of being an 'ancient historian' (despite thinking that ancient history is a very important record of human tendencies).

Revolutions of the 20th century (from Wikipedia)
# Russia - 1917
# Mongolia - 1920
# Yugoslavia - 1944
# Albania - 1944
# Czechoslovakia -
# East Germany -
# Poland -
# Bulgaria -
# Hungary - 1919, 1944 and 1949
# Romania -
# China - 1949
# North Vietnam - 1954
# Cuba - 1959
# The Congo - 1964 and 1968
# South Yemen - 1967
# Benin - 1972
# Ethiopia - 1974
# Guinea-Bissau - 1974
# Cambodia - 1975
# South Vietnam - 1975
# Laos - 1975
# Madagascar - 1975
# Cape Verde - 1975
# Mozambique - 1975
# Angola - 1975
# Afganistan - 1978
# Grenada - 1979
# Nicaragua - 1979

On the recent populist coup front I'd probably cite the Philippines, Indonesia, Argentina and Chile, just as ones I can think of.

So I'd have to say it's not as unlikely as u make out.

>> The Pragmatism party? LOL it would just end up splitting >the left vote!

>- Keep the bias under control man... most people vote in >self interest left and right.

:-) I'm just observing that most people are probably left but dissatisfied with the centre-left party. The Nader vote split that put Bush in power is my biggest fear for the next US Presidential election. Better under the current system (however stupidly counter intuitive this is) would be to start a big far-right party to split the Republican vote. This was extremely effective in my country once, and also in putting Clinton in power. It's a pretty crap way for a system to function, though - basically you have to betray the electorate by mouthing platitudes so as to draw votes away from your real enemy.

>would expect statistical proportions to be similar to >population statistics - 1/3 of congress hispanic, 1/10 black, >half women, etc.

>not always. for example you would expect that despite 50% >of the population having below average skill an election >might not vote in 50% below average skill people.

Yes that would be 'representative government' in it's current form. Another extremely effective form of representative decision making (and almost the last bastion of actual democracy in the US) is the Jury system, which would often put in 50% 'below average skill' people. I personally believe that this system is the fairest system yet devised.

>Difference in representation for example might in part be a >hangover from historic education level differences etc. Of >course there may be a racist area of society that is >preventing proper representation I know there is lots of >racism left in the USA some of it is based on "blacks are >more likely to be criminals" or "jews are more likely to have >money and be influential" or "asians are more likely to >work harder and make you look bad" or "whites oppressed >us" (I was trying to think of somthing more current for >whites but damn they are so boringly in the middle!).
>One could say these are all hang overs too.

I think they are just the way that the system is designed. It is virtually impossible under this representative style system for, say, a professed agnostic to take the reins. Even if more than 20% of people are in fact agnostic, there's no way u will ever get 20% of your presidents being agnostic. Ergo, under the current system, your president will almost always be white, male, rich, christian. I can't really see how that signifies democracy, when his very demographic is almost always identical, and the exact demographic of the elite.

>> Especially since the dominant ideology of the elite is not >especially popular, this whole neocon thing.

>The problem is the populous on the left has no >reasonable answer to it either. If the people voted for every >issue they would vote on each issue to spend and wonder >why they have a massive deficit at the end.

There is much truth in what you say. The left has no 'strong ideology' anymore to oppose neocons. That doesn't mean it has no idea. Quite the opposite, it is simply practical rather than ideological. But it's going to take a worldwide discrediting of neoconism (as happened in the Great Depression) for people to start seeing that just because Russian communism didn't work doesn't mean free market theory is right.

>- I am asking if you are willing to sacrifice welfare (true >welfare) for your political ideology or is the ideology just a >mechanism for achieving welfare. IF the computer was >always right (and you KNEW there would never be a >problem) would you take it?

I think I am right in my assessment of where u are coming from. Your question is aimed at my ceding that if a black box could decide everything for us perfectly, would that be superior to democracy?

I'm sure that u r intelligent enough to see that the question couches a tautology:
"If a system can make perfect decisions, then it makes the best decisions"

Obviously there's no point discussing this part, since it's logical correct by virtue of being a tautology. The important issues are "Can such a box be created?" and "Could we be sure that the box worked correctly?".

I assert that the answer to "Can such a box be created?" is no. Unless the box happens to be our own actual collective decisions, in which case it IS a democracy. Which is why I said I treat democracy as a blackbox.

Why not? What's impossible about creating this box? Well, for starters, the empirical evidence is against it. Humans have been trying since the evolution of thought to create this blackbox (which is just a decision making process after all - doesn't matter if it's implemented on paper, on silicone, on a quantum computer, whatever). Every political philosophy since the word was invented has been an attempt at this black box. You will notice a strange phenomena about such philosophies - they have in every case been HIGHLY disputed. Every aspect of them has been a subject of bitter dispute. Wars have been fought over minor details of these blackboxes. Millions upon millions of people have been the casualties of disputed nuances of, say, Marx's words. Or Plato's. Or Jesus's. Try as you might, I think you will just enter the long line of failed ideologies which degenerated into tyranny.

What should we aim for then? What is my magic solution? Why is my democratic blackbox better?

The answer is, as I put in my last post, based on Popper's insight that the whole question for the blackbox is the wrong question, an insoluble question. A better (and not necessarily the best) question is "What system gives the best guarantee of freedom from tyranny?". And to my knowledge there is no better answer than democracy. The ability to peacefully remove hugely unpopular leadership is a huge leap forward over the other systems.

This is not to say that tyranny is impossible under a democracy. It is possible to power groups to form and dominate the leadership by means of their influence. They could murder their opponents, buy votes, buy advertising, etc. So again, we have to work on that question again: "How can we prevent this tyranny?" Clearly going back to monarchy or dictatorship is a step backward. I venture that it is through the gradual buildup of institutions that limit the ability of groups to form tyrannies. Law courts to make the murder of political enemies difficult. Funding restrictions on political campaigns. Anti corruption legislation to curtail the buying of votes.Proportional representation to remove the formation of party politics.

And most generally of all (this is disputable, and only my opinion) the gradual flattening of power within society, the removal of power advantages. I believe in discrimination against power. Perhaps a better way to put it is, I believe in the supporting and building up of the powerless. The powerful need no advantages, dispensations, handouts. The powerless do.

Does this encourage laziness and apathy? A little. But disempowerment does too, and more importantly disempowerment encourages resentment, and ultimately violence. Which I despise, and see as an absolute last resort in our decision making processes.

>> Would they have gone down the same if the current >ruling party wasn't the Texas Oil establishment?

>- Haha you and your imaginary associations... But if you >mean the republicans. then probably not.

Does this mean Gulf War 2 was avoidable? Or was it inevitable because the Texas Oil Establishment was always coming back some day?

>- you are holding figures of history to a standard that you or >anyone you know could not hope to live up to. Its all fine >and dandy to look back on history and say "I would have >done it better" but I bet you if you had been there it would >have all gone sour anyway people would be on this board >telling everyone how they would have done it much better.

This just seems like a poor excuse for failure. OK, yes politics is a very difficult game, and I probably wouldn't be a good player. But I'm advocating learning from our mistakes rather than excusing them.

>- Haha you are confusing "conspiricies" (people planning >to do somthing) with "conspiricy theories"

I've never said I have a conspiracy theory - that was your accusation. It seems to be a common one these days, an unfortunate academic wank is what I think it is. 'Conspiracy theorist' seems to be a convenient way of dismissing anyone who points out a conflict of interest. Sorry man, avoiding conflict of interest is what democracy is all about. To cry 'conspiracy theory' all the time is to excuse conspiracy. And conspiracy is one of the worlds oldest evils, I reckon.

>> What's theoretical about the motive of Haliburton to make >a profit?

>- you know that isnt the point being made here. That is true >about every company and the vast majority of humans You >are repeating the same point that I have already adressed >because you are avoiding the weak link in your logic.

Sorry if I seem obtuse. I'm actually trying not to be but I just can't see your point. What logic? What point? It's not my job to make your point clear.

>> They have hundreds of millions of dollars in uncontested >contracts from it. There's nothing secret or theoretical >about any of this.

>That is not the conspiricy theory. Lots of people as I said >made money from the war so your point is nonsense.

Do u wish to avoid the 'and influenced the White house' part for a reason? Or do you think influence is meaningless? That the president sits in his little oval office drawing plans up in his tiny alcohol and coke pickled brain without being slightly influenced by the gang of ex-oil executives who form his core of advisors and the larger pool of executives who surrounded and funded them?

>Haliburton by the way made millions of dollars of deals >with sadam as well acording to an article I found. seems it >was unlikely that their charter says "and we want to kill >sadam"

If Iraq wasn't sanctioned, they still would be, mark my words. They aren't noble, even u don't accuse them of that. But just because Saddam was their buddy once doesn't mean they aren't above kicking the shit out of him now he's down.

>And no offense meant at hte end of hte last post I think that >it is normal thing to do to be hyper critical of people in the >past. but just think if there is noone in the past who did it >right - chances are it was impossible.

No offense taken. I think that the past is a wealth of both good and bad examples...it must not be forgotten. I think WW2 is a good example of people fighting for something that was right in the end, and a bad example for anyone wanting to acheive long term peace.

>Oh another one for that list of things that people might say >to result in bias is
>"women are beter at school than men but keep taking time >off for having babies"
>....etc

U want to discuss reverse discrimination? I'm against it, generally. Also against censorship, for legalising all drugs, against Micro$oft, for linux, against spam, for open source, against polling machines, for genetic engineering, against greenies, for cats, against dogs :-).~

Guess that makes me a pervy, hippie, dreamer, whiner, industrial stooge and a bit of a pussy.

Oh, and I'm also for Jesus, and against God.

