Cat Stevens

Matthew--

Gotcha! (Pardon the American slang!)

And I agree completely on some of the wrong-headed and delusional stuff....

Get some sleep and feel better! (At the risk of prescribing.....)

Best,

Bob

We must be the most self deluded nation on earth.

You support Hamas
You support a fatwa
You lobby for, and fund separatist schools in the UK
You are denied entry into the US
And on Newsnight I've just seen that our government is outraged cos you're seen over here as a shining example of an Islamic moderate!

Bob

bob
well said

Lots of confusion here.

First of all, on Cat/Jusuf Rushdiekiller.

He was a really crap, twee, annoying singer/songwriter (although "Was Dog A Donut", which features no vocals from Stevens/Islam is a darn good track) who converted to the least attractive of that accursed trio of desert monotheisms. He did indeed support the killing of Rushdie (though not on the justifiable grounds of crimes against literature in general and the English language in particular), and indeed he did offer support to Hamas some time ago. He may indeed be a "moderate" in some people's eyes but the USA, as a sovereign nation, is perfectly entitled not to admit him if it so chooses. I personally tthink he is a bit of a lowlife, and I wouldn't mind if he were refused entry back into the UK, both for establishing schools to brainwash children as well for his crimes against music. But this is a side issue, it isn't very important.

The issue with which this has become entwined is far more profound and troubling. The so-called "war" in Iraq was nothing of the sort, it was an invasion. Even someone as deluded or perverse as Mick Parry must be able to see that the whole thing has been a fuck-up of the highest order. The invasion was based on a big fat, chrome-plated, brazen, bare-faced lie. Beforehand, we had a vile regime whose abuse of human rights was - even in a world of shocking cruelty - something to behold. What it never was, however, was a hotbed of terrorism. Since the invasion by the US and its allies, Iraq has become a base for every kind of scummy extremist; it is one of the "failed states" that Dubya railed against in the UN just the other day - but it is a failed state of America's making. It is now more lawless than the Lebanon was in the 1980s, when we had our last hostage crisis.

While no-one would deny that the murder of the 40 or so hostages is solely the responsibility of the terrorists who killed them, just remember, Mick _et al_, that if it wasn't for Blair's utterly misguided decision to support Bush's even more misguided decision to invade Iraq, poor Ken Bigley and his family would not be going through the terrible ordeal they are currently going through. I'm sorry, it's as simple as that. Just accept it.

The scum that are taking hostages must bear responsibility for their cruelty and inhumanity, but so must our government - which after all has a duty to protect its citizens - for its callous disregard of the safety of our fellow countrymen; most sentient beings (I do not think deranged neocons deserve to be put in this category) can see that.

Geddit?

Kevin

Well said Kevin-W.

JonR

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mick Parry:


The deaths of iraqi citizens is unfortunate but at the end of the day, the war was justified.

---

Unfortunate.. It's soon only you and Mr. Bush left on this planet arguing that the war was justified..

Why I even bother to reply I don't know as you seem to be completely unaware what goes on outside your narrow little world

quote:

---

Originally posted by JonR:
Well said Kevin-W.

---

Seconded. However I don't believe it's religion per se to be blamed. It's beyond my understanding how "God's" name can be used to justify killing. None of the "holy" men preached violence. It's us people doing it...

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kevin-W:
... The issue with which this has become entwined is far more profound and troubling. The so-called "war" in Iraq was nothing of the sort, it was an invasion. Even someone as deluded or perverse as Mick Parry must be able to see that the whole thing has been a fuck-up of the highest order. The invasion was based on a big fat, chrome-plated, brazen, bare-faced lie. Beforehand, we had a vile regime whose abuse of human rights was - even in a world of shocking cruelty - something to behold. What it never was, however, was a hotbed of terrorism. Since the invasion by the US and its allies, Iraq has become a base for every kind of scummy extremist; it is one of the "failed states" that Dubya railed against in the UN just the other day - but it is a failed state of America's making. It is now more lawless than the Lebanon was in the 1980s, when we had our last hostage crisis.

