unk wrote:[snip]ALL US leaders have slept with the Sauds. Period. Bush no more so thatn Clinton, or Bush, or Mr Carter before him. In fact, it was Mr Carter that sold AWACS to the Saud in the 70's.
It's true that the Saudis began their quest to gain influence in the US by courting Democrats. They were, as Americans in the '70s, less racist and less fearful of non-Christians than Republicans on average. But it didn't work out. With loads of cash to 'lubricate' things past their friction, the Saudis really hit it off with many Republicans, the Bush family being great examples. There certainly are ties between Democrats and Saudis, but none of them compare to the financial and personal ties between the Saudi royals and the Bushes.
Be that as it may, the idea that the war is being used as a "decoy" for some other real action is beyond the pale. Making the accustaion itself displays a lack of understanding of the compexities of the modern world.
This was made clear to us before the war, if one was paying attention:
The war is being fought to bring sweeping political change to a region that is almost 1,000 years behind the modern world in almost every conceivable fashion.
Now, one may argue whether the US has this right or not to attempt such a thing, but all other arguments about what the "war is for" are ludicrous, and inaccurate.
I agree that, in part, the neo-cons genuinely thought that they were embarking on a radical cultural shift in the heart of the middle east, but they had many additional motivations at the same time, and that is where the problems lie. There are many 'bad guys' in the world right now, so why did Bush et. al. pick Iraq? These 'supplimentary motivations' included: creating a new base of military operations in the region outside of Saudi Arabia, taking pressure off of the Sharon/Likud approach in Israel/Palestine, scaring the crap out of Syria (see previous 'motivation'), potentially taking the second largest oil producer out of OPEC, using the invasion as a proving ground for the new "corporate military" paradigm, and on and on. It's interesting that you say that attributing mulitple motivations to the action belies an ignorance of "the complexities of the modern world."
Your bolded quote is really shocking. Do you really believe that the Muslim world is 1000 years behind "in every conceivable fashion"? I think that thousands of doctors practicing quite up-to-date medicine would be surprised to learn that, as would thousands of academics who are contributing to leading academic journals and being invited to teach at leading universities around the world. Perhaps you imagine that the bid Laden construction company ammased its fortune using only abacuses for their accounting? Perhaps they manage huge billion-dollar construction projects without a single fax machine or cell phone?
Listen, this whole thing smacks of dark ages, "crusader" thinking, primarily on the part of the jihadis, but certainly also on the part of Christian fundamenalists in the US. There are many, many people in the middle east who are living in primitive conditions, who see the world with 'dark ages' thinking, but there are many people there who live in our contemporary world. That's a huge part of why this war was so stupid. This invasion, with it's attendant lies (WMDs, Sadam's links to 9/11, etc) and 'vigilante' set-up between the US (hated ally of Israel) and the UK (former colonist) weakens the pro-Western, modern, secular people in the region and strengthens the ignorant, reactionary 'rednecks' of the region.
American Liberal Irony of the moment: Liberals want to change the world for the better, yet when one of your leaders attempts this very thing, they put every conceivable roadblock in that person's path. The lesson learned is that liberals want to change the world, so long as THEY are the only ones doing the changing.
The difference comes down to one important idea: the ends do not justify the means. We tried "burning the village to save the village" in Viet Nam, and it didn't work. My point is that the Bush approach is ineffective in the long run. You partially make my point below:
I suggest to some of you to spend some time living under Islamist rule before you take a firm opinionated stance on what is happening, and why. Until that moment in time, there are few amoung you whose experinces are valid enough for your opinions to be so loud and far reaching. Your nation is involved in a holy war, wheter you want to be or not. Liberals, being the secularized people that they are, still want to renounce this notion, for the very idea of being a nation that is religious is anathema to the leftist agenda. But the US was, is, and will be One nation uder god, with freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion.
Until you people get your feces frmly congealed and realize you are all on the same team, your heads will be handed to you.
Literally.
If you don't think so, just keep watching.
Don't be fools.
If we accept this kind of thinking then we are back in the Dark Ages with the jihadis. You are criticising "living under Islamist rule" but promoting the idea of a fundamentally religious (which means Protestant Christian) United States. I agree with you that we ARE engaged in a holy war - the jihadis on one side and Christian Crusaders like Bush on the other. But that is an endless, loosing war between enemies who are essentially the same. What we need is for the modern people of the world to put down the backwards fundamentalists. This is as critical in the global war against the jihadis as it is on both sides in the Israel/Palestine conflict. As long as cultures allow their wacko, violent fundamentalists to dominate, those cultures will find themselves bogged down and fighting wars.
You should reconsider your opinion of the meaning of the founding of the United States. In the cultural context of the day, the founders were radical leftists. They embraced the new values of the Enlightenment and threw off the old, conservative shackles of past systems. The idea that people could govern themselves, without a king, was insane at the time. The idea that a government could exist without being driven by a particular religion was equally insane. You may not know it, but among the founders were people who publicly toed the line for religion, but privately funamentally doubted it.
Many of the founders conceived of a system where a 'garden wall' separated religion from government. The two could talk with each other and see what the other was doing, but they were, nonetheless, separate. It's true that this system was intended to have freedom of, not from, religion, but the idea of the government of the United States taking sides in a 'holy war' radically contradicts the essential intent of this nation. You get to an important issue in a different post:
Your position that your current administration is a greater threat to your way of life than are the Islamsts your are warring with is extraordinarilly short-sighted and shows either a complete lack of understanding of the world of Islam and their goals, or you have allowed your personal hatreds of an individual to taint and sway your mind beyond any intelligent chance of remaining open-minded.
I think of the United States as a kind of 'prototype'. I've heard what's going on described as 'the American project', and I like that description. I can't remember the source, but someone said, "Our response to the terrorist attacks may pose a greater threat than the attacks themselves." That's an exaggeration, but it's an important point.
I'm named after this goofy English guy who (more or less) asked, "If you throw away all the laws in your pursuit of the Devil, what will be left to protect you when he turns the tables and pursues you?" Right now the US is failing to adhere to the Geneva Conventions (which are not 'outmoded'), failing to recognize the habeas corpus rights both of citizens and non-citizens, intentionally weakening international frameworks and trashing our commitment to an open legal system. The United States is not a religion or an ethnicity or even a geographic region. It's a nation based on a set of principles expressed in a constitution and a set of laws. What is the US if we throw away those principles?
We are reconstructing ourselves on models such as Pinochet's Chile (with its 'dissappearings' and secret military courts) or Sharon's Israel (with it's 'flexible' standards of 'interrogation techniques'). To me, America stands for constantly reaching for positive ideals, or making 'a more perfect union'. Not backsliding into becoming another torturing, thuggish, religiously self-righteous colonial power.
Don't feel bad about the easily bored. They can keep themselves occupied with self administered digital-rectal exams.
How long are you going to be around the Red? I probably won't be able to make it down again until it gets REALLY hot.