I guess that makes me a christian atheist.

Also for a Jewish homeland, and against Israel, which makes me an anti-zionist zionist. And also an antisemitic jew-lover.

Seinfeld for President!

Wow lots to tackle here excuse if this is all over the place

First I am saying that a Hitler like leader a Sadam type leader a Kim Jong il type leader will never be over thrown by their people if they try they will be slaughtered.
UNLESS: A) foreign country organizes the rebellion and supplies it (like most of the communist and anti-communist revolutions)
B) You swap one group of despots for another
C) they stop being bad guys and start acting nice

If the USA for example was a 1984 style despots there would be no chance of overthrowing them.

Even if that is not the case take your "number of revolutions subtract out all the ones with outside interference and that were not peoples revolutions divide by the number of countries in the world or the number of bad leadership countries et etc.. basically you will have to wait a lifetime or ten to overthrow the despot.

If you wanted to put the duty of overthrowing Sadam onto the Iraqi people then the onus is on you to KNOW that that is possible and not very difficult and that not overthrowing Sadam amounts to an effective "choice".

as to the sanctions you are forgetting Sadam was not a nice fellow before the sanctions either.

POLITICS

First you say this

> which would often put in 50% 'below average skill' people. I personally believe that this system is the fairest system yet devised.

Which implies you are willing to accept bad decisions in exchange for "fairness"..

And then you say

> I'm sure that u r intelligent enough to see that the question couches a tautology: "If a system can make perfect decisions, then it makes the best decisions"
Obviously there's no point discussing this part, since it's logical correct by virtue of being a tautology.

So you accept that good decisions are the final goal and yet you support reducing the amount of good decisions in favour of another principle...

I guess that the idea is that tyranny is such a big danger that you have to minimize its risk at any cost to "current goodness of theory" Unfortunatly I think that Your solution achieves the opposite of what it intends to.

As I perceive it your perfect democracy would not be all that far from anarchy in that it would provide extremely fertile ground for tyranny. the black box on the other hand that I have in mind would eventually be made systematically impossible because it would no longer be structured in such a way that a human or even a group of humans could give it orders (although they could turn it off I guess).

As to the tautology part
-- not really. You could argue that self determination is more important than things such as happiness and health (which were some of the things I consider to be under welfare).

You see I am arguing somewhat for the fact that democracy and representation are only important as tools I.e. correct decisions are the goal. you seem to be arguing that you can sacrifice the goodness of decisions in favour of representation. that could be because you thing representation is a VERY important safety net or it could be because you value representation in itself. I would like you to clarify it. Although maybe you have because if you consider the above a tautology then you are saying that you actually think goodness of decision is the end goal. In which case I would say your suggested course of action is contrary to your goal.


> Ergo, under the current system, your president will almost always be white, male, rich, Christian.

- I don’t know about that the republicans could get votes by fielding a leader with the traits of a swing voter. But anyway the question is how do you solve that problem? Do we set a 50% quota for people with IQ's below 100 for the presidency? I guess from the above you would say yes.
However this creates my stability problem a country perpetually lead by low intelligence people will soon become an insignificant country and so your system will also become insignificant.

>> Especially since the dominant ideology of the elite is not >especially popular, this whole neocon thing.

- The neocon argument is in parts popular. The public just wants to have its cake and eat it also. Some parts of economic theory are like talking about aliens. The people have all sorts of ideas but the government knows. Of course it isn’t worth their time to come on TV and try to explain it to you as if you would believe them anyway..

> Quite the opposite, it is simply practical rather than ideological.

- hardly. Depends on your "left" but generally the left is less practical. I don’t know if that is true in the USA or where you are.

> But it's going to take a worldwide discrediting of neoconism (as happened in the Great Depression) for people to start seeing that just because Russian communism didn't work doesn't mean free market theory is right.

- There is no "right" or "wrong" there are just various value judgements I would say that there are two that are essential the system must be resilient in that it can out compete other systems (otherwise you are just wasting your time) and it must increace welfare (otherwise you are abandoning the moral aspect) the main problem with solutions of the left is the first one. they chose a system like communism and it falls to a form of despotism or something similar because it is not stable.

-- getting back to the box there is no reason to place the burden of proof on the box unless you are saying change is bad and that to be safe we should stay with neo conservatism.

>> I assert that the answer to "Can such a box be created?" is no. Unless the box happens to be our own actual collective decisions, in which case it IS a democracy. Which is why I said I treat democracy as a black box.

- AHAH here we have it.. you think that democracy in itself creates perfect decisions.. ermmmmm.... Cannot you see that that is ABSOLUTELY not true particularly, but not only, where the voters do not understand the decisions they are making. This is right up there with a free market person saying “the free market ALWAYS makes the right decision.” The free market is after all a very efficient wealth weighted voting mechanism.

> Try as you might, I think you will just enter the long line of failed ideologies which degenerated into tyranny.

Hmm I suggest the application of your own line on your own ideology of a perfect voting system. It is possible (to my dismay when it happens) that even democracy will join that line.

> A better (and not necessarily the best) question is "What system gives the best guarantee of freedom from tyranny?". And to my knowledge there is no better answer than democracy.

- the black box would be perfect method of stopping tyranny if it worked.by the way a perfect democracy would not work and as a result you would get tyranny (ironically).

> I believe in discrimination against power. Does this encourage laziness and apathy? A little.

It is inefficient. But then again excessive concentrations of power are also inefficient. However I strongly oppose redistribution of money or power on the basis of race. If you want to redistribute money redistribute from rich to poor not rich to black.
And the government can then have some influence on it being spent on diapers as opposed to drugs for example.

> 'Conspiracy theorist' seems to be a convenient way of dismissing anyone who points out a conflict of interest.

No it is someone who attributes intention to an event where that intention is unlikely.

> Do u wish to avoid the 'and influenced the White house' part for a reason? Or do you think influence is meaningless?

- everyone has influence. influence is an unavoidable part of power. Most of us would say you need not only power but misuse of that power. If you have issues with the existence of "power" that says nothing about Halliburton because Halliburton does not have the ability to make power cease to exist. Besides the connection between haliburton and decision making of the bosses to make war is unclear. If oyu had letters with haliburton telling cheney what to do and he acted on them (I understand Cheney doesn’t work for them anymore, although I could be wrong) it would be a stronger case.

U want to discuss reverse discrimination? I'm against it, generally. – (good)
Also against censorship, - good (but I can see a possibility for problems)
for legalising all drugs, (against that but I would be case by case)
against Micro$oft, for Linux, (ha-ha I am for linux / ambivilent towards microsoft)
against spam, (indeed… Censor them!!)
for open source, (good on anyone who does it)
against polling machines, (no reason to be so absolute)
for genetic engineering, (OH YES!)
against greenies, (greenies are ok got to have some environment left just sometimes they get confused and oppose anything in their domain)
for cats, against dogs :-).~ (cats rule dogs droll)

Oh, and I'm also for Jesus, and against God. (no wonder you are so confusing.. um I’m for both and regards to your point I think god is one huge example of might makes right.)

Also for a Jewish homeland (I’m kind of against this in principle),
and against Israel (I am kind of for this)
which makes me an anti-Zionist Zionist. (yeah me too but most here would jsut call me a zionist)

Anyway I think that democracy as it is, is the best system available to protect against tyrany (as in better than facism and communism monarchy and despotism).
But "more representation" does not equal "more protection against tyrany" or "better decisions".

Incidentally internally it would seem protection against tyranny is equal to beurocracy (for example a complex system of intertwined authorities no one having power to act on their own).

Externally democracy is protected by A) out competing other systems in development and desirability and B) by the existance of its physical ability to avoid being controled by others.

>leader a Kim Jong il type leader will never be over thrown >by their people if they try they will be slaughtered.
>UNLESS: A) foreign country organizes the rebellion and >supplies it (like most of the communist and >anti-communist revolutions)
>B) You swap one group of despots for another
>C) they stop being bad guys and start acting nice

I'm disputing this. Did u have some evidence besides the controversial Iraq case?

>If the USA for example was a 1984 style despots there >would be no chance of overthrowing them.

Some evidence? Yes US military is strong, but rebels would have a lot of access to this military themselves. Hell, there's an awful lot of guns in america, just in the hands of the civiilian population! And I'm not talking bolt-action 22 calibre, I'm talking assault rifles, sub machine guns etc. I think a civilian uprising in the US would be extraordinarily bloody. And it's a huge country, too big for the current military to subdue - especially if they are having troubles keeping peace in Iraq, which is 1/8th the size.

>Even if that is not the case take your "number of revolutions >subtract out all the ones with outside interference and that >were not peoples revolutions divide by the number of >countries in the world or the number of bad leadership >countries et etc.. basically you will have to wait a lifetime or >ten to overthrow the despot.

Go on...do that math if you like. I think it's both fallacious and beside the point. U were saying revolution is impossible in the modern world. Now u r saying that u meant a small subset of revolutions is simply unlikely (a big softening of the original claim). I would say that revolution is likely where it is needed, and not hindered by outside interference. So tyrannical countries like Singapore don't need one because the people are mostly happy. And those countries which do need one would probably get a lot further if the tyrants weren't armed and supported from the outside. When that support disappears revolution is very likely.

>If you wanted to put the duty of overthrowing Sadam onto >the Iraqi people then the onus is on you to KNOW that that >is possible and not very difficult and that not overthrowing >Sadam amounts to an effective "choice".

Why do I have to KNOW, but u only have to CLAIM? You set up the choice as 'we must overthrow Saddam, and the choice is how'. I say the choices are wider: Must we overthrow Saddam? Must we sanction the Iraqi people? Couldn't we get on with our own business? Where is our right to make this choice for the Iraqis?