While no-one would deny that the murder of the 40 or so hostages is solely the responsibility of the terrorists who killed them, just remember, Mick _et al_, that if it wasn't for Blair's utterly misguided decision to support Bush's even more misguided decision to invade Iraq, poor Ken Bigley and his family would not be going through the terrible ordeal they are currently going through. I'm sorry, it's as simple as that. Just accept it.

The scum that are taking hostages must bear responsibility for their cruelty and inhumanity, but so must our government - which after all has a duty to protect its citizens - for its callous disregard of the safety of our fellow countrymen; most sentient beings (I do not think deranged neocons deserve to be put in this category) can see that.

---

Kevin,

Excellent post.

Yes, the invasion of Iraq was a fuck-up. We were misled over the reasons for the war. If we had been told that the invasion was for reasons of regime change and access to oil, we might have bought it or we might not. Anyway, we weren't. Surely the question now is how do we now get Iraq to peace and (preferably) democracy? The answer "we don't start from here" doesn't help. Here is where we are. What should our strategy now be?

"Since the invasion by the US and its allies, Iraq has become a base for every kind of scummy extremist"
This is very true. The majority of Iraqis want peace, prosperity, freedom - in fact everything it said on the 'invasion tin'. Should it not be argued that many of those 'scummy extremists' are as much invaders as our armies are? Are they working for a positive future for Iraq? Are Bush and Blair? And to what extent would these extremists have found some other pretext for their scummy extremism if Iraq hadn't been invaded by the West?

Again, what should our strategy be? Should we support the extremists and withdraw our armies in the hope that they'll stop bombing and killing?

Bush and Blair have made seriously misguided decisions to invade Iraq. What does that mean in practice in democracies where the odds are in favour of both men being re-elected to another term in power?

If, God forbid, Al Quaida operatives succeed in carrying out some terrible atrocity in Birmingham, London or Edinburgh, are we to blame? If we re-elect Blair? If we don't?

My personal belief is that Islamic terrorism is an entity whose time has come. I don't believe it has rationale, reason, cause or effect. It sincerely believes that by bombing and killing, capitalism will been overthrown, the Jews and Infidels killed or converted to Islam and the whole world 'restored' to morality. Ultimately, it will only be stopped by Islam itself.

I'm a strong believer in the doctrine that one must accept whatever situation one is in and work from there. I'm asking the questions because I don't have the answers. Does anyone?

Steve

quote:

---

Originally posted by 7V:
Kevin,

Excellent post.

Yes, the invasion of Iraq was a fuck-up. We were misled over the reasons for the war. If we had been told that the invasion was for reasons of regime change and access to oil, we might have bought it or we might not. Anyway, we weren't. Surely the question now is how do we now get Iraq to peace and (preferably) democracy? The answer "we don't start from here" doesn't help. Here is where we are. What should our strategy now be?

_"Since the invasion by the US and its allies, Iraq has become a base for every kind of scummy extremist"_
This is very true. The majority of Iraqis want peace, prosperity, freedom - in fact everything it said on the 'invasion tin'. Should it not be argued that many of those 'scummy extremists' are as much invaders as our armies are? Are they working for a positive future for Iraq? Are Bush and Blair? And to what extent would these extremists have found some other pretext for their scummy extremism if Iraq hadn't been invaded by the West?

Again, what should our strategy be? Should we support the extremists and withdraw our armies in the hope that they'll stop bombing and killing?

Bush and Blair have made seriously misguided decisions to invade Iraq. What does that mean in practice in democracies where the odds are in favour of both men being re-elected to another term in power?

If, God forbid, Al Quaida operatives succeed in carrying out some terrible atrocity in Birmingham, London or Edinburgh, are we to blame? If we re-elect Blair? If we don't?

