Is the surge a success?

[Dinner]

Basically I gave up on this thread because it was very clear Patty was just going to launch a series of personal attacks as he desperately tried to avoid the issues I brought up.

Basically Patty ruins good threads with his stupidity.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Basically I gave up on this thread because it was very clear Patty was just going to launch a series of personal attacks as he desperately tried to avoid the issues I brought up.

Basically Patty ruins good threads with his stupidity.

That's funny.

[Ramo]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohandas_Gandhi

The partition plan was approved by the Congress leadership as the only way to prevent a wide-scale Hindu-Muslim civil war. Congress leaders knew that Gandhi would viscerally oppose partition, and it was impossible for the Congress to go ahead without his agreement, for Gandhi's support in the party and throughout India was strong. Gandhi's closest colleagues had accepted partition as the best way out, and Sardar Patel endeavoured to convince Gandhi that it was the only way to avoid civil war. A devastated Gandhi gave his assent.

Of the partition of India to create Pakistan, he wrote in Harijan on 6 October 1946:

[The demand for Pakistan] as put forth by the Moslem League is un-Islamic and I have not hesitated to call it sinful. Islam stands for unity and the brotherhood of mankind, not for disrupting the oneness of the human family. Therefore, those who want to divide India into possibly warring groups are enemies alike of India and Islam. They may cut me into pieces but they cannot make me subscribe to something which I consider to be wrong [...] we must not cease to aspire, in spite of [the] wild talk, to befriend all Moslems and hold them fast as prisoners of our love.

And of course, the Brits pursued a divide and conquer policy, promoting a seperate Muslim identity (i.e. organizing political representation on religious and communal identity), the Muslim League over the Indian National Congress, etc.

Blaming Gandhi and absolving the Brits of responsibility over partition is the height of lunacy.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


That's funny.

It's true though. Even if I ended up responding in kind out of frustration.

[Patroklos]

Basically I gave up on this thread because it was very clear Patty was just going to launch a series of personal attacks as he desperately tried to avoid the issues I brought up.

Issues like the 2006 violence being the same as current violence? I avoided this? I guess we better go out and likk 1456 Iraqi civilians so you can right. Is Dauphin stupid too

It was smart moving on when you did, don't ruin it.

[Arrian]

Wow, Ben.

British rule was not good for India. I agree that "India" as such did not exist when the Brits took over. That doesn't really mean anything. There is no particular reason to believe that unification (followed by a messy partition) was benificial. I also agree that British rule did result in some infrastructure, but counter that for all we know the principalities could very well had invested in their own infrastructure. We just don't know how it would've played out, but as Ramo has indicated, these states (statelets?) were not without wealth.

You also brought up the prospect of French rule - which is irrelevent to the debate we're having. Remember, I'm not debating British rule in the particular with you. We're discussing colonialism and its impact. So saying "well, if not for the Brits, it would've been the French," while historically accurate, is useless to our discussion.

As for the partition... the British are the ones who "unified" the country that was susequently divided. Without British rule, there is no need to partition. There would've been other conflicts, no doubt. Further, I suspect Ramo is right about "divide and conquer." The Brits did love that.

Finally, blaming Ghandi for something he opposed is just plain silly.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Kontiki


I can't believe anyone would try to make such a ridiculous comparison. The US is "in Germany" insofar as they've decided that they like having bases located closer to the action. Ditto Japan and Korea. The US stopped being actively involved in day-to-day German security pretty quickly after the war ended, save for lining up against the Soviet bloc. If the US faced an even remotely similar situation in Iraq right now, it would be almost a complete non-issue.

And that's only the half of it. Iraq has internal divisions Germany did not have (ethnic/tribal and religious). Germany's cultural and political experiences were far more similar to our own, and thus made it a lot easier us as the occupier. To oversimplify: Christian Western nation occupying Christian Western nation. Then there was the readily available looming threat of the common enemy (Russkies).

-Arrian

[Patroklos]

I am sure the utter exhaustion of being on the losing end of a six year total war had something to do with it as well.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Alexander I
Wow... from the surge to Gandhi. That's a bit of a tangent.

Not hard, really. Surge means Iraq. Iraq -> Colonialism -> Ghandi. Three easy steps.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Patroklos
I am sure the utter exhaustion of being on the losing end of a six year total war had something to do with it as well.

Yeah, and I've mentioned that. Then again, Iraqis were probably pretty worn out from the 2 wars with sanctions inbetween. That might be a wash.

-Arrian

[Patroklos]

While I don't want to diminish the pain those things inflicted on Iraqis, I don't think it quite compares to having your cities burned to the ground and ten percent of your population killed.

[Arrian]

Hmm, yeah. So not a exactly a wash.

Also, the Germans had farther to fall.

-Arrian

[Ben Kenobi]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohandas_Gandhi

a), it's not a reliable source. Wikipedia is crap. You should read the actual sources.

b), where does Gandhi talk about the effects of Partition on the Sikhs in the Punjab?

[Ben Kenobi]

Google scholar.

For example, it points out that the percentage of the work force engaged in industrial activities declined from 15-18% in 1800 to 10% in 1900. While not all of this is attributable to the Brits, the idea that South Asia prospered due to British rule is nonsense.

When you shift away from high intensive mode of production to more modern industry, wouldn't the number of people involved in the industrial activities decline? That's what we've seen in the west as of late, as machines get more efficient, fewer people are needed to run them.

I don't see why saying that Bengal benefitted from the Raj is so controversial, because it was the capital of British India, a position which it's not held anywhere near the prominence since. It hasn't helped Bangladesh being partitioned apart from India, if it were still in India, it would have one of the highest standards of living in all of India.

[Arrian]

Is the BBC an acceptable source, Ben?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/50664.stm

India finally won independence in 1947.

But for Mahatma Gandhi, triumph was tempered with disappointment over the violent partitioning of the country into India and Pakistan.

Violent riots broke out over partition
Nearly one million people died in the riots that ensued between Hindus and Muslims.

Mahatma Gandhi had always been against the partition. The year before he had said, "Before partitioning India, my body will have to be cut into two pieces."

But the alternative to partition was thought to be civil war between Hindus and Muslims, and so at the last minute Gandhi urged the Congress Party to accept partition.

-Arrian