>as to the sanctions you are forgetting Sadam was not a >nice fellow before the sanctions either.

I don't forget it. I have mentioned it about 10 times on this board. I said sanctions strengthened his grip on the Iraqis. Do you dispute this?

>> which would often put in 50% 'below average skill' >people. I personally believe that this system is the fairest >system yet devised.

>Which implies you are willing to accept bad decisions in >exchange for "fairness"..

I think you may have missed the point entirely. Not just a little. I am disputing that this 'badness' can be known at all. I substitute 'fairness of process' which is far less disputable for your 'goodness of decisions' which is extremely debatable in most cases. This ongoing debate we are having is testament to the disputability of your supposed 'direct feed from the Truth'.

>> I'm sure that u r intelligent enough to see that the >question couches a tautology: "If a system can make >perfect decisions, then it makes the best decisions"
>Obviously there's no point discussing this part, since it's >logical correct by virtue of being a tautology.

>So you accept that good decisions are the final goal and >yet you support reducing the amount of good decisions in >favour of another principle...

That doesn't follow from what I said at all. My pointing out that what you said is a tautology is merely pointing out (as anyone familiar with elementary logic would) that your statement carries no information. The fact that "good is good" doesn't tell us anything about good. It doesn't even tell us if good exists. But it is still 'true' in a logical sense. Pointless to dispute. A waste of time to debate. An irrelevant point.

But your sleight of hand (I'll give you credit for this rather than just assuming u missed what a tautology means) is not uncommon in this perennial debate.Socrates made your tautological point in Plato's Rebublic. Just because it was the famous Socrates making it (and we only have Plato's word for it) doesn't mean it's right. Plato, like you, continually argued that democracy (and they actually had democracy too) led automatically to bad decisions. He favoured a state where decisions were made only by trained philosophers, and everyone else did what they were told. I must say, his state sounds rather like Sparta, which today would probably be lumped in with other Saddam style governments. It's funny how he never actually went and lived in Sparta though (only about 3 days walk away) - perhaps because it was boring, violent, and run by fools who thought they knew what was best for everyone. And it would never have tolerated crackpots like Plato who wanted to think for themselves.

Much as I like Plato, I very much dislike his political philosophy. This constant assumption that the 'best people' will make the best decisions for everyone is inconsistent with the Socratic insight that we really don't know anything about what's right or wrong. His most famous and I believe most profound insight - that true wisdom is the recognition of one's profound ignorance.

>As I perceive it your perfect democracy would not be all that >far from anarchy in that it would provide extremely fertile >ground for tyranny.

Why? I'm not proposing a lawless society. Far from it, the rule of law would vie with the rule of the leadership. And both law and leadership would be democratic (as in our society).

>>the black box on the other hand that I have in mind would >eventually be made systematically impossible because it >would no longer be structured in such a way that a human >or even a group of humans could give it orders (although >they could turn it off I guess).

What is your answer to my point that you black box is an impossible pipe-dream? That you could never get any group of experts, let alone the people, to agree that it was working properly. For instance, say you asked the black-box "should the state be secular" then lots of religious people would say no, the rest would say yes. Who is right? Do you know the answer? Your black box could at best represent the interest and beliefs of a few. Which is known generally as tyranny. Or say you asked it 'should the US wage war on Iraq?' then we would still have this forum, where you and I disagree on many points about it. How do you arbitrate?

As a matter of interest (and I must warn you that blackboxes are actually my field of work - I'm an Artificial Intelligence programmer), you could look at the CYC project as the world's biggest attempt ever (many man-centuries of work) at creating a philosophical framework for human intelligence. Perhaps u could try having a debate with that system about this. You will very quickly find that it's pretty incapable of understanding complex human issues. And any issues it does 'understand' (meaning have been programmed into it) are trivial and specific.

It's an impressive piece of work, I must still point out. But it shows the problems of 'coding' human knowledge into digital form.

>As to the tautology part
>-- not really. You could argue that self determination is >more important than things such as happiness and health >(which were some of the things I consider to be under >welfare).

You will note I have not tried to define goodness at all. It's far too vague. I can only say what I favour.

>You see I am arguing somewhat for the fact that >democracy and representation are only important as tools >I.e. correct decisions are the goal. you seem to be arguing >that you can sacrifice the goodness of decisions in favour >of representation.

No. I'm arguing that the goodness of decisions is almost unknowable. It's certainly endlessly disputable. Every 'correct decision' (of a political nature) you could ever point out, I can show you lead to some undesirable consequences. Some people were damaged by it. Some beliefs were sacrificed.

The whole problem with your approach is you set yourself an unknowable and highly disputable goal. My goal is clearer - to minimize tyranny in all it's forms.

>>that could be because you thing representation is a VERY >important safety net or it could be because you value >representation in itself. I would like you to clarify it.

Now we're getting somewhere. Yes, representation is a very important safety net. Nice way of putting it.

And I also value representation in itself. In some matters I can see the applicability of expert knowledge - who cares what the people think about particle physics? Only the expert opinions carry much weight. But on matters which deal with the interests of the people, the opinions of the people are the most valuable indicator. I mean yes my mechanic can tell me what needs to be done to my car. But only I can decide if I want to spend my money that way, or on the rent instead. Maybe an expert advisor can tell me how to invest my money (although this area seems to be much more disputable, but for the sake of argument let's assume there are some real experts) better than I can decide. But only I can decide how much money I have to invest. Do I want to live meanly now and have wealth later? Or do I wish to live it up while I'm young, and have less later?

>Although maybe you have because if you consider the >above a tautology then you are saying that you actually >think goodness of decision is the end goal.

Goodness of decision may be the ultimate (if unknowable) end goal. That much is probably a tautology, since 'goodness of decision' is often synonymous with 'end goal seeking decisions'. But the fact they are the interchangeable phrases doesn't tell me anything about the meaning of the phrases.

>In which case I >would say your suggested course of >action is contrary to >your goal.

You still have a long way to go to prove this.

>> Ergo, under the current system, your president will >almost always be white, male, rich, Christian.

>- I don’t know about that the republicans could get votes by >fielding a leader with the traits of a swing voter.

Yes and I could become the Prime Minister of my country on a pot-smoking platform. But I don't think it's going to happen.

>But anyway the question is how do you solve that >problem? Do we set a 50% quota for people with IQ's >below 100 for the presidency? I guess from the above you >would say yes.

I would advocate having no president. What's the point? It would be randomly selected council. And I wouldn't need a quota if it were randomly selected. Much like a jury.

>However this creates my stability problem a country >perpetually lead by low intelligence people will soon >become an insignificant country and so your system will >also become insignificant.

I think most of our democratically elected leaders are low intelligence :-). Occasionally there's a bright spark, like Clinton, but they are often distrusted by the masses, who prefer 'dumb and honest'. Of course, that's just a front, and the real driving force behind the president are unelected people who are usually very clever (if very unpopular too).

You make a big mistake in assuming that your fellow man is incapable of higher reason, whatever his SAT scores. And it is always possible to draw on expert knowledge, when it is clear that it applies. Like u will probably have economics experts, legal experts etc. So the chances of fading to insignificance are not dominated by your leaderships own personal intelligence.

>- The neocon argument is in parts popular.

Some things they say they offer are quite natural to want. Like saying they are going to lower tax. Saying they will have more accountable and moral leadership. But I think that the whole program itself is generally very unpopular. However, when the choice is between neocon, or neocon-lite, it's very hard to tell what's actually wanted.

>>The public just >wants to have its cake and eat it also. >Some parts of >economic theory are like talking about >aliens. The people >have all sorts of ideas but the >government knows. Of >course it isn’t worth their time to >come on TV and try to >explain it to you as if you would >believe them anyway..

LOL you accuse me of conspiracy theories? I reckon though, that you are right - economic theory is like talking about aliens. Where I differ is that I think, as with aliens, the government also doesn't know what the truth is.

>- hardly. Depends on your "left" but generally the left is less >practical. I don’t know if that is true in the USA or where you >are.

I think in the past you were right. But now I can't see what's practical about the economic policy of the establishment, and I could see much that was practical about the previous establishment, who left a government with it's coffers stuffed full. Now it's just got huge debts.

>- There is no "right" or "wrong" there are just various value >judgements

A much disputed point. With some areas like morality, I think you may be right. With other areas like practical economic policy, there may actually be a meaning to 'more right' and 'less right'. For instance, it is fairly clear that a policy of burning down every factory you have and blowing up every bridge, is probably wrong. This is not just a value judgment.

>>I would say that there are two that are >essential the >system must be resilient in that it can out >compete other >systems (otherwise you are just wasting >your time) and it >must increace welfare (otherwise you are >abandoning >the moral aspect)

So this is your criterion for 'right'? I think these are both good features but are not sufficient in themselves, nor always necessary.

Outcompeting is only important if you have a system where competition is the normal practice. Some systems don't need it. Like you don't compete with each other about what TV station you're going to watch. You just agree, then watch.

>the main problem with >solutions of the left is the first one. >they chose a system >like communism and it falls to a >form of despotism or >something similar because it is not >stable.

Communism is only one leftist option. There is a whole middle ground that you could call 'liberal social democracy' which believes in a kind of limited capitalism - higher taxes (but not 100%). It has been variously pursued around the world, usually without complete system collapse, often to the great improvement both of 'welfare' and 'competitive strength'. It is the neocon who equates this with communism.

>-- getting back to the box there is no reason to place the >burden of proof on the box unless you are saying change >is bad and that to be safe we should stay with neo >conservatism.

I don't understand your point. The box is not person, who can have a 'burden of proof'. The burden of proof would be on the designers of the box, to prove that it was working correctly. I venture you couldn't ever get people to agree that it was.