My personal belief is that Islamic terrorism is an entity whose time has come. I don't believe it has rationale, reason, cause or effect. It sincerely believes that by bombing and killing, capitalism will been overthrown, the Jews and Infidels killed or converted to Islam and the whole world 'restored' to morality. Ultimately, it will only be stopped by Islam itself.

I'm a strong believer in the doctrine that one must accept whatever situation one is in and work from there. I'm asking the questions because I don't have the answers. Does anyone?

Steve

---

Bloody hell Steve, thought I was up late!

Am just about to retire, so I'll keep it short; but suffice to say, no, I don't have the answers either. But one of the reasons why this whole thing was a fuck-up was precisely because we can't withdraw. We're stuck in Iraq now for the foreseeable future - it could be decades. What was started has to be followed through - the problem was that the invasion and subsequent removal of Saddam created a vacuum into which moved the Islamists.

As for Islamist terrorism, its time has indeed come. But I believe after more atrocities (unfortunate but inevitable, and we in Blighty haven't had our tturn yet - perhaps next year, just before a general election) that it will, in 20 or 30 years' time, have burned itself out.

The much vaunted "clash of civilisations" which Bin Laden and his acolytes (and, no doubt, some US Christian fundamentalists/survivalists/supremacists) want will not happen.

Why? Well, the world's most important country after America – China – has not begun to flex its muscles. This is, I believe, important because by 2050 China's economy will have overtaken that of the US, and by the end of this century America will have to accept a much more minor role in the world. China's power will dwarf that of any nation, ever. Chinese capitalism and hegemony is likely to be different from that of the USA, and the Islamists will find it difficlt to fight - there are, after all, more people in China than there are Muslims in the world. In the next decade, China will begin to exert its influence in Asia. Not militarily, but economically and culturally. And China's version of capitalism is more likely to appeal to the Muslim world than the American model. It will be interesting to see if young Muslim men - the sort who might currently be recruited as suicide bombers and terrorists - find the "Chinese way" more seductive than the American. I suspect that they might, eventually.

Also, Islam is not homogenous. Aside from some Shi'ite radicals in Iraq and Iran, the vast majority of the extreme wing of Islam is made of up Wahabist Sunnis (such as Bin Laden). They are a small minority whose influence (if not impact) is actually quite small. Like all religions, it [Islam] has a tendency to split, and it will have a tendency to become more fissiparous as the century proceeds. There is nobody to hold it together, and nobody to lead it in a "crusade" against the West, America and Israel, and such a figure is unlikely to appear (for a number of reasons which are a bit too complex to go into right now).

So, our sons and grandsons, lurking in this forum 75 years' hence, will be looking at Islamist terror as an historical phenomenon. Well, I hope so anyway.

Kevin

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kevin-W:

While no-one would deny that the murder of the 40 or so hostages is solely the responsibility of the terrorists who killed them, just remember, Mick _et al_, that if it wasn't for Blair's utterly misguided decision to support Bush's even more misguided decision to invade Iraq, poor Ken Bigley and his family would not be going through the terrible ordeal they are currently going through. I'm sorry, it's as simple as that. Just accept it.

Kevin

---

I don't think this answers the charge. You are making what amounts to a positive rather than normativestatement: that the US invasion of Iraq is the "cause in fact" of the brutal deaths of those contractors. This is no doubt true - but for the invasion of Iraq, these contractors would not have been beheaded. I think we can all agree on this. But what meaning does that statement really have?

Here in the US we are too often witness to killing rampages by disgrunted and recently terminated employees who return to their places of employment with semi-automatic weapons. In these cases their termination is the "cause in fact" of the deaths of innocent employees. However, these deaths, while horrible, do not represent seperate and distinct indictments of the boss' decision to fire the guy - EVEN IF his firing was otherwise grossly unjust.

There may a basket-full of reasons to hate the war in Iraq (a number of them have been presented here) but the beheading of contractors ought not be considered a distinct moral indictment of the decision to invade any more than the killing rampage of a disgrunted employee ought to be a seperate moral indictment of his termination.

