Post by punnadhammoPost by jhayatiPost by punnadhammoThat's a sound point. All violence comes from greed, hatred, delusion
and fear.
Precisely. That doesn't mean we shouldn't stop Hitler because we are
afraaid though.
That wasn't the point and you know it.
The point wa that with inaction you support Hitler and the slaughter
of billions of people when you wrongly claim that compassion cannot
sometimes come from violence, as the lotus blooms from the mud.
Post by punnadhammoThe point was violence does not, cannot, never comes from compassion.
Which is false, and a core fundamentalist axiom you are afraid to
quesiton. Sometimes naive compassion and non-violence leads to more
violence, and sometimes compassion leads to temporary violence and
force which leads to less violence. The surgeon using violence to cut
a patient with a knive is an example of compassion leading to
violence, with a positive result. The invasion of Normandy France is
an example of compassion leading to violence in order to rid the world
of Hitler.
Are you really going to claim that WWII after Hitler gone was worse
than if Hitler had been allowed to conquer the world and slaughter
billions of people, as he tried with the Jews?
Post by punnadhammoOk, let's agree that 1941 was not exactly the best time to start to
break the cycle of violence. It was already too late at that point.
That's not enough. That's given. And the most compassionate action
at that point was to forcibly remove Hitler. That is, your
fundamentalism is wrong here. Would you really have preferred Hitler
to murder billions of people Punnadhammo?
Post by punnadhammoNote also that the outcome of WW2 was far from an end to violence.
Of course not. Nor will be the outcome of the war on terror. I
stated that the world was better off, and better off in a big way,
with Hitler dead than with Hitler conquering the world and
slaughtering billions. Do you actually deny this?
Post by punnadhammoIt left half of Europe under a totalitarian regime not much better than
Hitler. It left all kinds of simmering trouble spots behind
So what? Are you saying: "Because there were trouble spots and the
Soviet Union was still a problem, we should have instead let Hitler
conquer the world and slaughter billions of people?"
Is that what you really want to claim here, Punnadhammo?
Post by punnadhammoPost by jhayatiI can even give you real examples, such as Japan, where utter enemies
became our lasting friends with goodwill toward each other.
Japan-US relations are not always so peachy. They are serious economic
rivals for one thing. There's also a lot of resentment in Okinawa
So what? Are you saying that it would be better to have remained
bitter enemies and have let Japan along with Hitler take over the
world? There are few allies as strong as Japan that we have, Britain
maybe being the only stronger one. And they also used to be bitter
enemies.
Post by punnadhammoPost by jhayatiNow you've gone idealistic. You're suggesting that we get rid of our
weapons while others lie and build an arsenal, and then nuke us or
blackmail us.
No, I made a very practical suggestion. The US is way, way ahead of
everyone else combined in military strength and could well afford to
step down a bit as a first good-will gesture.
Well, it isn't practical at all. And yet that is exactly what we did
in 1956. We went against France and Britain and as a gesture of
goodwill, forced them to withdraw as they were about to remove Nasser
and conquer Egypt. The effect of this good will and pacifism and
peace propagated by the U.S. was that Nasser immediately made deals
with the Soviets, built up militarily, and then savagely attacked
Israel a decade later, which in turn occupied Palestine. It's a
paradigm case of how peaceful and goodwill gestures will lead to more
violence in the long run than a smaller well-directed and careful use
of force. This is history. You would know this if you paid attention
to European History.
What you are suggesting now is to have Syria go full steam ahead
supporting and funding murderers who kill busloads full of children.
As a goodwill gesture, lets release all the murderers and rapists from
all our prisons as well. As for our military strength, Syria doesn't
see us as so strong, as they figured we were so bogged down in Iraq
that they should stop being cooperative and instead start funding
terrorism again. Your suggesting we run away only would give al Qaeda
and other terrorist groups and regimes the green light to go full
steam ahead.
Post by punnadhammoI would agree it would be
madness to disarm completely until others do so as well.
