25-03-2003 09:22									#31
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quote: Originally posted by Caligastia Lets face it, whatever the US does once it takes control of Iraq is going to be 1000 times better than Saddam.

Many Afghanis would probably quibble with you. As would Iranians who can remember the U.S. puppet regime and its consequences.

	25-03-2003 09:28									#32
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quote: Many Afghanis would probably quibble with you.

I doubt it. Afghanistan is much better than it was under the Taliban. Keep talking though; I need the entertainment...

	25-03-2003 09:29									#33
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quote: Originally posted by Asher Which would probably be why this human shield changed their mind, they didn't understand the scope of the hatred of Saddam.

Asher, look at the source of the story, Reverend Sun Myung Moon's media. The story is obviously a fake, or at least highly suspect.

	25-03-2003 09:32									#34
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quote: Originally posted by Caligastia Whether the story is completely factual or not, is it so hard to believe that there are Iraqi citizens who loathe Saddam's regime so much that they are praying for the Americans to move in quickly? I don't find that hard to believe at all.

If someone shot Bush tomorrow, wouldn't there be plenty of Americans who would cheer? Every state has people who hate the government. Asher hates the Liberals with a passion; that doesn't mean the whole country does.

	25-03-2003 09:33									#35
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quote: Originally posted by Willem Asher, look at the source of the story, Reverend Sun Myung Moon's media. The story is obviously a fake, or at least highly suspect.

I know that we have to find an excuse to dismiss all pro-war stories, but from the people who posted above (Newspaper editors included), I've been told UPI's reporting is still of excellent quality, regardless of who owns it.

Find another loophole to maintain your fantasy.

	25-03-2003 09:36									#36
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quote: Originally posted by Caligastia I think it says something if a significant portion of the population of Iraq would prefer US leadership to Saddam, and I think most of them would. Lets face it, whatever the US does once it takes control of Iraq is going to be 1000 times better than Saddam.

I have the feeling that most Sunni Iraqis would probably prefer free elections, which they won't get; Most Kurds want their own state, which they won't get; and most Shias would like either to be part of Iran or to have their own state, neither of which they will get. What is frightening is that many of them may take the opportunity to rebel in these causes once Saddam is defeated. How will the US play having to brutally suppress these rebellions?

While whatever comes out of this will be better than the sanctions regime, I doubt it will be much better than Iraq was in the 80s. You can say what you like about SH but I'd rather have lived there in the 80s than in Saudi or Jordan.

	25-03-2003 09:38									#37
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Are the Shias Persians or Arabs ?

	25-03-2003 09:40									#38
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quote: Originally posted by Spiffor Are the Shias Persians or Arabs ?

I don't know - I do know that they have strong cultural and religious affinities with Iran.

	25-03-2003 09:42									#39
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quote: Originally posted by Asher I know that we have to find an excuse to dismiss all pro-war stories, but from the people who posted above (Newspaper editors included), I've been told UPI's reporting is still of excellent quality, regardless of who owns it. Find another loophole to maintain your fantasy.

Well if you want to be blindly led down the garden path, that's your problem. I don't object to pro-war stories if they're true, but knowing Moon like I do, I could never, ever trust any outlet owned by him. Perhaps you're to young to know Moon when he first came on the scene back in the 60's - 70's. The guy's a nut case and not to be trusted. You should look him up sometime and see what his organization is all about, it would make for some interesting reading. He's a cult leader pure and simple, with some very bizarre beliefs.

	25-03-2003 09:43									#40
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quote: Originally posted by Drake Tungsten quote: Many Afghanis would probably quibble with you. I doubt it. Afghanistan is much better than it was under the Taliban. Keep talking though; I need the entertainment...

In the big cities like Kabul, yes, but under the price of martial law. There are also near-daily bombings, assassination attempts and guerrilla attacks against officials and coalition personnel. The situation is hardly stable, and once U.S. and U.N. presence is lessened, the nascent Taliban cells are sure to resurge.

In the countryside, it's a different stories. Warlords fight amongst each other for control, having divied up the land into fiefdoms, and the peacekeeping forces aren't able to do much of anything about it. Karzai's authority seems to stop pretty much at the outskirts of Kabul. Now within those fiefdoms, there is a lot of nasty **** going on, rivalling the Taliban's nastiness. There is also a great deal of starvation, since the foreign aid packages have yet to materialize as promised.

Yeah, it's peachy-keen there.

	25-03-2003 09:46									#41
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Actually, Kabul is the only place where things have changed for the better in Afganistan. Outside the city, thw warlords rule, and they ruled there under the Taliban as well.

