India's "Saddam Hussein" village

[Arrian]

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend" can be taken too far, though.

It all comes down to how big a threat we think we're facing.

-Arrian

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Arrian
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend" can be taken too far, though.

It all comes down to how big a threat we think we're facing.

-Arrian

yup. I favored our distancing ourselves from the govt of Uzbekistan, despite losing our bases there, and putting SOME pressure on Mubarak to liberalize, etc. But to turn completely away now from Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Jordan, Algeria, etc, etc would be folly. Even a neo-Wilsonian like myself can see that.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Arrian
The best most of us can really do is try to avoid this sort of things ourselves, and speak against it when we encounter it. I'm not going to India anytime soon, and I doubt you are either, so we'll have to hope somebody else talks sense to these folks.

I agree. Our words here are very unlikely to have any direct influence on these people described in the OP. We do have an influence on our own government and those who we interact with though, and it was that involvement which I was addressing.

Do you believe that I'm "looking down on" Indians when I laugh at this? I laugh partly in despair. Not despair because Sunni Muslim Indians are teh stoopid, but despair because humans in general are stupid. And ignorant. And self-centered. And lotsa other stuff.

I did not mean to imply that laughing (ie. to avoid an issue's ugliness) was related to looking down on. It could be of course, and generally will have a similar derogatory implication to an outside viewpoint, but does not necessarily equate.

You are the type of person I think should have an impact on society, and it is disheartening that in general the decent people in this world feel disenfranchised to the point where they feel they have no real voice.

From the article in the OP. That pretty much says it all - they are not exposed to anything other than propoganda, and the basis for their hero worship is that Saddam "stood up to America." Which of course is pretty much a prerequisite for hero status in the Muslim world.

While these people may be sheltered from the facts (to what extent I don't know), there are obviously others who are not. For something like this to spread outside the "oblivious" populations, it would need some sort of impetus, which we definitely should not provide unnecessarily.

[Arrian]

Sure, it's generally a good idea to avoid handing propogandists good material on a silver platter. That's rather obvious. And sure, it's frustrating how clumsy out government can be at times.

At the same time, things have gotten so inflamed that we hardly need to bumble at this point.

Going forward, I'd like to see us avoid making the same mistakes we've made in the past. But even if we do, relations between the USA and the Arab/Muslim world are going to be ugly for some time.

-Arrian

[Aeson]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
They also don't mke a difference, son...

They make the differences I expect them to. Your own expectations for my posts are completely irrellevent to my decision making process in determining what to post (or not).

What's lorizael supposed to do? Come up with an action plan to explain to Indian villagers that the US isn't so bad?

lorizael can do what he wants. He chose to address a statement I had made specifically, and I have addressed his points in return. It's called a discussion.

You completely missed my point by the way. I am not saying we should take action about the Indian villagers. I am saying we should guard our own actions from contributing to the spread of such ideas.

[Arrian]

Regarding influence or lack thereof...

I can potentially have some impact on the opinions of those with whom I interact, and of course I have my vote. That's about it. It's not nothing, but it is rather limited, as it is for most individuals. Some have more of a podium (either by happenstance or design). If I say that my impact is small, that is not because I feel disenfranchised. It's just the facts as I see them, given what I know of myself and the world. I'm one guy, and like most people I'm primarily concerned with my own life, not changing the world. Accordingly, my impact will be very small.

-Arrian

[Aeson]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
well KH, looks like I called it.

Quite a feat given I posted my view on the DP several times already in various threads on this subject.

I think that in fact we have limited leverage over the Iraqi govt at this point, and that what leverage we have is best aimed at getting them to reign in Shia death squads, etc.

We are losing (and in some cases giving away) leverage, that I agree with. The timing of our withdrawl is probably our most potent leverage at this point... though money is always leverage.

I dont think weve had nearly as much control as you suggest for a long time.

First of all, note that most of the "leverage" I expressed was in the context of how we would be viewed, not the reality. Obviously there are those who think we are running a puppet government. That is what I said. We can't just plan for how things will be, we also need to plan for how things will look.