It would always be madness to disarm, because again, all the rogue
states would lie, then you would disarm to whatever extent, and then
they would nuke you.
Post by punnadhammoPost by jhayatiWhile I share your sentiments, you don't understand
practical real world life. This is understandable, as you've been
living in a sheltered monastary, but creating world peace is actually
a lot more difficult than you suppose.
My university degree was in European History.
Lol! I'm sure you know about sexual repression in Victorian England.
Ok, that's the funniest one yet. Not surprizing, as you also claim to
be a monk, yet you would have preferred Hitler killing billions of
people to stopping him with force.
Post by punnadhammoPost by jhayatiActually, France was the one blocking international cooperation.
But France this week has gone along with the US and UN, and is doing
better, because for now, it is in the best interest to France to do
so. That is also how the game is played.
That is a curious spin.
I was baiting you. However, that spin makes just as much sense.
Post by punnadhammoFrance blocked UN backing for a unilateral US invasion.
That's question-begging. "Unilateral" is defined as "French-rejected"
and "multilateral" is defined as "French-controlled". France rendered
the UN useless. France could care less about al Qaeda, but France did
care about competing with the U.S. economically, and therefore voted
to advance its own agenda in the most unilateral way possible. France
knew that the U.S. had to invade Iraq soon, due to 9/11 while they had
momentum, and they knew that it would be in France's advantage to
weaken the U.S. and force them to go alone instead of negotiating a
U.N. intervention. The U.S.'s intentions were "multilateral" in the
ideal sense, in terms of wanting peace and stability for the global
economy, whereas France's were "unilateral" in the ideal sense of
putting France's economic rivalry ahead of any effort to make the
Middle East safer for all parties concerned. That's talk of U.S.
"unilateralism" is utterly ironic.
Post by punnadhammoThe point is that all countries, the US included, must be willing to
make some sacrifices for the global community to work. In my opinion
the Kyoto treaty was actually far too weak, and it is outrageous that
we can't get even this level of cooperation on real global problems.
Post by jhayatiYou are right about the landmines treaty, and we should go for that,
and it's ridiculous that the US doesn't push for a treaty. There is
no reason for landmines and they are an abomination. However, other
big powers also rejected that treaty, and the US was not a sole
dissenter by any means.
No, that's true, she wasn't. China and Russia were also opposed as I recall.
No they weren't; they both strongly opposed it. Don't make things up,
as you consistently "recall" falsehoods. It takes 30 seconds to look
it up. I'll double-check.
Ok, you are dead wrong. China and Russia both opposed the treaty.
Furthermore, the U.S. considered a modified treaty but both China and
Russia rejected it.
So you are dead wrong on that one. I think you knew this and were
trying to get another one past me, weren't you? Come on, I can
forgive your fanaticism, but don't make up things that can be refuted
in 30 seconds by looking up the records please.
Post by punnadhammoPost by jhayatiThe other two I'd have to look up. However, creating a list like that
doesn't work, because a huge hyperpower does so many things, that
picking the worst ones out of context and ignoring all the wonderful
contributions we have made is simply a form of extreme bias.
The general feeling in Europe and the UN is that the US is blocking
That's the general feeling in France, because France is at war
economically with the U.S., and the Franco-German block is trying to
inhibit and constrain the U.S. economically and politically whenever
posssible. You either pretend to be clueless of this larger context
or else you deliberately spin here to call the U.S. resistance to
French attempts to weaken the U.S. as "blocking". While you would be
hailed were you writing for a French tabloid, your rhetoric here
doesn't take into account the larger picture, which I described in
several informative posts which you haven't read or have ignored.
Post by punnadhammoThere seems to be a mood in the US of "my way or the highway."
As there is in France, which is why many European countries side with
the U.S., as they'd rather align themselves with the U.S than be
dominated by a French controlled EU and UN.
Again, Mr. "I got a degree in European History", this attitude can be
traced to several significant points where France and, say, Britain,
diverged in terms of how they dealt with the U.S. Let's just take
again the same example of the Suez crisis in 1956. As I wrote before
(and this time read it):
The echoes and ironies of the Suez crisis are hard to avoid.