To my mind there is never a justification for terrorist actions - the intentional killing of innocent people for political purposes - no matter how badly the perpetrator has been mistreated.

Judd

High Profile cases are High Profile, it's as simple as that.


Editor Sun & Murdoch

Obviously US immigration have the right to deny entry to anyone they like, and normally we won’t hear any more about it. But denying access to a relatively famous figure is going to going to hit the headlines and the world will hear about it. If there isn’t a credible reason to prevent someone’s entry, then the rest of that person’s „group“ will inevitably feel insulted.

This guy appears to be intelligent, peaceful and against terror attacks (Rushdie might beg to differ, I grant you). All the moderate followers of Islam must be looking at this incident with a somewhat raised eyebrow, and the extremists must be laughing. At a time when the U.S. / „The West“ should be going flat out to court the moderate Islamist throughout the world, this HAS to be seen as a big mistake.

Building bridges between „The West“ and the Islamic world should be considerred as completely separate and independent of the horror show currently taking place in Iraq.

Brian OReilly

I don't agree with the Kevin's idea that we should/will be in Iraq for decades. It's clear that our presence there is doing more harm than good and that essentially all Iraqis (who of course massively outnumber the relatively small number of terrorists) want us to leave and let them get on with it.

I can of course aleady imagine that the usual suspects are frothing at the mouth and preparing the cliched cry of "but you can't leave, or there'll be civil war" -- an unsubstantiated claim that has long been used to justify continued occupation of foreign countries. And a claim that ignores the fact that the Iraqis already have a near de facto war and no security and 100s of them die every month. If our governments carred remotely about Iraq and Iraqis we form a plan for leaving as expeditiously as possible. Like by Christmas.

As for Mr Bigley, it appears that the sovereign governemt of Iraq, via it's independent judiciary has taken a decision to release these women as there are no charges that can be brought. A decision that not only smacks of just the sort of Western style legal process we have been telling them to build their country on but was also, according to an Iraqi just on the radio, wsidely understood to be afoot prior to the kidnappings anyway.

Except that there is a rule that the independent government of Iraq and it's judiciary must do whatever the Americans say. And they were told they couldn't release these people for "security reasons". Presumably the Americans are worried that the scientists will go back to work in the secret underground biological weapons plants we just haven't found yet.

Meanwhile, poor Mr Bigley's head will almost certainly be separated from his body sometime later today.

Sleep well Mr Bush.

Matthew

7v said "Should we support the extremists and withdraw our armies in the hope that they'll stop bombing and killing?"

With your ability to conflate unrelated issues, and confuse cause and effect you might coinsider working for Bush/Cheney 2004.

Matthew

quote:

---

...that if it wasn't for Blair's utterly misguided decision to support Bush's even more misguided decision to invade Iraq, poor Ken Bigley and his family would not be going through the terrible ordeal they are currently going through.

---

But I'm still not 100% certain of that. The attack on 9/11 happened before Afghanistan & Iraq and there is no telling how this would have continued had we done nothing. I agree that matters are now far, far worse than maybe they needed to be, but I can't believe that these killing wouldn't still be happening. These terrorists were planning this war years before we even were aware of it - during Clinton's time probably. You can't say that these isolated murders wouldn't be happening, just the demands would be different.
I don't know. I wish I did. Or maybe I'm glad I don't. I dunno.
What depresses me more than ever is Iran & North Korea on top of all this.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matthew Robinson:
7v said "Should we support the extremists and withdraw our armies in the hope that they'll stop bombing and killing?"

With your ability to conflate unrelated issues, and confuse cause and effect you might coinsider working for Bush/Cheney 2004.

---

Matthew,

Perhaps you can explain how the first sentence above (taken in its original context) is an example of conflating unrelated issues and the confusion of cause and effect, while the second sentence isn't.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matthew Robinson:
... It's clear that our presence there is doing more harm than good and that essentially all Iraqis (who of course massively outnumber the relatively small number of terrorists) want us to leave and let them get on with it.