>> I assert that the answer to "Can such a box be created?" is no. Unless the box happens to be our own actual collective decisions, in which case it IS a democracy. Which is why I said I treat democracy as a black box.

>- AHAH here we have it.. you think that democracy in itself >creates perfect decisions.. ermmmmm.... Cannot you see >that that is ABSOLUTELY not true particularly, but not only, >where the voters do not understand the decisions they are >making.

I have not said it makes 'perfect decisions' under some criterion which you have not defined and probably can't define. The very definition is a highly political one. I have merely said I treat it as a black box to find out what it is that people want. If you can think of a better black box for finding out what people want, other than asking them, then you should patent it and sell it to a market research company for squillions. It would be an amazing breakthrough. Of course it would only outperform the democracy in being cheaper to run. The decisions would still be the same. If they were not the same then the box would be flawed..

This flaw runs like a rich black seam of misunderstanding all through your debate. You set up the criteria of judging democracy by whether it makes 'right decisions' without defining what those decisions should be. You won't define it because you know you can't. The moment you do, you will just show your own bias, and lots of people will disagree with you, intelligent and stupid alike. I never define 'right decisions' because I don't think it is my right to do so. I don't have some 'grand theory of politics' which will give us perfect predictions, and I believe everyone who claims to have one is wrong. I even think the quest for such a grand theory is a waste of time. It is focussing on the wrong question, the insoluble question.

>This is right up there with a free market person saying “the free market ALWAYS makes the right decision.” The free market is after all a very efficient wealth weighted voting mechanism.

I don't think it is the same. Free marketeers seem to claim that the free market makes the right decisions in the sense of it perfectly reflects 'market sentiment' or 'what people want'. They are thus inherently saying that finding out what people want is a vital part of the machinery. Thus far I agree with them. But my disagreement comes when they say that the free market acheives this goal. I think it doesn't do it as well as a vote, because under a capitalist system people can have hugely varying wealth, and therefore some people have lots more votes than others. So their interests are overrepresented.

Unless you go the whole way and say that what the free market wants is BY DEFINITION right. In which case you have an impregnable circular dogma. Does the free market protect us from tyranny very well? As with democracy, I say that it can work well sometimes, but it needs controls. Otherwise unfairness will creep in. Some people with get huge concentrations of wealth, and wield undue influence. These people are often our fledgling fascists. So they need to be controlled. Institutions like monopoly commissions, fair trading laws, inside trading laws. Also I favour generalised weath redistribution in the form of progressive income tax. But I don't say that capitalism is always bad, it just needs to remember that it is the interests of the people that it is meant to serve.

> Try as you might, I think you will just enter the long line of failed ideologies which degenerated into tyranny.

Hmm I suggest the application of your own line on your own ideology of a perfect voting system. It is possible (to my dismay when it happens) that even democracy will join that line.

>- the black box would be perfect method of stopping >tyranny if it worked.

Your 'if it worked' is the big flaw in your argument. It wouldn't work.

In fact I think that it would be far more likely to lead to tyranny than any other system I could imagine. You are talking about setting up a system that only a very small technological elite would understand. These people would thus have 100% say in what went on in the world. Sounds like tyranny. Also sounds like every black box experiment I've heard of so far, from Plato's Republic to Catholicism and it's supposed 'black box of the word of God' to Marxism to the 'Free Market'. All end up degenerating to self-justifying tyrannies.

>by the way a perfect democracy would >not work and as a >result you would get tyranny (ironically).

Why's that?

>> I believe in discrimination against power. Does this >encourage laziness and apathy? A little.

>It is inefficient.

Again the mantra. "Free market is efficient, communism is inefficient. Oooooom". I think this is ideologically blinkered interpretation of the past. In many ways communism was highly efficient. How else to explain the rise in about 3 decades of Russia from the poorest country in Europe to the first country to put a man in space? How else to explain Cuba's amazing health system? Or China's current rapid rise in wealth?

>But then again excessive concentrations of power are also >inefficient.

A disturbance in the force?

>However I strongly oppose redistribution of money or >power on the basis of race. If you want to redistribute >money redistribute from rich to poor not rich to black.

Agreed. Black inequality should be addressed in different ways. Anti-racism laws, for instance. Which apply equally to all racism.

>> 'Conspiracy theorist' seems to be a convenient way of >dismissing anyone who points out a conflict of interest.

>No it is someone who attributes intention to an event >where that intention is unlikely.

I think rather than unlikely you should say 'unproven'. Then it is a theory. If it is unlikely but proven anyway then it is not a conspiracy theory, but a conspiracy fact.

>- everyone has influence. influence is an unavoidable part >of power. Most of us would say you need not only power >but misuse of that power. If you have issues with the >existence of "power" that says nothing about Halliburton >because Halliburton does not have the ability to make >power cease to exist.

I can't see how any of that is relevant to discussing conspiracies.

>Besides the connection between haliburton and decision >making of the bosses to make war is unclear. If oyu had >letters with haliburton telling cheney what to do and he >acted on them (I understand Cheney doesn’t work for them >anymore, although I could be wrong) it would be a stronger >case.

Are you trying to tell me you think Haliburton opposed the war?

>for legalising all drugs, (against that but I would be case by >case)

I should probably be clearer. I think all drugs that are not capable of being used as a weapon should be freely available and required to be clearly labled. I don't agree with prescription only drugs either. Hell, I know when I need antibiotics, don't need to pay some doctor $50 to tell me. If I get sicker I might think it's worthwhile checking with him, but it should be my choice.

>against polling machines, (no reason to be so absolute)

Again, more specific - open source polling machines yes, proprietary and secret no.

>for genetic engineering, (OH YES!)

Hell YES!

>against greenies, (greenies are ok got to have some >environment left just sometimes they get confused and >oppose anything in their domain)

More specific - I like environmentalism when it is about dealing with waste and responsible resource use. But when it's about restricting research and dictating industrial/agricultural methods then they're just a bunch of luddites.

>for cats, against dogs :-).~ (cats rule dogs droll)

Go the cats. Pussy for President!

>Oh, and I'm also for Jesus, and against God. (no wonder >you are so confusing.. um I’m for both and regards to your >point I think god is one huge example of might makes >right.)

:-) I think you get my point. Jesus was a good moral philosopher, I reckon. Son of God? Nah! Does God exist? Nah! My opinion of course.

>Also for a Jewish homeland (I’m kind of against this in >principle),

I mean somewhere where they're guaranteed entry. Not somewhere that only they are allowed to run things, and feel they have a mandate to chuck everyone else out.

>and against Israel (I am kind of for this)

If they just lightened up, settled their differences and acted like humane and funny neighbors instead of disgusting murderers then I'd have no problems.

>which makes me an anti-Zionist Zionist. (yeah me too but >most here would jsut call me a zionist)

It's one of those silly words whose meaning has shifted with time. A bit like socialist.

>But "more representation" does not equal "more protection >against tyrany" or "better decisions".

I never said 'better decisions' although I have to wonder about the 'better protection' part. 'More representation' needs more defintion is you want to be specific.

>Incidentally internally it would seem protection against >tyranny is equal to beurocracy (for example a complex >system of intertwined authorities no one having power to >act on their own).

Bureaucracy is inevitable in any big system. But i think that by itself it tends back towards tyranny of an elite bureaucratic few. I guess I favour decentralised bureacracy, but there are good cases for centralised (like the internet, for instance - centralised administration, decentralised implementation and cost).

>Externally democracy is protected by A) out competing >other systems in development and desirability

I think this competition part is only relevant where you have genuine fear that your 'competitors' will try to attack you militarily. Otherwise I think the desirabilty part is more important.

>and B) by >the existance of its physical ability to avoid being controled >by others.

Are you talking about american firepower? Some truth to this. Also the leading security institution is somewhat democratic (the UN). I wish it were more democratic. Then I think we would actually have more peace.

> I'm disputing this. Did u have some evidence besides the controversial Iraq case?

Lets say you were an individual in noth korea.. how would you go about aranging to overthrow your beloved leader and would would be the most likely result?
It seems this argument is a little like "I dare you to prove religion" but the point is I see apart from the increacing democracy and the fact that the current world particularly Britain/EU and then america have taken a dim view of imperialism -- technology is making it easier and easier for a small number of poeple to rule a large number of people (for example 10,000 years ago if your country reached the horizion you were pretty damn big.
I.e. it is the attitudes of elites as opposed to the ability of elites that is on our side.
But of course you may dispute that but the point is that if it is true and if the people of iraq and nth korea for example have NO OPTION to rebel it is pretty terrible to sit their saying "they must like it otherwise they would rebel".

Some evidence?

- Have you read the 1984 book? if you dont think it is possible then your objection is to the "1984" part of the sentance.

> Yes US military is strong, but rebels would have a lot of access to this military themselves. Hell, there's an awful lot of guns in america, just in the hands of the civiilian population!

guns did not help the iraqis.

> And I'm not talking bolt-action 22 calibre, I'm talking assault rifles, sub machine guns etc.

- the iraqis had some of them also

> I think a civilian uprising in the US would be extraordinarily bloody. And it's a huge country, too big for the current military to subdue - especially if they are having troubles keeping peace in Iraq, which is 1/8th the size.

- You are forgetting that iraq is a totally half hearted war for the US military. The US is trying to save lives of iraqis and appear the nice guy. There is no reason why the US should loose a single life defeating iraq.
And do you forget that the NAZI basically subdued a whole continent (yes there was resistance but no one seriously thinks that could have stopped them by itself) despite the fact they are nothing compared to the US today and the US would have all the infrastructure in place.

> Go on...do that math if you like. I think it's both fallacious and beside the point. U were saying revolution is impossible in the modern world.

No I didnt say that. I said it was BECOMING impossible it most certainly is not impossible now except probably in a subset of countries.