Then, it was Britain and France that launched a military action aimed
at toppling a Middle Eastern dictator, Nasser of Egypt — and it was
the U.S. which worried about legality and the international impact of
intervention without a wider mandate. In the run-up to war, John
Foster Dulles, the American secretary of state, argued, much in the
style of George Cherry, that the use of force against Nasser "would
make bitter enemies of the entire population of the Middle East". The
British and the French, however, were cast in the role of today's
impatient Americans. They were, as historian Peter Clarke puts it,
"bent on intervention and increasingly impatient of the time-wasting
pantomime at the United Nations, ostensibly aimed at a diplomatic
settlement." Eventually they abandoned the UN process and went to
war.
Reminded of these parallels, a British Foreign Office minister
recently remarked: "Very neat, but remember this time the French,
unlike the Americans, aren't in any position to pull the plug on us."
The Franco-British intervention in Suez failed because, faced with a
run on the pound, the British were unable to resist American economic
pressure to pull back. Once Britain had got over its shock and anger
at American "betrayal", it drew a simple conclusion: in future,
British foreign policy should always be carefully aligned with
America's global objectives.
France drew the opposite lesson. When Anthony Eden, the British prime
minister, called Guy Mollet, his French counterpart, to tell him that
Britain had agreed to an immediate ceasefire in Egypt, Mollet was in
the middle of a meeting with Konrad Adenauer, the German chancellor.
As the historian William Hitchcock records: "When Mollet, totally
deflated by Eden's call, returned to the room, the German chancellor
bucked him up by denouncing the Americans and British as unreliable.
Instead, he declared, 'Now is the time to build Europe.'"
Ever since, France and Britain have lived by the different lessons
they drew from Suez. In recent months Tony Blair has given warning
again and again and again of the dangers of dividing Europe from the
United States. Jacques Chirac, France's president, has insisted by
contrast on the need for a "multipolar world", code for an EU that can
face down the United States. And that is the real underlying struggle
that was being debated and tested, not the morality of taking out a
cruel dictator. That is what is on the minds of Chirac, Blair, and
Dubya, and not the petty motivations we like to project onto them and
then ignorantly repeat. I hope if nothing else I've made a case that
plattitudes, no matter how well-intentioned, just won't do here when
looking deeply at current geopolitical situations in the Middle East.
Post by punnadhammoPost by jhayatiIt depends upon the intention, which in this case is to stop
terrorism and Militant Islamism from causing more suffering.
You know I dispute the validity of that motivation.
Fair enough. I will argue strongly that you are wrong. However, we
haven't gotten even to the point where you say "there are times when
violence is both compassionate and justified". If you can't even say
that there are times when violence is both compassionate and
justified, then we are going to have a hard time discussion whether or
not this is one of them, aren't we?
Post by punnadhammoOne thing I know very well from history is that declared casus belli are
almost always bogus and propagandistic. Hitler invaded Poland, if you recall,
because of Polish atrocities against Germans and unprovoked Polish aggression
against German border posts.
Yes, the invader always postures themselves as a victim.
Post by punnadhammoWhat? You doubt that?
Not at all. Just as every criminal will claim why they were justified
in commiting a crime. What's important here is that the U.S. actually
has differing motivations, even though just like Hitler and Stalin and
others, it claims to be justified. And I've offerred very good
reasons, including a pre-emptive strike on 3000 civilians in New York.
Now please don't bother me with more nonsense about the WTC being a
CIA plot, or Afghanistan being about pipelines, or more tabloid
nonsense. Osama and al Qaeda, along with most of radical Islamic
militants and dictators, have caused a lot of trouble. And the U.S.
spins and always will be duplicitous in terms of it's true strategic
reasons and the spin it gives the public and its allies. I've
mentioned that in several posts as well, and to great length.