---

Excellent stuff. Do you have a source that you can give us for this statement or did you just make it up?

Steve

Tom - At least funding of the IRA by US citizens dried up pretty sharpish. I wonder if those US citizens would like to ponder that for a while.

"Perhaps you can explain how the first sentence above (taken in its original context) is an example of conflating unrelated issues and the confusion of cause and effect, while the second sentence isn't"

You are conflating the view that we should withdraw from Iraq with "support [for] the extermists".

You are also implying that in that situation the "bombing and killing" casuses our withdrawal, when in fact we should withdraw becuase it's the right thing to do and in the best interests of Iraq and the Iraqis.

"Do you have a source that you can give us for this statement or did you just make it up?"

I made three statements in the bit you quoted:

"we are doing more harm than good" which is presumably self-evident

"that the number of 'normal' Iraqis massively outnumber the terrorists" which is undeniable unless you believe that your average Bagdhad market trader is secretly plotting the violent overthrow of civilisation.

"that most Iraqis want us to leave" which is a) a natural inclination of an occupied people b) supported by the daily TV and newspaper reports that show the current situation and the Iraqis view of it c) a natural conclusion one might draw from the fact that the occupation has brought no security and no prospecrity and only chaos, death and destruction. Only yesterday Robert Fisk was on Radio 4 reporting on his 5 weeks in occupied Iraq and how the prevailing Iraqi view was we should leave

Or how about this leader from last week's Financial Times (which alongside the BBC is a well know hotbed of "left wing liberalism"):

Published on Friday, September 10, 2004 by the Financial Times/UK
Time to Consider Iraq Withdrawl
Editorial


This week a macabre milestone was passed in Iraq. More than 1,000 American soldiers have now been killed since the US-led invasion of the country began nearly 18 months ago. The overwhelming majority lost their lives after President George W. Bush declared major combat operations over in his now infamous "Mission Accomplished" photo-opportunity in May last year.

In that time, an unknown number of mostly civilian Iraqis, certainly not less than 10,000 and possibly three times that number, have perished, and hundreds more are dying each week. After an invasion and occupation that promised them freedom, Iraqis have seen their security evaporate, their state smashed and their country fragment into a lawless archipelago ruled by militias, bandits and kidnappers.

The transitional political process, designed to lead to constituent assembly and general elections next year, has been undermined because the nervous US-dominated occupation authority has insisted on hand-picking various permutations of interim Iraqi governors, mostly exiles or expatriates with no standing among their people. Whatever Iraqis thought about the Americans on their way in - and it was never what these emigré politicians told Washington they would be thinking - an overwhelming majority now views US forces as occupiers rather than liberators and wants them out.

The aftermath of a war won so quickly has been so utterly bungled, moreover, that the US is down to the last vestiges of its always exiguous allied support, at the time when Iraq needs every bit of help it can get. The occupation has lost control of big swathes of the country. Having decided that all those who lived and worked in Iraq under Saddam Hussein bore some degree of collective guilt, Washington's viceroys purged the country's armed forces, civil service and institutions to a degree that broke the back of the state, marginalised internal political forces, sidelined many with the skills to rebuild Iraq's services and utilities and, of course, fuelled an insurgency US forces have yet to identify accurately, let alone get to grips with.

There are signs that US officials are beginning to "get it" - in the phrase Donald Rumsfeld, US defence secretary, patronisingly used this week to characterise Iraqis' grasp of the security situation. But if they are increasingly aware that what they have created in Iraq is a disaster, they seem at a loss to know what to do about it.

The core question to be addressed is this: is the continuing presence of US military forces in Iraq part of the solution or part of the problem?

As occupying power, the US bears responsibility for Iraq under international law, and is duty-bound to try to leave it in better shape than it found it. But there is no sign of that happening.

The time has therefore come to consider whether a structured withdrawal of US and remaining allied troops, in tandem with a workable handover of security to Iraqi forces and a legitimate and inclusive political process, can chart a path out of the current chaos.