> Now u r saying that u meant a small subset of revolutions is simply unlikely (a big softening of the original claim).

- no you are misrepresenting the origional claim

> I would say that revolution is likely where it is needed, and not hindered by outside interference.

- So where is the next revolution going to be? it should be easy for you to pick since it happens "where most needed"

> So tyrannical countries like Singapore don't need one because the people are mostly happy. And those countries which do need one would probably get a lot further if the tyrants weren't armed and supported from the outside. When that support disappears revolution is very likely.

- You are getting confused now since you said that sanctions (that is stopping suporting a country by trade) prevented revolution and now you are suggesting that helping them prevents revolution also. sounds like an argument of convenience. (either that or you are suppporting my argument now)

> Why do I have to KNOW, but u only have to CLAIM?

- because I am saying even if the task is hard why should it be put on them?

> You set up the choice as 'we must overthrow Saddam, and the choice is how'. I say the choices are wider: Must we overthrow Saddam? Must we sanction the Iraqi people? Couldn't we get on with our own business? Where is our right to make this choice for the Iraqis?

- My point is that both action and inaction are a choice you cannot say I watched them die but it is not my fault. because if someone dies and you have the ability to stop it you have CHOSEN to let them die.

I dont know if invading iraq was the right choice to make because it becomes very complex because without absolute power you must consider all sorts of aspects of real politik.

> I don't forget it. I have mentioned it about 10 times on this board. I said sanctions strengthened his grip on the Iraqis. Do you dispute this?

- His grip was perfect already. at that point there is no such thing as strengthening or weakening or at least no point that matters.

> I am disputing that this 'badness' can be known at all.

There are lots of measures not the least of all "life span of citizens" or "% in poverty" or "average disposable income" or any of a hundred other criteria. Every policy effects these things in some way or other.

> I substitute 'fairness of process' which is far less disputable.

- As I said there is lots of ways of measuring goodness of a decision in terms of welfare although you might dispute which one to use they have similar implications so it is not such a big problem. Fairness would assume perfect understanding and information on all decisions made by all people and it is disputable whether an individual who particularly cares about an issue should get more representation on that issue. so fairness is not beyond dispute despite the fact that I think it is a less er issue than welfare.
consider the marrage councilor who would say "do you wnat to be right or do you want to be happy"

> This ongoing debate we are having is testament to the disputability of your supposed 'direct feed from the Truth'.

Most people can understand lack of understanding is usually a result of not having all the information or having sctomas that prevent you from seeing it.

> The fact that "good is good" doesn't tell us anything about good.

That would be true if I had said that. But that isnt what I said. You have explained your distinction above that you dispute the possibility of somthing having right decisions. Of course to me that sounds like nonsense but nevermind.
I accept that you might loose track of what I said because iof the length of these posts but no need to insult my intelligence.

> Plato, like you, continually argued that democracy (and they actually had democracy too) led automatically to bad decisions.

- democracy doesnt lead to bad decisions. but it MIGHT lead to bad decisions and it DOES NOT always lead to GOOD decisions. That should be self evident or elese two democratic countries could never disagree.

> is inconsistent with the Socratic insight that we really don't know anything about what's right or wrong.

- If you abandon the pretense of having any idea what is right or wrong you have no reason to oppose anything.

> Why? I'm not proposing a lawless society.

Perfect democracy would depend on what exactly you meant by perfect democracy but it is easy enough to imagine either people voting on big issues as if it only concerned them (such as white people making black people illegal) or people voting on small issues as if they were big ones (for examople me and my neighbours have a dispute over the height of my fence so the UN decides we should sit down and have a rice cake together and pray to alah for guidance).
You have all the same problems you ever had as always it becomes a balancing act.

> What is your answer to my point that you black box is an impossible pipe-dream?

perfect governence is a pipe dream better governance is NOT. the box preferably a white one only has to be better than the old system and possible to turn off if a better system becomes available.

> For instance, say you asked the black-box "should the state be secular" then lots of religious people would say no, the rest would say yes. Who is right? Do you know the answer?

- the black box would judge it by the criteria that it was given. In an extreme example like NAZI germany that criteria might be "to protect the rights of those of a different religion against things like the holocaust" if that was its logic would you say that that was "wrong" and that it should be put to a vote to see if people would vote to accept killing people because of their religion?
The black box could easily be programed to say "if it is a small issue it is none of my business" If that was the optimum solution or the solution was truely ambiguous but almost always the box would be able to take a position based on statistics.

> Your black box could at best represent the interest and beliefs of a few.

there is no reason why it would not know just as much as a democracy.

> You will very quickly find that it's pretty incapable of understanding complex human issues.

- that will not always be true.

> You will note I have not tried to define goodness at all. It's far too vague. I can only say what I favour.

you discard it because you cannot describe it fully. Lazy.

> Every 'correct decision' (of a political nature) you could ever point out, I can show you lead to some undesirable consequences. Some people were damaged by it. Some beliefs were sacrificed.

That is true but that is no excuse to abandon the attempt to find good or bad decisions or arbitrarily hand it to a democracy because you cant be bothered trying a little harder.

> The whole problem with your approach is you set yourself an unknowable and highly disputable goal. My goal is clearer - to minimize tyranny in all it's forms.

A) at the cost of what? B) I dont think your system would minimize tyrany unless you enforced it globaly and had a big army to smack anyone who loooked "tyranical"

> And I also value representation in itself. In some matters I can see the applicability of expert knowledge - who cares what the people think about particle physics? Only the expert opinions carry much weight. But on matters which deal with the interests of the people, the opinions of the people are the most valuable indicator.

Both factors come into play in all compex decisions. the current popular system uses both experts and the will of the populous.

> Maybe an expert advisor can tell me how to invest my money (although this area seems to be much more disputable, but for the sake of argument let's assume there are some real experts) better than I can decide. But only I can decide how much money I have to invest. Do I want to live meanly now and have wealth later? Or do I wish to live it up while I'm young, and have less later?

To an extent this is wha hte government does. ideallly the two (or however many) parties decide possiblle workable scenarios and you choose between them in a vote.

> Yes and I could become the Prime Minister of my country on a pot-smoking platform. But I don't think it's going to happen.

- And you think it would be appropriate if you COULD become primeminister on a pot smoking platform?? that would be anti democracy. besides if a black man cannot rule the USA lets say that would be because of a sort of racism in the country (and a hangover from slavery) both of which are traits of the people not the system.

> I would advocate having no president. What's the point? It would be randomly selected council. And I wouldn't need a quota if it were randomly selected. Much like a jury.

The point is consistancy of policy, world representation, willingness of council to BE council members etc etc. But you might be able to get around it a council would not be impossible.

> I think most of our democratically elected leaders are low intelligence :-).

- you are cynical and its nice to joke about such things but i would say achievement in politics in a large country requires intelligence. most of the people here would get torn apart by a hostile press conference and it would take an insane party to make them their leader.

> You make a big mistake in assuming that your fellow man is incapable of higher reason, whatever his SAT scores. And it is always possible to draw on expert knowledge, when it is clear that it applies. Like u will probably have economics experts, legal experts etc. So the chances of fading to insignificance are not dominated by your leaderships own personal intelligence.

- It is hard to distinguish experts in an area unless you are also an expert in that area. and politics is full of vested interests. Besides that if you have a marginally worse government that makes your government grow at 1% less GDP than your neighbour year on year then you will soon find those 1%'s add up. when its 10% it adds up even faster.

> But I think that the whole program itself is generally very unpopular. However, when the choice is between neocon, or neocon-lite, it's very hard to tell what's actually wanted.

the fact htat you are placing both major parties on the "neocon" side implies that Neocon gets almost all the votes in every election except for the green party (the "popularist" party).

> LOL you accuse me of conspiracy theories? I reckon though, that you are right - economic theory is like talking about aliens. Where I differ is that I think, as with aliens, the government also doesn't know what the truth is.

- of course you aregue that knowledge is impossible (which is true but highly useless philosophy).

> I could see much that was practical about the previous establishment, who left a government with it's coffers stuffed full. Now it's just got huge debts.

you are not going to get clinton back if the democrats win. So that comparison is not relevant. (of course I think I've already told you what way I lean).

>>- There is no "right" or "wrong" there are just various value >judgements
>A much disputed point.

- now Im arguing your point earlier and you are arguing mine.. sounds like we have both used arguments of convenience here.

> Outcompeting is only important if you have a system where competition is the normal practice.

No I am considering your system to be possible to be implimented within a state but not enforced upon others. If you cannot enforce it on others yoou will compete with others systems in some form or other and if you loose you loose you must at least be able to "draw"

> Some systems don't need it. Like you don't compete with each other about what TV station you're going to watch. You just agree, then watch.

- I am not talking about competition within the system I am talking about competition between systems.

> There is a whole middle ground that you could call 'liberal social democracy'

- I dont equate it with comunism. I have alot of social democrat traits to me. the far left is still full of moon bats with unstable models though

> The burden of proof would be on the designers of the box, to prove that it was working correctly. I venture you couldn't ever get people to agree that it was.

- Use it as a tool to solve one problem if it does that better than other ocuntries use it for two then three starting with the most appropriate ones (maybe interest rate/ exchange rate monitoring) If you can override it it is only a tool anyway

> If you can think of a better black box for finding out what people want, other than asking them, then you should patent it and sell it to a market research company for squillions.

It is called the free market. All sucessful companies do it to some extent and surveys might work sometimes but sometimes they dont a smart entrepreneur for example would know the difference.

> It would be an amazing breakthrough. Of course it would only outperform the democracy in being cheaper to run. The decisions would still be the same. If they were not the same then the box would be flawed..