Post by punnadhammoBut it was in all the *mainstream* papers like the Volkische Beobachter
for weeks before the outbreak of war! The German gov't and media wouldn't
lie about something like that, would they?
Your tabloids and radical fanaticism lead you to equate the U.S. with
Nazi Germany, and Ludwig has done the same, but as it turns out, our
liberal democracy is a lot different from Nazi Germany. What Hitler
claimed has no bearing on the police action in the Middle East. While
Hitler murdered millions in concentration camps, you whine about a
hundred Islamic jihadists treated decently in Cuba but being held
because of legal loopholes. In other words, this is another one of
your red herrings. In any case, you have demonstrated that you don't
even want to understand and look at the motivations for getting rid of
al Qaeda and Islamic militants, and instead you've come up with one
phony conspiracy after another.
Post by punnadhammoPost by jhayatiAs you point out, not letting Hitler get into power would be
better, but as in the late 1930s, we have already been attacked and
the Middle East is already a mess, and given the situation in the
present moment, this decision was the most rational and strategic one,
and better than waiting a decade until Saddam finally did get and use
what we're so disappointed we can't find.
The situation is still a mess. More recruits for terrorism are being
made by the invasion than anything else.
That is completely false. I'll even say that you have to know this
and are being outright dishonest. First, the level of hatred is high,
and no goodwill action will lower it, as the Suez crisis demonstrates,
for example, so little is lost by removing training camps whereas a
lot is gained. Second, Iraqis after the war now like us much better
than they did before the war, which again contradicts your claim.
Third, it's having bombs and opportunity that makes the terrorists,
and one hateful jihadist with a bomb is worse than a million unarmed
ones. They are funded and trained. We have hundreds of examples of
training camps taken down.
Your argument is like saying "there will be more educated people than
ever if we close all the colleges and universities and libraries". In
several long posts I documented how much we have injured al Qaeda and
destroyed their propaganda machines and training camps. Right now we
pressuring Syria to stop funding and supporting training and bombs to
murder busloads of school children. The war on terror has made
tremendous progress and recruits for terror are at an alltime low.
You may say that "even though we have done an amazing job at shutting
down new recruits and collapsing the infrustructure, I still say it is
wrong." That's fine, but don't make up facts that are blatantly
false.
Post by punnadhammoThe Israel economy is totally dependent on US aid
and if the US seriously threatened to cut them off, they would have to
back down and settle generously with the Palestinians.
Let's get this straight: while you support (with inaction) funding
murderers who kill busloads of schoolchildren, you wish to allow them
to drive the Jews into the sea? Wow, you and Fisk and Hitler sure
think alike, don't you? Of course, the fact that Palestineans won't
negotiate and reject deals and instead target and murder busloads of
innocent students pleases you, doesn't it? After all, they are Jews
and American allies, so if they die they must deserve it, but of
course any action by Israel to stop such murders warrants the worst
criticisms and insults from you. I can see you've been reading your
Fisk!
Post by punnadhammoOnly time will definitively settle this argument here.
Well, I said that several times in several posts. I'm simply trying
to provide the best evidence for the best prediction possible, as
that's all we have to go on.
Post by punnadhammoIf in five or ten years the Middle East is full of peace-loving prosperous
Who said that? I said 40 years. The fundamentalist old farts (like
you) in these regimes have to get old and die, and the next generation
growing up in a free liberal democracy will know peace and prosperity.
Look, for example, what happened in Japan.
Post by punnadhammoPost by jhayatiPost by punnadhammoHa Ha! That's good? Hated and feared? How about respected and loved?
Wouldn't that make everyone feel safer?
Yes, it would, but it isn't an option.