Faced with a withdrawal timetable, Iraqis who currently feel helpless will know that the opportunity to craft a better future lies in their hands.

Take security. Iraqi forces are being rebuilt to take over front-line tasks. This is slow work, but that is not the real problem. It is that those forces already trained cannot stand alongside a US military that daily rains thousands of tonnes of projectiles and high explosives on their compatriots. Each time there is a siege of Fallujah or Najaf, with the US using firepower that kills civilians by the hundred, these Iraqi forces melt away. Until eventual withdrawal, there would have to be a policy of military restraint, imposed above all on those US commanders who have operated without reference to their own superiors, let alone the notionally sovereign Iraqi government.

Politically, if next year's elections are to have any chance of reflecting the will of the Iraqi people, the process must be opened up. Last month's national conference or proto-assembly was monopolised by expatriate politicians aligned with the interim government of Iyad Allawi. The only way national coalitions can be woven from Iraq's religious and ethnic patchwork is by including the opposition to the occupation. That means negotiating with the insurgents, probably through religious leaders of the stature of Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. It also means an amnesty, which should help Iraqi authorities acquire the legitimacy to crush jihadist and other hold-outs.

Ideally, the US would accompany withdrawal by stating it has no intention of establishing bases in Iraq, and instead wishes to facilitate regional security agreements. That would be more stabilising than the current policy of bullying neighbours such as Iran and Syria, whose borders with Iraq the US in any case cannot control.

None of this will be less than messy. But whether Mr Bush or John Kerry wins the upcoming election, the US will eventually have to do something like this. Chaos is a great risk, and occupiers through the ages have pointed to that risk as their reason for staying put. But chaos is already here, and the power that is in large part responsible for it must start preparing now to step aside and let the Iraqis try to emerge from it.

© 2004 Financial Times Ltd

quote:

---

Originally posted by Justin:
I don't think this answers the charge. You are making what amounts to a _positive_ rather than _normative_statement: that the US invasion of Iraq is the "cause in fact" of the brutal deaths of those contractors. This is no doubt true - _but for_ the invasion of Iraq, these contractors would not have been beheaded. I think we can all agree on this. But what meaning does that statement really have?

Here in the US... (etc.)

---

Judd,

This was an excellent post which deserves wider reading.

Terrorism is not a rational response that can be understood in terms of cause and effect. A member of the (now thankfully defunct) Beider-Meinhof Gang was recently interviewed in Germany. He said that they earnestly believed that in the aftermath of the terror they spread, the governent would fall and that a governing system would naturally arise which was in line with the gang's aims and philosophies.

Steve

"This was an excellent post which deserves wider reading"

Personally I thought it was a bunch of quasi-legal double-speak that sounded like something a junior memebr of Karl Rove's staff would come up with. But, hey ho, each to their own I suppose.

Bottom line: we invaded Iraq and DIRECTLY CAUSED an unmitigated disaster and the deaths of THOUSANDS of innocent people.

I have no idea it that is a postive or normative statement but I know it's true and should cause us all to be terribly ashamed of and agnry at our goverments.

Matthew

Justin,

quote:

---

Here in the US we are too often witness to killing rampages by disgrunted and recently terminated employees who return to their places of employment with semi-automatic weapons. In these cases their termination is the "cause in fact" of the deaths of innocent employees. However, these deaths, while horrible, do not represent seperate and distinct indictments of the boss' decision to fire the guy - EVEN IF his firing was otherwise grossly unjust.

---

But what if the boss knew in advance that his employee was unstable and likely to rampage among his erstwhile colleagues with an Uzi, but chose to ignore this prior intelligence? Would he not then share some burden of responsibility for the consequent slaughter, at least moral, if not legal?

Furthermore, what if the boss had deliberately 'embellished' the employee's record to denigrate him or her, and to delude the board of directors into sacking the person?

Will.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matthew Robinson:
You are conflating the view that we should withdraw from Iraq with "support [for] the extermists".