- Two things A) what if the method could find out what the peo-ple would know if they fully understood
adn B) could find out what they would have asked for with 20/20 hind sight.
For example many companies have filled an apparent need only to find that it disapeared from under them or they created a product for which there was no need yet because the people did not know they needed it.
An economy that only gave customers what they already want would be very stagnant. we are lucky this is not so.

> You set up the criteria of judging democracy by whether it makes 'right decisions' without defining what those decisions should be.

I did define them. they are those decisions that result in the highest standard of welfare. I would have to spend a long time defining that criteria accuratly and I would want to be sensitive to other peoples definitions of it but I cant see what your problem is. the box would have responsibilities to prevent people dying (relitive to democratic countries), keeping them generally happy (relitive to democratic countries) and with a reasonable level of freedom of action(relitive to democratic countries), giving them a reasonable standard of living (relitive to democratic countries) protecting equal rights (relitive to democratic countries).

>> You won't define it because you know you can't. The moment you do, you will just show your own bias, and lots of people will disagree with you, intelligent and stupid alike.

- What of the aboove are you going to disagree with? The box may have identical morals to the majority of the origional country but it will just be much more aware of the exact trade offs of a situation and thus achieve those goals and protect those morals mroe efficiently.

> I never define 'right decisions' because I don't think it is my right to do so.

But actually you do. you define democracy as not only right but the default. And in the absence of democracy you suggest waiting for it to appear.

> because under a capitalist system people can have hugely varying wealth, and therefore some people have lots more votes than others.

- that is not a problem with capitalism per se that is a problem with income inequality the two are not the same. Also capitalism allows you to vote according to how much you care about an issue.

> Does the free market protect us from tyranny very well?

A little just like democracy does "a little" they are the same thing to an extent.

> Also I favour generalised weath redistribution in the form of progressive income tax. But I don't say that capitalism is always bad, it just needs to remember that it is the interests of the people that it is meant to serve.

- I favour estate taxes, welth taxes (of sorts) and state ownership of land. progressive income tax is also ok.

> Your 'if it worked' is the big flaw in your argument. It wouldn't work.

- the origional point of the model was to ask if it was possible then what. anyway who can say in 1000 years from now (or even 100 years)

> In fact I think that it would be far more likely to lead to tyranny than any other system I could imagine. You are talking about setting up a system that only a very small technological elite would understand.

- Your control over the system might be a referendum. It would then be irrelevant who else understood it - besides NO ONE would understand it it would be beyond all of them.

> These people would thus have 100% say in what went on in the world.

- how on earth did you get to that?

> Again the mantra. "Free market is efficient, communism is inefficient. Oooooom".

- no, discrimination is inefficient.

> In many ways communism was highly efficient. How else to explain the rise in about 3 decades of Russia from the poorest country in Europe to the first country to put a man in space? How else to explain Cuba's amazing health system? Or China's current rapid rise in wealth?

- Now you are running off on a tangent. Comunism is not bad for getting a state going.

> I think rather than unlikely you should say 'unproven'. Then it is a theory.

- Nothing is ever proven there is only "unlikely" that is your own argument.

> Are you trying to tell me you think Haliburton opposed the war?

maybe they did...... how would you know?

> I think all drugs that are not capable of being used as a weapon should be freely available and required to be clearly labled.

- nice jsut the way the british and the french screwed up china. smoke that opium boys...

More specific - I like environmentalism when it is about dealing with waste and responsible resource use. But when it's about restricting research and dictating industrial/agricultural methods then they're just a bunch of luddites. - (OK I agree with you then)


> Bureaucracy is inevitable in any big system. But i think that by itself it tends back towards tyranny of an elite bureaucratic few.

But beurocracy is the standard defense against tyrany. add a president add a constitutional monarch add a judicial system and add a constitution there you go lots more burocracy but less tyrany. this reveals the lie that more decentralization will in the end lead to less tyrany.

by the way england will thump australia with a total divisible by 3. you can take it to the bank :)

OK I see the problem with the black box issue. I am not saying the black box is defining morals it is just taking those that hte humans define (by a democratic system if you like) and removing all possibility of bias or inefficient decision making or inconsistancy from it. The box isnt "inventing morals" except in as far as current morals are inheritly contradictory.
The point is the better system achieves the goal of the people as opposed to making the people deal with each issue individually. This is less "democratic but at the same time is "fairer" in a way and certainly more "welfare maximizing".

>-- getting back to the box there is no reason to place the >burden of proof on the box unless you are saying change >is bad and that to be safe we should stay with neo >conservatism.

> I don't understand your point. The box is not person, who can have a 'burden of proof'.

when I say the box I mean the system that the box represents. it is the "more efficient system". I am saying that if oyu accept change is good there will be mroe welfare to go around if you go towards the welfare efficient system as oposed to the "fair" system.
The burden of proof is in relation to other systems. that is the argument of what system is the default. I would have to say at the moment neocon is the default since even if you think neocon is doing badly you cant absolutly say any other system would have done better. If you reject the default it is up to you to prove non default solutions are better. no more perfect democracy than computerized representation.

>>The whole problem with your approach is you set yourself an unknowable and highly disputable goal. My goal is clearer - to minimize tyranny in all it's forms.

- the problem is you set yourself a single goal when you should have more than one goal. for example if I said making people happy was my goal but I ignored other factors I would run around spiking peoples drinks with happy drugs. It is other morals that prevents that from happening.

you are "disputing that this 'badness' can be known at all." and then define it as a lack of 'fairness of process' as if that was the only part that is definable. You have a very uphill struggle to prove that there is no other method of defining badness or goodness that would be generally accepted. Or even that fairness would be accepted as good or that fairness can be defined.

............... "This constant assumption that the 'best people' will make the best decisions for everyone "
If mine was a tautology so is this - of course you ae disagreeing with it this time


> What is your answer to my point that you black box is an impossible pipe-dream?

The converse being that truely representitive democracy is a pipedream but actuallly I have mroe faith in technology than that.

> The decisions would still be the same. If they were not the same then the box would be flawed..

Here is a massive flaw.
You can get a different election result just by changing aesthetic aspects of the campaign or by what the weather was like how questions are aranged (grouped or seperate) how information is released etc.
"This flaw runs like a rich black seam of misunderstanding all through your debate."

> That you could never get any group of experts, let alone the people, to agree that it was working properly.

You can get agreement on decisions we use demoracy for example.

Or say you asked it 'should the US wage war on Iraq?' then we would still have this forum, where you and I disagree on many points about it. How do you arbitrate?

- the black box would tell you based on statistics that would leave no room for us to talk about the Military industrial complex or any other conspiricy of rich and powerful. No human would have input into the decision only the criteria (which would be available for anyone to see. If you did not like the results you would change the criteria.

I note that you think that
"a civilian uprising in the US would be extraordinarily bloody. " and yet you see these extraordinarily bloody. things as some sort of a useful tool. I would say "extraordinarily bloody" basically rules it out as a useful tool in the presence of almost any other alternitive. that is, a US invasion of iraq or wherever would be alot less bloody than a civil war which not only would be more bloody but might drag on for years and could end with almost anything (did the peopel of russia really want stalin to become their leader when they revolted? Did the iraqis want saddam when they got rid of quasim or whatever his name was (he was pretty unpopular I understand except with the USSR).

> Couldn't we get on with our own business?

If I just close my eyes it will alll go away.. toto toto where are you???

> Where is our right to make this choice for the Iraqis?

You could argue you have no "right" to make choices for your infant children but if you put them out in the street and ignore them they will die and it will be your fault.

Here is a classic you take Platos republic and basically you say "i judge it to be similar to somthing bad therefore I judge it to be bad." Plato was not unaware that there is such a thing as bad leadership.


>Agreed. Black inequality should be addressed in different ways. Anti-racism laws, for instance. Which apply equally to all racism.

or alll forms of irrational discrimination (and maybe some rational ones if it is efficient social policy).

I think all drugs that are not capable of being used as a weapon should be freely available and required to be clearly labled. I don't agree with prescription only drugs either. Hell, I know when I need antibiotics, don't need to pay some doctor $50 to tell me. If I get sicker I might think it's worthwhile checking with him, but it should be my choice.

- the problem is that a country will harm itself if it alows a drug for example nicotine to be used widely. this might be a couple of years off your life span and a percentage off GDP but who knows what it would be for ALL of the drugs added together.
But at the same time I realise there is a problem with for example marjuana where you you MAY be spending more chasing after it than it would cost you if you just ignored it. this was probably true of alcohol.
The perscription thing annoys me too

>> I mean somewhere where they're guaranteed entry. Not somewhere that only they are allowed to run things, and feel they have a mandate to chuck everyone else out.

- It is Easy to hate people when you accuse them of things they are not doing. I wish the israelis were not in israel (it would save alot of trouble for the world) but they are there and most of them were probably born there so it would be as valid a solution to chuck out all the palistinians as it would be to do it to the jews. (I am not suggesting either I am just making the point)

>>> If they just lightened up, settled their differences and acted like humane and funny neighbors instead of disgusting murderers then I'd have no problems.

- I dont think they are worse than others would be in their position and they are better than many. But that is not the point. the point is how to get them to a workable solution (most probably a two state solution).

> I think this competition part is only relevant where you have genuine fear that your 'competitors' will try to attack you militarily. Otherwise I think the desirabilty part is more important.

The USSR was not attacked militarily it was "out competed" by the USA. China is not conquoring anyone but it is out competing its neighbours in as far as it is acquiring power over them by growing faster.

>Are you talking about american firepower? Some truth to this. Also the leading security institution is somewhat democratic (the UN). I wish it were more democratic. Then I think we would actually have more peace.

This is untrue. Most of the countries and people of the UN are very NON interventionist when it comes to places like africa where alot of the wars are. China, india indonesia etc (the big countries) for example would shut down any attempt to send their forces (and concequently UN forces) to any of those places / peacekeeping or not.