Why isn't it an option? There is a lot to love and admire
It isn't an option because there are hateful people right now. People
are conditioned psychologially to hate, and giving them money or
flowers will not change that. Hardened criminals will not respond to
all the love and flowers in the world. We can feel compassion for
them as well as realistically understand the extent of their
conditioning, which is like the roots of a tree that go far beneath
the surface. I'm really amazed that someone claiming to be a monk (as
well as to have studied history) would actually not understand social
conditioning enough to understand the nature of hatred. Look at
yourself and how you can't break out of your fundamentalism, your
arbitrary clinging to dogma, and your irrational anti-American
paranoia. Were you an Islamic militant with an equal amount of
clinging, no amount of money and flowers I could give you would change
your mind from wanting to kill me, and you would simply buy guns at
the first opportunity and harm others. Luckily, Punnadhammo, your
particular attachment and fundamentalism is harmless and clownish.
Others are as rigid and fixated as are you, except they are fixated on
killing other people. This is a fact of life, and no amount of
wishful thinking will change them.
Post by punnadhammoDo you remember the world-wide outpouring of sympathy for America after 9/11?
Within a week, there were countless cries that "we deserved it" and
hateful nonsense.
Post by punnadhammothat started to dissipate as soon as your president started in
More nonsense. Another lie, and a clever way to again hate the U.S.
and its President. A beatiful example of how you spin anything to fit
your hatred and biased propaganda, Punnadhammo. And the Islamic
militants again spin just as you do and find any excuse to hate and
make things up. Your lies lead you to prefer Hitler to have ruled and
Osama to be killing thousands more, and Saddam to be getting nukes.
That's why your idealism is wrong, and why we are doing the right
thing by stopping Islamic militism now, while it is still not too out
of control.
Post by punnadhammoThe fact is American culture, industry and lifestyle is immensely
seductive to populations world-wide. They really want to like you,
No, they don't. There is a love-hate relationship. Islamics want
some of what we have, yet at the same time the despise our culture and
loathe our political and religious freedom. Also your generalization
to "populations" doesn't work. Different populations have different
attitudes.
Post by punnadhammoIraq is not working for the occupiers. The expected oil revenue is not
flowing, which was supposed to pay Haliburton for the reconstruction.
Another blatant lie! If you'd read the news in the last month, Iraq
is amazingly producing much more oil than expected, even though only
the southern part is flowing. Punnadhammo, you have blatantly lied a
dozen times in this post alone. Why do you do that? It isn't funny.
The Coalition Provisional Authority released Iraq's 2004 budget Oct.
14, and the crude oil export level the budget expected Iraq to average
in 2004, 1.6 million bpd, is the level the Oil Ministry already will
reach in November, next month. More importantly, the budget largely
ignores the $35 billion in cash in Iraq's oil-for-food account, which
is enough to pay for two-thirds of the total reconstruction bill. By
the end of the month, the Oil Ministry already expects exports from
southern Iraq to reach 1.5 million bpd, up from 1.2 million bpd at the
beginning of the month. This is in addition to some 100,000 bpd to
200,000 bpd of partially refined crude being shipped via truck from a
refinery in the northern city of Baiji to Jordan.
Even if coalition and Iraqi efforts to rehabilitate the country's oil
infrastructure nearly collapsed -- efforts that should actually gain
remarkable momentum in November, when two new Army Corps of Engineers
contracts kick in -- Iraq will begin 2004 with proven export capacity.
At the very least, the export capacity is equal to the average daily
production levels the new budget projects for the year, and most
likely quite a bit higher.
Iraqi oil production increased by an additional 350,000 barrels per
day (bpd) in September from 1,050,000 bpd produced in August, the
Middle East Economic Survey reports in its Oct. 20-27 edition. The
Cyprus-based weekly states, "Iraqi production in August consisted
mainly of Basra Light crude, as political and security problems have
continued to plague Kirkuk exports since the fall of the Saddam regime
last April." Iraq's production increases total OPEC output to 27.44
million bpd.
So, in light of how Iraq is doing very well, and oil is being produced
above the highest expectations, what do you have to say?
Post by punnadhammoThere are increasing signs of desperation as the policy of the neo-con hawks falls apart.
Lol! Of course you would be dishonest and claim just the opposite.
Well, at least our pompous pontificating pundit Punnadhammo is in good
form today!
I can't wait for your next conspiracy theory tomorrow!
- j