[SATLUG] [Even More OT] Speechless

[R. Tyler Ballance]

On Nov 9, 2006, at 1:57 PM, Bruce Dubbs wrote:

> Your knowledge of history is a bit spotty.  What was Japan's excuse  
> for
> invading Korea, China, and quite a bit of Southeast Asia?  Maybe  
> the oil
> embargo had something to do with unacceptable behavior?  Today the UN
> calls such actions sanctions.
>
> What was Germany's excuse for attacking Poland, Austria, Hungary,  
> and a
> lot of other Eastern European countries before they attacked Russia in
> June of 1941?

"They started it" a sense of history will explain those quotes ;)


> Hussein invaded Kuwait with the intention of permanent rule just like
> Japan and Germany invaded other countries.  The US has *never*  
> wanted to
> rule Iraq, but the intention, wise or not, was to provide freedom  
> to the
>  Iraqis.  I've never heard anything else from the politicians,  
> although
> there are conspiracy theorists who say we did it for the oil.

The best "reason"  behind our 'situation' in Iraq I've heard in  
relation to the "war on terrorism" is a concept that we should all  
(well, most of us anyways) understand.

Honeypot.

The idea that we had the main intent on bringing democracy to the  
Iraqis is marginally idiotic, bringing about social change in a  
different culture does not happen with the amount of force we would  
want to expend.  We "brought" Germany and Japan to the world of  
democracy, but this was after years of war, and essentially the  
complete destruction of "the old way of doing things" after both of  
their governments crumbled. Yes, its a nice idea to bring democracy  
to Iraq, but if that was our intent, then we chose the absolute wrong  
way to do so. We would not invade the People's Republic of China to  
democratize them, its the long way around, allowing the permeation of  
capitalism and the slow creep of political change will be far more  
effective.

As a honeypot however, I think Iraq has been far more effective,  
drawing "evil doers" from the region into the country to take a swing  
at American soldiers.


That said, I don't agree with the approach in the least, and using  
the logical fallacy "well, we've not been attacked since have we? The  
war on terror is working thus far in that respect" is utter nonsense.  
In the same vein of logic, I have been preventing nuclear holocaust  
with the power of my mind, well, it hasn't happened yet, of course!  
Because I'm preventing it, duh! ;)

> Comparing the US of the 21st Century to Nazi Germany and Imperial  
> Japan
> is like comparing apples and oranges because they are both fruit.

I'd say comparing the 21st century US is comparable to the old  
Imperial Britain, our global influence is just as far reaching as our  
military's and/or culture's presence outside of our borders.

If anything, the global environment in which we live were  
multinational corporations and governments "work together" in an  
unprecedented fashion is a completely new page in history.

Cheers

R. Tyler Ballance: Lead Mac Developer at bleep. software
contact: tyler at bleepsoft.com | jabber: tyler at jabber.geekisp.com