Recently has been a pretty peaceful time in the world as a result of britain and america etc sticking there noses in everywhere (although the BIG wars have gotten alot bigger and there are more people to kill if there is a war).

You argue that the US prevents revolution when it applies sanctions removing trade and making iraq poor and then you argue that revolution is prevented by the trade that makes singapore rich.

having argued against sanctions you then complain about governments being armed from outside (buying weapons). Also note that the vast majoirity of iraqs weapons did not come from the USA and they dont come with "this will be used for weapons" stickers on them so for iraq to be denied extermal suppport the USA etc would have to have placed sanctions on them.

You reject "goodness" in favour of fairness because you think it is definable then you reject my two criteria (just a sample) because "these are both good features but are not sufficient in themselves, nor always necessary." Somthing which sould also have you rejecting "fairness" (as if that can be defined) and democracy.

it seems our posts above have gotten so long that you are now able to argue two points in contradiction to each other in a single post.
A sly tactic to make me argue against my own position? maybe.

Yer, the posts are dragging. I'll cut my rebuttal shorter.

1. Iraq war. Think we've talked this one to death. And seem to have similar thoughts about what should be done anyway.

2. Rightness vs Democracy.
Your black box argument is interesting, because it is a modern way of describing an ancient problem. Rather like we would probably use a Matrix metaphor than use Descartes' 'evil deceiving demon' metaphor.

So far the only rebuttal I can see u have given is that my position is inconsistent - I both deny rightness can be defined, and then define rightness as fairness and fairness as democracy.

Once again, this is a misunderstanding of my position. I do not define fairness as rightness. Nor do I say democracy is always fair.

But I do say that fairness is more easily defined than rightness. For that reason, I advocate that we answer a different question (and stop talking about rightness). What system better prevents tyranny? I say democracy is the best system yet devised for this purpose, and challenge you to tell me a better system.

The only 'better system' I've heard so far requires the magic black box of the technological gods of the future to tell us what is right and wrong. When asked to explain how it could possible tell right from wrong, in a way that didn't just reflect the philosophical prejudices of the programming team, you countered that it would be more efficient form of market research, and would be subject to referendums on big issues.

Frankly, this just sounds like advanced democracy. The only part which isn't exacly like the kind of democracy I'm advocating is the existence of the black box.

Personally, I don't think we need the black box to get started, nor might we ever need it. Since it would be merely a cunning polling machine, I can't see why we couldn't just have polling machines (open source of course).

3. Advocating democracy isn't 'trying hard enough'

I'm sorry if I'm too lazy to design yet another huge system of morality, and prefer to just pick one from the past that suits my temperament. But I'm too lazy for a reason - I think the task is futile. The endless record of intelligent men trying to design exactly the 'programme' you are after serves to illustrate how difficult the problem is. And the difficulty isn't a technical one - it's not like they just needed a better calculator. The problem is that people will DISAGREE with their system. The fundamental assumptions, the rights and morals they choose, the acceptable lines of argument. And unlike in science, there is no 'real world' that they can test their theories on to see if they are true. You can implement a moral system, sure, but how do you show it works better than another one? Your criteria will be different to the criteria for the other system - the very goals will be different. Nietzschean morality, for example, fundamentally disagrees with utilitarianism. Which one is right? Both are internally consistent (or should i say relatively equally internally inconsistent :-)).

I personally would build the black box along utilitarian lines, in the spirit of the JS Mill. But a huge proportion of the world would just say my system was corrupt, bad and wrong. Just because my system is internally consistent (lets assume that it is) doesn't mean it's right. Doesn't even mean there is a right.

There is still the far less disputed concept of fairness which we could implement though. And we have implemented it, to a degree. And it has worked amazingly well. And I think it could go further.

4. Using various systems 'like a blackbox'.

You picked up on me saying I treat democracy as a blackbox was inconsistent with denying a blackbox could be made which was right.

I don't see it. I'm not claiming that the democracy makes the 'right' decisions. I'm saying democracy is the right way to make decisions. It's the fairest decision making process. And you have to treat it as a blackbox, you can't go 'Nope, wrong decision, obviously the logic is stuffed somewhere.' Or should I say, you can't do that in any other way than from convincing your fellow man you are right in sufficient numbers to turn the decision around.

Interestingly you claimed the 'free market' is also a black box, which gives a democratic result without the cost. I have to say I see very little evidence of this. What the market wants and what the people want are often at odds. Because the market is dominated by those with money, whose interests may counter those of the majority.

Also, the market simply doesn't rule on many important issues. When did the free market decide that gay marriages should be allowed? How did you work that one out from reading the NASDAQ?


Whew...that's a bit shorter...
U might not see me for a while...gots to work - to much timewasting on internet posts!

You picked it - I was going for Australia. Still, not too bitter about the result. At least now ozzie still only has the cup twice. Not an insurmountable lead.

& I'd hardly call a dropgoal in the last minute of extra time a thumping.

You are right it was not a thumping..The aussies played increadibly. The stats would have had the English easy winners with their scum and their kicker but the aussies took it to extra time anyway (must be not wanting to dissapoint the home crowd). I wasn't sure if Australia was up to it (they looked to be the weakest of the final four) but they showed they were worthy finalists.

>> What system better prevents tyranny?

I think "farrness" is like socialism. to a point it could be considered to prevent tyrany by evening power but at some point it becomes so obsessed with evening power it becomes tyrany again.
In the same way going too far further than we have now has the same danger of falling off the edge unless you also consider a few other important factors.

> Frankly, this just sounds like advanced democracy.

It is just a metophore so you could call it advanced democracy - but lets say everything that happens in the world happened by a vote. What would your supermarket stock? Would it stock everything so confusing htat you couldnt find what you want or would it stock only bland generic brands? either way it would never offer you anythign that you did not know that you needed (ie nothing inovative).

If your children say "I want to eat candy" you have to factor in the fact that their teeth will go rotten because you know the individual child just like the individual person doesnt have all the information and the information is not "real enough" to them to make the correct decision.
Or you may know that if you ask the child if he wants to have his cake he will say "yes"
and if you ask him if he wants to eat it he will say "yes"
so basically you control the outcome by writing the question since one answer makes the other question obsolete.
I think both and all systems come under that same sort of critisism unless you minimise the direct input of anything that might be biased into policy. This is in part the same reason beurocracy protects us from tyrany.

dissapoint the home crowd). I wasn't sure if Australia was up to it (they looked to be the weakest of the final four) but they showed they were worthy finalists.

If only they played as hard as they did against NZ. And I reckon Oz would easily beat the French. But a nailbiting final is always good. Even if it was mostly dull kicks.

>I think "farrness" is like socialism. to a point it could be >considered to prevent tyrany by evening power but at some >point it becomes so obsessed with evening power it >becomes tyrany again.

I'd suggest we stop short of that point. I take your point that constantly seeking to make people equal (in the manner of reverse discrimination) can lead to injustice on those who are naturally talented or energetic or worthy in some way.

I favour equal 'access' to power, rather than equal power. If you're just not interested you shouldn't be coerced to take part. And there are plenty of areas where competition should sort out who does what - we want the best football team after all! Not a randomly selected group, including women and the elderly.

>It is just a metophore so you could call it advanced >democracy - but lets say everything that happens in the >world happened by a vote. What would your supermarket >stock? Would it stock everything so confusing htat you >couldnt find what you want or would it stock only bland >generic brands? either way it would never offer you >anythign that you did not know that you needed (ie nothing >inovative).

As u so rightly pointed out, the free market is a form of dollar voting. And the issues you raise aren't show stoppers for it. Nor would they be for a number of other more democratic systems. Obviously you'd have a multi-tiered system, where small issues like what to stock in the supermarket would be decided by groups that were actually affected by it.

In fact, there's no real great need to alter the way it works now - goods seem to get into supermarkets efficiently enough not to need any tampering. But u will notice that there are plenty of people who can't afford to go to the supermarket, who therefore have no 'vote'. This injustice needs to be addressed.

>If your children say "I want to eat candy" you have to factor >in the fact that their teeth will go rotten because you know >the individual child just like the individual person doesnt >have all the information and the information is not "real >enough" to them to make the correct decision.

Only if you consider that you are the child, and some unknown rich guy is the wise old parent. Then it doesn't sound like wisdom, just patronization.

I don't find this analogy the least bit compelling in the current discussion. The voting population are not children. Children are a separate case, and the treatment of them is much different. Tyranny over children is not disproved, nor is corporal punishment etc. I don't have all the answers about how to raise children, nor am I talking about it.

>Or you may know that if you ask the child if he wants to >have his cake he will say "yes"
>and if you ask him if he wants to eat it he will say "yes"
>so basically you control the outcome by writing the >question since one answer makes the other question >obsolete.

This may be an issue if the creation of the questions for referenda is not a democratic process. But it easily could be.

>I think both and all systems come under that same sort of >critisism unless you minimise the direct input of anything >that might be biased into policy. This is in part the same >reason beurocracy protects us from tyrany.

Depends on the bureaucracy. Some are fairly organised and quite democratic (I think of local body politics in my area). Others are corrupt and tyrannous (my experiences in Thailand come to mind).

All levels of political power need to be addressed in a good system, not just the plebiscite for the supreme leader. And I still say The More Democracy The Better. And I also still think that huge wealth inequity is hugely undemocratic, and will be the ultimate end of the ongoing power of whichever countries allow it.

>> If only they played as hard as they did against NZ. And I reckon Oz would easily beat the French.