As for influence with the execution... You really don't think we could have achieved enough influence over the Iraqi government to just get them to behave with some dignity? We couldn't have influenced (and/or helped) them keep unauthorized video from being taken during it?

Sorry, I don't buy that. We still have more leverage than 5 minutes of acting respectable on video tape.

I dont think theres ever been a moment since Saddams capture when we were in position to spirit him out of Iraq for international trial without creating major negative consequences for us among the Iraqi Shia.

The only ways to avoid an Iraqi run trial of Saddam, would have been either A. To occupy Iraq with 250,000 or more troops, instead of 140,000 or B. To kill Saddam in his spider hole ("he was resisting I tell ya, he really was")

Or perhaps just leave if the Shia hadn't gone along with it. Could have potentially been our best bet for a clean and internationally acceptable withdrawl even. If an international trial were denied by the Iraqis, we could have had our hands clean of it. But we didn't even publicly ask or promote the idea as far as I'm aware of.

While he was in our custody we had as much or more influence than anyone over how, where, and when he would be tried. Maybe we caved to pressure, or maybe we gave him to them to avoid the mess of his trial on our hands. I don't know for sure why. But we did have him in custody, and we could have gotten him out of the country. We chose not to. If the reason for that was to give creedence to the Iraqi government in the eyes of their people, it seems to be a mixed bag at best. If our reason was to stabilize the region, it doesn't seem to have worked. If our reason was to avoid trials on certain issues, it seems to have achieved it's purpose.

My guess would be we agreed with the Iraqis that Saddam would be tried for a specific set of crimes and no more (saving them and/or us face), and that we welcomed the fact that an execution (by someone else) was a foregone conclusion. But it's only a guess.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Aeson


Quite a feat given I posted my view on the DP several times already in various threads on this subject.



We are losing (and in some cases giving away) leverage, that I agree with. The timing of our withdrawl is probably our most potent leverage at this point... though money is always leverage.



First of all, note that most of the "leverage" I expressed was in the context of how we would be viewed, not the reality. Obviously there are those who think we are running a puppet government. That is what I said. We can't just plan for how things will be, we also need to plan for how things will look.

As for influence with the execution... You really don't think we could have achieved enough influence over the Iraqi government to just get them to behave with some dignity? We couldn't have influenced (and/or helped) them keep unauthorized video from being taken during it?

Sorry, I don't buy that. We still have more leverage than 5 minutes of acting respectable on video tape.



Or perhaps just leave if the Shia hadn't gone along with it. Could have potentially been our best bet for a clean and internationally acceptable withdrawl even. If an international trial were denied by the Iraqis, we could have had our hands clean of it. But we didn't even publicly ask or promote the idea as far as I'm aware of.

While he was in our custody we had as much or more influence than anyone over how, where, and when he would be tried. Maybe we caved to pressure, or maybe we gave him to them to avoid the mess of his trial on our hands. I don't know for sure why. But we did have him in custody, and we could have gotten him out of the country. We chose not to. If the reason for that was to give creedence to the Iraqi government in the eyes of their people, it seems to be a mixed bag at best. If our reason was to stabilize the region, it doesn't seem to have worked. If our reason was to avoid trials on certain issues, it seems to have achieved it's purpose.

My guess would be we agreed with the Iraqis that Saddam would be tried for a specific set of crimes and no more (saving them and/or us face), and that we welcomed the fact that an execution (by someone else) was a foregone conclusion. But it's only a guess.

yeah, I suppose we could have gotten him out and then just left the place. That wouldnt be a clean solution at all. But if you think we should leave anyway, I can see whered you prefer that approach.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Janaki


I don't know what a noob is...does that make me more believable as a 'she'?

I'll accept you as a "she" . .. I don't know if I accept you as a Canadian

QUICK!! who scored the most famous goal in 1972?

and no googling

[Aeson]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
We should minimize support for dictators. In some cases there really isnt much choice though. Even then we can avoid supporting the worst ones. Whom specifically did you have in mind?

