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Has Colin Powell Betrayed His Own Values


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[quote]Originally posted by Lee Flier: [b]HOWEVER... bin Laden wants the West to believe that Arab Muslims are united in their views and goals. They are not. But if the U.S. declares war on Iraq, we just might give them a reason to be. We do NOT want that. Really.[/b][/quote]Amen. No ethnic/religious group should be taken as a monolithic entity. A war might just be the rallying spark.

RobT

 

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[quote]Originally posted by sign: [b]Sadam has killed his own people without any hesitation and he still does, because he's a sick person,[/b][/quote]Let's be clear here. Not so long ago, the Arab world was basically not nationalized, it was a region made up of small tribes who were often skirmishing with each other over territory. Not unlike the USA before European settlers arrived. The problem is that this is incompatible with industrialization. Industrialized nations can't be nomadic, they require a settled populace to work in the factories. And they can't be made up of small tribes who don't necessarily agree with each other and have unspecific territorial boundaries. So what industrialized nations tend to do nowadays, when a non-industrialized area has something they want to "trade" for (considering that colonialism has fallen out of favor) is draw a line in the sand and hire a despot to enforce these imaginary borders and keep order within them. Not an easy task considering the borders often divide tribal members from each other (e.g. the Kurds) and/or force tribes who do not agree with each other to live together as one nation (e.g. the Shiites). Therefore it is part and parcel of a job like Saddam's to kill "his own people." The Kurds and Shiites are, in fact, not Saddam's "own people" but for the imaginary lines drawn in the sand by Britain 60 years ago, for the purpose of industrializing Iraq. Historically, culturally, ethnically they are his enemies. But if you are going to lead a country like Iraq at this juncture, part of your job is going to be to put down "rebellions" which might mean gassing or killing factions which do not agree with the policy (basically, Western-style industrialization and the boundaries it has imposed). Again... this is not at all unlike what the U.S. did to the Native Americans, or what has been done countless other times in the name of development. Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending Saddam's actions. I'm just saying that what he does isn't because he's sick or crazy, it's part of the standards that WE (the west) defined for him. And if he were deposed, whoever took his place would have to do the same thing.
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Lee, nice story, but as far as I can see Saddam is a sick person. He's suffering from the same sickness Hitler, Mussolini and many others had: megalomania. What kind of "leaders" are and were they? What have they achieved? Millions of innocent people got killed. Thou shalt not kill :idea:
The alchemy of the masters moving molecules of air, we capture by moving particles of iron, so that the poetry of the ancients will echo into the future.
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What has fucked up the middle east, most of africa and to some extent asia has been western interference and the colonisation. We were instrumental in creating this mess. And now we plan to punish them further for "not going with the program". Expect a lot of people to become even more frustrated. Armed forces will never solve this problem. Only fair play can make things better. /Mats

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What do we want? Procrastination!

When do we want it? Later!

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[quote]Originally posted by sign: [b]Lee, nice story, but as far as I can see Saddam is a sick person. He's suffering from the same sickness Hitler, Mussolini and many others had: megalomania. What kind of "leaders" are and were they? What have they achieved? Millions of innocent people got killed. [/b][/quote]Nothing has been accomplished. Like I said, I'm not defending Saddam. But let me put it another way. There are lots and lots of sick, or potentially sick, people in the world. There's no way we could ever find them all. I'm sure if you think about it you can think of a few such people that you know - maybe a sadistic boss, the neighborhood bully when you were a kid, etc. The person who, given the right opportunities, would probably inflict great harm on his fellow man. Unfortunately there are way too many of those. Now suppose you know such a person and you know how he is. Do you A) Avoid him as much as possible, and build support in the community to censure him so that he can't get very far with his evil intentions... Or B) Give him lots of money, weapons and power, and don't defend any of the defenseless people he beats up on. The West has been choosing (B) in most of its dealings with the Middle East, because it happens to serve our purpose. Therefore we are complicit in the killing and in fact we go out of our way to find such "bullies" to do our dirty work for us. We used to send in our own homegrown bullies - it was called colonialism. But it's easier and less distasteful to hire locals to do the job.
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