England would have taken NZ. NZ has good attack but it would have sat idle in a game with england. Your attack can be twice as good as the other guy's but it is useless if you dont get to use it. So the french who could destroy small teams got easily beaten by england because the england passed that critical point in skill where the french attack no longer mattered. The same for the australians on the day against NZ. the NZders just didnt have it in them to beat a really determined aussie side. the aussies have good defense and if it was "on form" a "try scoring" side may as well surrender.

> But u will notice that there are plenty of people who can't afford to go to the supermarket, who therefore have no 'vote'. This injustice needs to be addressed.

- of course a bit of redistribution is not a bad thing but I would not remove the assocaiation between creation and ability to consume resources.
The other factor is it is generally best to do redistribution one step at a time, if you try to do it all in one go your whole system may colapse.

> Only if you consider that you are the child, and some unknown rich guy is the wise old parent. Then it doesn't sound like wisdom, just patronization.
The voting population are not children. Children are a separate case, and the treatment of them is much different.

A child is only differentiated from an adult by degree not by type. Of course I oppose the concept of decision making where "some rich guy" is making the decision. Ideally it would be "some collection of elected smart guys who dont have vested interests" in the current system. Any alternitive I would suggest would have to be an improvement in quality of decision making ability over that.

> This may be an issue if the creation of the questions for referenda is not a democratic process. But it easily could be.

we have a never ending circle here.

> Depends on the bureaucracy. Some are fairly organised and quite democratic (I think of local body politics in my area). Others are corrupt and tyrannous (my experiences in Thailand come to mind).

Thailand is certainly corrupt. Beurocracy supports "status quo" but it also seperates decision makers and decisions. For example see how the government is not even in total control of its own police force. In that way the leader has been distanced from his own power.

Did you have some bad treatment in thailand?

> And I also still think that huge wealth inequity is hugely undemocratic, and will be the ultimate end of the ongoing power of whichever countries allow it.

I make a distinction between what I "want to be right" and what I think "is right"
Basically I think inequality of wealth and power is a "natural state" even though it is a bad state. you therefore must expend resources to increace equality as opposed to sitting back and letting it happen and you must determine the balance between how much you can spare and how much equality you need.

>England would have taken NZ. NZ has good attack but it >would have sat idle in a game with england.

We'll never know. The draw was designed to end in a north vs south clash, as it has in most of the past world cups. But NZ was beaten fair and square, no doubt. U can't win the world cup by picking and choosing who u play. And Oz was beaten fair and square too. U can't complain much about a tournament where the winner beat everyone.

But I must say it does seem stink. A bit like a boxing match won on points, there's a definite lack of audience appeal to the kicking game. Unless you're English, of course :-)

>A child is only differentiated from an adult by degree not by
>type.

I think there's a qualitative difference. Whilst it is an arbitrary human construct, I think the existence of adulthood is a good idea. Children can definitely be shown to be less knowledgeable, and more easily led than adults. They are extremely breakable in many ways and need protection.

But once again, I think the argument falls down when you try to imply that some subclass of adults should be treated like children.

Of course I oppose the concept of decision making >where "some rich guy" is making the decision. Ideally it >would be "some collection of elected smart guys who dont >have vested interests" in the current system. Any alternitive >I would suggest would have to be an improvement in >quality of decision making ability over that.

I hope u aren't inventing another fictitious black box. This "collection of elected smart guys who dont have vested interests" may be very difficult to assemble, and highly tyrannous in existing forms. I think of judges as an example. Do you disapprove of the jury system? Does it seem outrageous to you that rank amateurs have anything to do with deciding tricky legal cases?

>> This may be an issue if the creation of the questions for >referenda is not a democratic process. But it easily could >be.

>we have a never ending circle here.

Where's that? I'm suggesting that the question creation could easily be a democratic process. What's circular?

>Did you have some bad treatment in thailand?

Not especially, my comment refers to bribes and suchlike that opened all sorts of doors that never would have worked in my country, but seem to be norms there.

In fact the place was a bit of an eye opener on how humane and excellent a place could be, despite having crappy governmental structures. Thais struck me as the most friendly people I'd ever met, and it would be a good place to live in some ways.

Even the corruption sometimes seemed benevolent - a way for people to do things that weren't really that bad (like overstaying on holiday), and to be mildly punished to a reasonably fair extent. The actual legal punishment was extreme. Traffic fines were similar - OK I didn't have an international license, but I clearly had a full license from a country which drives on the same side of the road. So the $30 bribe that was extorted from me seemed commensurate with the crime.

But ideally the system wouldn't need the corruption, and I expect it hurts the poorer people there far more than it hurt a westerner who can afford the measly bribes.

>> And I also still think that huge wealth inequity is hugely >undemocratic, and will be the ultimate end of the ongoing >power of whichever countries allow it.

I make a distinction between what I "want to be right" and what I think "is right"

:-) u r accusing me of wishful thinking? There's some truth to that. But also I think that history backs me up. Huge weath inequity historically causes a lot of trouble where it happens, and characterises weak and backward nations.

>Basically I think inequality of wealth and power is a "natural >state" even though it is a bad state.

Whatever that means. Natural in the sense of left without human interference? It's a human system, so by definition there's constant human interference.

Natural in the sense that any system will tend towards it? I disagree with that. U don't see huge concentrations of power in the animal kingdom, even when there are social groupings. And a democratic system often has less concentration than a monarchy. Does that mean democracy is not natural, but monarchy is?

I think unfair distribution is a state (natural or otherwise) that can happen in any system. And it is almost always bad.

>you therefore must >expend resources to increace equality >as opposed to >sitting back and letting it happen and you >must determine >the balance between how much you can >spare and how >much equality you need.

Agreed. I think the balance comes when 'equality' becomes tyrannous. There are many ways to poorly administer equality, which go against the main reason for having it. You could make things more equal for the blind by blinding everyone, for instance. A better response is to seek ways to reverse blindness, and to improve the quality of life for the blind, by building blind-friendly systems.

But I must say it does seem stink. A bit like a boxing match won on points, there's a definite lack of audience appeal to the kicking game. Unless you're English, of course :-) > Ha-ha like Lennox Lewis. I wonder if he taught the English how to play. Pop them on the nose 500 times and wait for them to eventually do something stupid out of frustration. > I hope u aren't inventing another fictitious black box. This "collection of elected smart guys who don’t have vested interests" may be very difficult to assemble, and highly tyrannous in existing forms. - Under most systems the vast majority of policies made by your "collective beurocracy" are motivated by what people think is good for the country not "selfish interest" as such. Judges for example arent running around taking bribes from the criminals (in general). Therefore it is very easy to get a group of smart guys with at least limited vested interests. At the cost of some democracy you could easily increase the extent to which that was policed if you wanted. So basically A) the current system is OK B) it could be improved without too much difficulty with audits of president’s accounts or rejecting people who might have certain vested interests (like in the jury system) etc etc. >> I think of judges as an example. Do you disapprove of the jury system? Does it seem outrageous to you that rank amateurs have anything to do with deciding tricky legal cases? - I believe the jury system is inferior. Consider the tactics that lawyers intentionally use to win a case from the selection of jurors by their race and age and how they look at you to their careful use of words, interrupting of other lawyers and other such cynical tools. This is a result of your jury system. In the end the American jury system says that if you are rich enough you are not convictable take the "conspiracy defence of OJ Simpson... whether or not it was true if it is a valid defense anyone could use it and almost anyone would be found not guilty. I am being a little flippant but you may as well just go to Nigeria pay off the judge and reduce the beurocracy of this "buying a verdict" thing a codified law system with investigative judges seems to be superior in that regard because they should be more difficult to manipulate by the vested interests. > Where's that? I'm suggesting that the question creation could easily be a democratic process. What's circular? -because you create a question to ask a question. How do you create the question that asks what question to use? Another vote? > Not especially, my comment refers to bribes and suchlike that opened all sorts of doors that never would have worked in my country but seem to be norms there. -some might say that is a cultural thing... and corruption is efficient in some areas and inefficient in some areas as you note. > But ideally the system wouldn't need the corruption, and I expect it hurts the poorer people there far more than it hurt a westerner who can afford the measly bribes. - Not really....the bribes are adjusted for your apparent wealth. Bribery is a sort of wealth redistribution method in that way. What is sad are places like Malaysia for example where you can get a 10% discount for being Chinese (speaking Chinese) at Chinese stores.

While I dont hold to much of what Mandela says being a convict. I do my President. Why is it that people can do terrible unheard of things to Americans and we cant defend ourselves? I find it Ironic that some tend to forget how Bin Loden sat and laughed and joked and even partied after the 911 insident. Should we sit and wait on the next one or take care of business? I vote for taking care of business and the American people. That meaning whatever it takes. Japan started it in Hawii remember. we just finished it. And our countries are doing well or all of those I have spoken to. But then again they hold the anger over it and I would feel the same way. But thats what happens when a country is divided. The military didnt listen to the Emperor. Mandela was not only one sided but sad. Only seeing the hardships of the black people and his South Africa. We are a melting pot. All colors and religions and you can have what you want here if you work and save. Sorry but I dare to disagree. I do appreciate your point of view we are all intitled to ours. God Bless the USA

well they got saddam anyway maybe he will be co-operative. they could offer him a favourable plea bargain with the iraqi court.

I recon give him a good deal so that he wont pull a milosovich on us.. iraq cant afford to have a stupid case running for years there.

Now just waiting for osama to be found... no plea bargains for him though.

moronic is an "individual" that doesn't see that this invasion has been in the making over 10 yrs

moronic is a citizen of the UNITED STATES that doesn't back their countries armed forces, I.E. other americans sons and daughters that are risking their lives, and who think that THEY are making a difference

moronic is an un educated person that say's "you think you've seen terror? just wait"

sounds to me like you should live somewhere else, I bet you don't even vote, get a life and an education LOSER...