Ideally all cases. As you say, some we may already be invested far too much to change now.

I actually think that economic embargoes are generally counterproductive. If anything, undermining a dictator happens by increasing the affluence of their populace. Making them dirt poor doesn't seem to help. I also don't think cutting off relations is ever a good idea, and should only happen when they do it to us. But funding for weapons I would never support, regardless of who they (potentially) were fighting with them.

The only exception is if we are actually fighting for survival. Not for spreading ideology...

As for funding terrorist groups, even against our enemies, I agree.

I dont think everyone involved in the Afghan resistance was a terrorist, and I think it would have been a terrible mistake not to have supported them.

Certainly they aren't all terrorists. We did train some who were, or trained them to be so. I think that was a mistake even though Afghanistan is a more cloudy issue given the weight of the USSR vs USA and all that. I think the USSR would have fallen regardless, but I guess we'll never know.

I am (and always was) quite a bit more worried about religious fundamentalism than communism. We knew that MAD had a chance to work with the USSR (and us too). With religious fundamentalism, they'd welcome the chance at MAD.

Winston Churchill famously said that if Hitler invaded hell, hed support aid to the devil. We may not be in nearly as dire a situation as Britain was in 1941, but the world remains a dangerous place, and we cant always limit ourselves to allies as pure as the driven snow.

Of course not. Especially since there are none pure as the driven snow, not even ourselves. We should attempt to become so as much as possible though, and not isolate or disregard our friends who are "purer" as we seem to want to do lately.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
yeah, I suppose we could have gotten him out and then just left the place. That wouldnt be a clean solution at all. But if you think we should leave anyway, I can see whered you prefer that approach.

Well, you're 1-1 now. I don't think we should necessarily leave anyway, though unless we change directions rather drastically in how we are there, we probably should. I just think we will leave before Iraq is stable.

I didn't necessarily mean we spirit him out and then leave either. That would be one option, but there are others. As I mentioned, we could have made a (public) diplomatic effort to get the Iraqis to agree to an international trial. And then left them to their own devices if/when they denied that request. Whether or not we withdrew at that point, we would have distanced ourselves more from his execution. (Obviously not compatible with having more leverage in the nature of the execution though.)

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by Aeson
Well, if you want to maintain the argument that your words here are meaningless, feel free.

Your insinuation that everyone here is apathetic is either true or false. If it is false, even just one person, then a statement made here obviously has the potential to impact that person... and anything they themselves impact.

As you say. Not everyone here is apathetic, and thus a statement made here can have an effect.

(I also don't buy that "little" effects are worthless.)

I don't think I ever made this claim as universally and broadly as you seem to think I did. I also don't care that much. People here, and the words here, can obviously have an effect on something. They exist in this universe, so yeah. I just think the effect of most people's actions here - on the grand scheme of things - is so miniscule as to be insignificant and not worth mentioning.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Lorizael
I don't think I ever made this claim as universally and broadly as you seem to think I did.

If that wasn't your intent, I apologize. In response to your original post I said you can say it isn't helpful. You decided to respond again negatively, which made me think that you didn't mean it in the manner you have now clarified.

I just think the effect of most people's actions here - on the grand scheme of things - is so miniscule as to be insignificant and not worth mentioning.

Yet you bothered to mention it...

So you decided to claim my posts have the same effect as everyone else's then? What is the purpose there? Why don't you post that in response to yourself and others? It seems inane to me to mention it at all, and very inconsistant to only mention it to me.

My initial post was made, Arrian responded to it, I responded to him, and then you jumped in to say my response to Arrian makes no difference and is not worth mentioning? Arrian and I were having a conversation, which neither of us would have participated in if we didn't see some reason to. If it makes no difference, that is up for Arrian (and I) to decide, not you.

[Lorizael]

This is really tiresome. Just pretend I'm an ******* and ignore what I say.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Lorizael
This is really tiresome. Just pretend I'm an ******* and ignore what I say.

If I did consider you an ******* why would I want to let you off when you're getting tired of it?