	25-03-2003 10:09									#42
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quote: Originally posted by Willem Well if you want to be blindly led down the garden path

I will go on the record and state I have nothing against gardens, nor the paths that lead to them.

	25-03-2003 10:20									#43
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quote: Originally posted by Asher I will go on the record and state I have nothing against gardens, nor the paths that lead to them.

Oh, so you're saying you'll believe anything that's presented to you, as long it supports your view? And here I thought you were half-way enlightened!

	25-03-2003 10:23									#44
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quote: Originally posted by Willem Oh, so you're saying you'll believe anything that's presented to you, as long it supports your view? And here I thought you were half-way enlightened!

No, I'm saying I have nothing against gardens or paths that lead to them. I didn't say anything about beliefs.

Jeez.

All I'm saying is your argument just doesn't cut it. Many people in this thread (including Newspaper editors and others who, quite frankly, know a helluva lot more about this than you) which state UPI is a dependable news source.

You've learned that some guy you consider a whacko owns it and handily dismiss the article, despite the professional's opinions on it and the liklihood of this article making sense.

You're the one that obviously dismisses everything which doesn't fall into your cookie-cutter view of the conflict, no?

	25-03-2003 10:27									#45
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quote: Are the Shias Persians or Arabs ?

The ones in Iraq are Arabs.

	25-03-2003 10:37									#46
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quote: Originally posted by Asher You've learned that some guy you consider a whacko owns it and handily dismiss the article, despite the professional's opinions on it and the liklihood of this article making sense.

Cult leaders go beyond whacko, and quite often border on dangerous. Around the time of Jimmy Jones and the Jonestown massacre, people looked very closely at the Moonies and some disturbing things started coming out. But if you want to believe in things like that it's up to you.

UPI may have been respectable at one time, but if he's now at the helm, they are very suspect.

	25-03-2003 10:39									#47
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quote: Yeah, it's peachy-keen there.

I never claimed it was. I just said it was better than it was under the Taliban, which is obviously true.

	25-03-2003 10:41									#48
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It's not obviously true, as we've tried to show you. Yes, it's nice that girls can go to school in Kabul. On the other hand, our refusal to be involved in "nation-building" there only guarantees a failed state in the future, from which the enemies of civilization will be able to launch new attacks.

Also, nothing comes without a trade-off. Girls can go to school (in Kabul only), but crime against women has exploded. What-ever else you can say about the Taliban, rape wasn't a problem under their rule.

	25-03-2003 10:49									#49
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quote: What-ever else you can say about the Taliban, rape wasn't a problem under their rule.

Probably because they called the raped women "adulterers" and blew their brains out on a soccer field.

You've hit a low point with that post, che...

	25-03-2003 11:15									#50
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I wouldn't have made the statement if women in Kabul weren't saying it. I made a thread about it many moons ago, with sources.

The Taleban are three shades of evil, but rape wasn't one of them. They were a typical law and order type government, where everything is repressed so severly that were it not against the law, it would be safe to sleep on the streets. The rule of law has been replaced by the rule of the gun and lawlessness.

Obviously we don't want to be bogged down in an endless war in Afganistan, but that seems to be the pather we've embarked upon because we don't want to live up to our obligations to these people that we screwed over so badly over the last twenty+ years.

	25-03-2003 11:17									#51
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quote: Originally posted by Spiffor Are the Shias Persians or Arabs ?

Finally you people are learning to call them Persians!

	25-03-2003 11:19									#52
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BTW, you need to go back to the Trotsky avatar Che. It was just so quintessentially you, this new one just doesn't fit you, IMO.

	25-03-2003 11:19									#53
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Naturally, the Persians are the biggest population group of IRAN

	25-03-2003 11:22									#54
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quote: Originally posted by monkspider BTW, you need to go back to the Trotsky avatar Che. It was just so quintessentially you, this new one just doesn't fit you, IMO.

I'm not KittyHorse. I change my avatars. Trotsky was around far too long. If it weren't for Xmas, he would have been iced sooner.

	25-03-2003 11:48									#55
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quote: Originally posted by Drake Tungsten quote: What-ever else you can say about the Taliban, rape wasn't a problem under their rule. Probably because they called the raped women "adulterers" and blew their brains out on a soccer field.

The Taleban wouldn't do that. Actually, she was an "adulterer" because she was a prostitute, not a rape victim. Never mind that she was a prostitute because she was a war widow with children to feed, like thousands of others, who couldn't work, beg, or do anything outside the house she no longer had, without being accompanied by the male relatives she no longer had.

If you never let women outside the house and out of sight of male relatives, it's probably easy to eliminate rape, at least outside the family. It's just a bit dicey to say that elimination of rape is better than the generalized oppression in every area of life to which women were subjected, often at the cost of their lives.