You are also implying that in that situation the "bombing and killing" casuses our withdrawal, when in fact we should withdraw becuase it's the right thing to do and in the best interests of Iraq and the Iraqis.

---

This is nonsense in both instances and does not accurately reflect my comments.

quote:

---

"Do you have a source that you can give us for this statement or did you just make it up?"

I made three statements in the bit you quoted:

"we are doing more harm than good" which is presumably self-evident

"that the number of 'normal' Iraqis massively outnumber the terrorists" which is undeniable unless you believe that your average Bagdhad market trader is secretly plotting the violent overthrow of civilisation.

"that most Iraqis want us to leave" which is a) a natural inclination of an occupied people b) supported by the daily TV and newspaper reports that show the current situation and the Iraqis view of it c) a natural conclusion one might draw from the fact that the occupation has brought no security and no prospecrity and only chaos, death and destruction. Only yesterday Robert Fisk was on Radio 4 reporting on his 5 weeks in occupied Iraq and how the prevailing Iraqi view was we should leave

---

I was referring to the third statement above. You said: "... It's clear that our presence there is doing more harm than good and that essentially all Iraqis (who of course massively outnumber the relatively small number of terrorists) want us to leave and let them get on with it."

I disagree that this is clear and I certainly doubt that 'essentially all Iraqis' would like an immediate withdrawal.

quote:

---

Or how about this leader from last week's Financial Times (which alongside the BBC is a well know hotbed of "left wing liberalism"):

---

Yes, I read the article in the FT. I believe that most people would like the forces to be withdrawn from Iraq, including Bush and Blair. The issue is one of timing. The view expressed in that FT editorial was that "The time has therefore come to consider whether a structured withdrawal of US and remaining allied troops, in tandem with a workable handover of security to Iraqi forces and a legitimate and inclusive political process, can chart a path out of the current chaos.

Faced with a withdrawal timetable, Iraqis who currently feel helpless will know that the
opportunity to craft a better future lies in their hands."

Your considered statement was, on the other hand, "If our governments carred remotely about Iraq and Iraqis we form a plan for leaving as expeditiously as possible. Like by Christmas."

Do you really believe that you're saying the same thing?

Steve

Your comment was "Should we support the extremists and withdraw our armies in the hope that they'll stop bombing and killing?"

Which clearly and unquivoically states that withdrawing our armies would "support the extermists" and strongly implies that people who beleive we should withdraw do so because they "hope [it will] stop [the] bombing and killing".

I strongly disagree with these sentiments and said so.

"I disagree that this is clear and I certainly doubt that 'essentially all Iraqis' would like an immediate withdrawal"

Well fair enough. But I think it's fairly obivous that a very large majority of them wish we would leave as quickly as possible. The only Iraqis we ever see supporting the US/UK and their occupation are the small number of hand-picked members of hte US appointed administration.

"Do you really believe that you're saying the same thing?"

Yes. We are both saying that the best interests of Iraq are served by an expeditious withdrawl and a handing of their own affairs back to the Iraqis. Neither myself nor the FT think we should just up and leave. We both believe that the this would mark a significant change from the current policy.

Matthew

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matthew Robinson:
"Do you really believe that you're saying the same thing?"

Yes. We are both saying that the best interests of Iraq are served by an expeditious withdrawl and a handing of their own affairs back to the Iraqis. Neither myself nor the FT think we should just up and leave. We both believe that the this would mark a significant change from the current policy.

---

Actually no. The significance of your "Like by Christmas" statement is that it doesn't take into account the mainstay of current US, UK and Iraqi interim government policy, which is to hold democratic elections in Iraq in January 2005.

Steve

Discounting my broad agreement with the FT on the basis of on over-literal interpretation of an obvisouly flippant addendum is a staggeringly weak argument even by the standards of this forum.

You then compound this by giving tacit approval to current policy and its "mainstay" the proposed elections -- elections which both myself and the FT agree are inherently flawed as currently consituted.

Matthew