Bushbred

I wonder if you could manage to GET OVER YOURSELF. It is supremely arrogant of you to continually suggest I am lacking in historical perspective whilst never providing any evidence of this.

Your obtsuseness never ceases to amaze me. So what if capitalism was originally a Jewish concept.

If you were being honest then you would have to admit that your views about Jewish domination of the capitalist system are remarkably similar to those propounded in Mein Kampf.

Keynes never experienced stagflation and in fact contended it could not occur, so his views on economics have been superseded. Maybe you need to read some economics.

I agree with you in some respects about the Versailles Treaty although the idea has a lot in common with the lefty’s favourite UN tool, SANCTIONS. As in ‘Why didn’t they give the Sanctions more time to work”

The Marshall plan would be criticised today, exactly in the manner that the US’s Iraq policy is being criticised. The left would say it was a self serving and manipulative act by a global oppressor.

The Marshall Plan was implemented as much to dispel poverty and deprivation as to consolidate democracy and capitalism. Exactly the goal of America in Iraq.

In your next sentence after praising the Americans for their Marshall Plan, you complain about the system which allowed it to occur. You can’t have it both ways.

I recall you complaining about winning hearts and minds a couple of posts ago. I think you deliberately misunderstand this concept and have instead decided it means pushing American values such as Christianity. This is patently not true.

I am a great admirer of Nelson Mandela. But he succeeded, in part, because he found a partner he could convince of a constructive way forward for the country of South Africa. We do not have an FW DeKlerk among the Islamo-Fascists.

Instead we have fundamentalists with whom negotiation is pointless. Should we wait 28 years for them, whilst they prosecute their war against us?

Paull, certainly I agree that Keynes had twin aims in the Bretton Woods Agreement, although he was a sick man at the time. First, taking lessons from the Treaty of Versailles, that revenge should never have been aimed at the German peoples but only at the leaders. Second, was to engineer the end of colonialism, which though partly successful aided by the wonderful tactics of Gandhi, was very much abused in the Middle East by America first in Iran on the pretext of knocking out Mossadeq as a Communist and then moving in on behalf of the oil as well as installing the Shah.

As any academic historian will tell you, Paull, the situation in the Middle East since has been a case of rhetorical palaver from the US and the UK about bringing democracy to the Middle East always coupled with the grab for contraband and hegemon.

I have Honors in this sort of problem, Paull, and I will not be talked out of what I have learnt.

Sam Said,

I absolutely feel for the people of Iraq. In fact I believe I care a lot more than your average lefty.

The standard Bush/Howard hating lefty is joyfully anticipating an embarrassing failure in Iraq and sees immediate withdrawl of troops from Iraq as the best way to facilitate this. What they are missing, or just don’t care to see, is what will happen when these troops are withdrawn.

Whilst there is little doubt that the current state of affairs is very painful for Iraqis, the conflict can best be described as a low level civil war. But the current gov’t is not strong enough to prevent an all out civil war including massacres and ethnic cleansing on a Rwandan scale were the Coalition to just get up and leave.

Many in the left mistakenly believe that the current conflict is Iraqis vs the Coalition. But this is patently not so. The vast majority of civilian deaths in Iraq are inflicted by the respective militias of the different sects, particularly Sunni v Shia. This is not a conflict that will end when the coalition leaves. On the contrary, the vacuum created when Coalition troops leave will allow far greater levels of violence.

We have promised the Iraqi people we will give them freedom, democracy and the infrastructure to build a future. After the appalling abandonment of the Shia uprising to the vicious Saddamites after Gulf War 1, we owe the Iraqi people the future we promised them.

Bushbred,

You said “I have Honors in this sort of problem, Paull, and I will not be talked out of what I have learnt”

I have an honours as well mate, although how that is relevant I don’t know.

Sounds a lot like your aren’t interested in debate at all, but in repeating a tired old mantra. I think you are afraid that I have a few good points which contradict your firmly held world view

"Sounds a lot like your aren’t interested in debate at all, but in repeating a tired old mantra."
Posted by Paul.L, Thursday, 20 September 2007 6:53:49 PM

YOU can say that again, and again...., and again......,and...

We have caused genocide - note that word Paul.

And bad an' all as the theft of many billions of dollars is, it pales in comparison to the death and despoilation - and the razing of the very means by which the survivors must try to eke out a meagre existence. Iraq is still a genocide in progress even as I write. Who doubts it?

We could give them heaps of money as a kind of recompense - maybe make the supreme sacrifice and throw in the royalties we are swiping from the East Timorese - but I think that would be missing the point.

You see, it's not just about wealth anymore. We wrecked their society, their history, and we devalued their humanity. We shat on their humanity and we shat on their honour. Honour is a quaint notion that we abandoned during the last decade, because it didn't return a monetary profit.

- so as a nation, we have no solution to Iraq because we lack the basic human qualifications.

*

Liam, you got it right. If we had any sense of honour left, we would parachute the whole "war party" right into the middle of Fallujiah to face their victims. Honour would be served. Humanity would be served.

- and may the Iraqis have mercy upon their souls.

- it's still a far better deal than the Iraqis got from us.

Chris,

Genocide? Would you like to explain that one? Provide some proof? I wouldn’t think so. Most intelligent people know it’s not true.

It’s typical of the easily led to throw about slogans like Genocide. You should ask whoever gives you your opinions to explain to you how they came up with that one?

You admit you haven’t read Marx and I bet you’re probably not even sure what a Marxists is, yet you’ll take an Indian Marxists word, but write off journalists from our public broadcaster as biased. Aijaz Ahmed isn’t even close to being an unbiased observer. I read over some of his articles after you unwittingly foisted him upon OLO. He blames the fall of Saddam on the Generals of his army who made deals to save themselves and their men. He was actively hoping for the Coalition forces to be defeated by Saddam and his henchmen.

Do you support our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan? Or are you also hoping that enough of them are killed that we will have to leave.

How have we razed the means by which people eke out an existence? Or do you blame us every time Al Qaeda or the militias blow up a power station or a water utility?

How did we wreck their history?

I’m not sure if you are referring to the museum looting but if you are you are that’s hardly destroying their history. Many of the exhibits that were reported missing were actually in the safe keeping of museum employees and were returned when the looting ended. Most of the valuable pieces that were stolen have since been retrieved; more will be returned in the future. But the Iraqis looted the museum. Not us.

I love your highly technical and intricately worded assessment of our involvement in Iraq. “ we shat on them”.
Mate its clear you have a vocabulary problem and more besides. Maybe you should have it looked at.

At least BushBred knows what he’s talking about even if he’s mostly wrong. But you're just sloganeering