Aileron

Marxism....doesn't....work. Any society that is more advanced than cavemen needs some form of organised religion, and more advanced societies need religion that is proportionately more organised. The question of why Islamic society hasn't advanced as quickly as the west can be answered by any historian. There is a mul!@#$%^&*ude of political and economic reasons why they have not. The real question is how can we get them to advance at a much faster rate than it took Europe. The answer on the most basic level is to apply a certain political and economic impetus. That alone means that we can't just leave them be. Is invasion the only answer? Possibly, though I would test other methods first. Iraq was an exception, because other methods had been previously tried, and we knew that wouldn't work. Afghanistan was also an exception, because the nature of the Taliban clearly showed that nothing else was ever going to get through their thick heads. I agree that if we set this standard for Iraq, we may very well have to invade the whole middle east. To that I can say that we should give the other nations you mentioned the opportunity to prove themselves. If for no other reason, this course is wiser because it will be far less costly to take them on one at a time than all at once.

He didn't escalate anything, he just brought it from the fourth page to the front page of newspapers. The fact that you hate Bush isn't a pre-conception of mine. This whole forum is filled with evidence of it.

Wow SeVeR, you are one step away from supporting Bush here. Correct...the middle east lives in the 12th century. However, we cannot afford to let them develop at their own pace. The 12 century was filled with a bunch of crazy people who would constantly get swords and lances and kill each other. Wars were so normal they weren't even recorded. Now, the weapons of choice are guns, missiles, and perhaps even WMDs. To let those with a 12th century mindset who have 20th century weapons develop at their own pace would be asking for a disaster on par with the worst the world has seen. There would be thousands of skyscraper, train, and subway bombings by the time they did so. We could assume logically that it would take 800 years needed for them to develop from the 1100s to the 1900s, multiplied by a factor greater than 1, because history has shown that the middle east develops at a slower pace than Europe does, or else they wouldn't be behind in the first place. So, you wish to wait 800 years and hope that 800 years of warfare will yield a lower cost than the 50 years the War on Terror might take?

Sectarian strife goes against the objective of "getting the US our of Iraq" though. If they really wanted to win, they would be trying to unify Iraq against us. I mean, the most they could cause is civil war, in which case we could just choose our favorite faction, help them win, and convince them to install a democracy when they finally achieve victory. You are right in that this action does fulfill the insurgent's objectives though. When Bush gave his "Mission Accomplished" speech, the democratic cat was already out of the bag. Since then, there is no way Iraq would ever go back to a dictatorship, and the insurgent's only objective has been to raise the cost of the victory which has already been obtained. To that end this action makes sense. Civil war would only increase the chances of a democracy forming over the long term, but that was already given years ago. All the insurgents care about now is raising the cost in blood. My hypothesis is still correct though...only pride or hatred can motivate people to harm others just for its own sake.

Ok, so by your logic we shouldn't arrest murderers, because there are a lot of murderers uncaught around the world. Nor should we arrest rapists, because there are many rapists walking free around the world. Nor should any criminal as long as they are not the exclusive culprit found on Earth. The middle east was violent long before G. W. Bush. It was a violent place even before the US Cons!@#$%^&*ution was signed. I'd venture to say that the history of middle eastern violence is older than most of the countries of Europe. The only difference between now and then is that now they have the technology to actually carry out the things their ancestors could only dream of. To think that Bush caused violence in the middle east is emotional.

Yes, but Europe doesn't, on the most fundimental level, claim to have US interests at heart. (And they shouldn't)

*Chuck Norris notices that sonic and greased broke the topic rules and didn't get their !@#$%^&* kicked in the last two posts* *Chuck Norris roundhouse kicks sonic, sending him flying around the world 12 times.* *sonic finally lands on greased lightning, breaking every bone in both their bodies* *Chuck Norris turns around and says "boo!", sending me flying backwards and breaking a bar stool*

Ducky, that wasn't supposed to be a logical flow, just an observation. Hatred is not logical, and those who suc!@#$%^&* to it do not follow logic. There's no logical reason to strap a bomb to yourself and blow up a group of civilians, so if we wich to understand their motives, we must take into account that they have thrown logic out the window long ago. Monte, my point is that this shrine bombing does indeed make it clear that the motivation is hatred. No one will make money or gain power by this action. While it did cause a large amount of violence, it doesn't weaken democratic Iraq's control at all, as a matter of fact it kinda strengthens it because forces that were previously somewhat united against the Iraqi government will now be fighting each other. If they wanted wealth, power, or to accomplish military objectives they would have used that bomb to attack a US base or something. Clearly their target was neither the US, nor the Iraqi government, but Islam itself. For an Islamic terrorist to attack Islam, the motivation can only be hatred or pride...those are the only two emotions that are powerfull enough, illogical, cause self-destructive action, and would be relevant in this case. Indeed there's no logical reason to rule out pride at this point, but I'd put my money on hatred.

I know I'm late on this one. This is just such a perfect demonstration of the nature of hatred. The Jihadists hate the United States. They fueled that hatred until they wanted a massive war of all muslims vs all westerners. They use perverted interpretations of their holy texts in order to justify their actions. (Even the term "Jihad" should be by definition a war in which you only target your enemies' military, in hopes of converting the civilian population.) Now that its becoming clear to them that not all muslims have been consumed by the same hatred that the Jihadists have, in this case the Shiites. Thus, they now hate any muslim that does not support their hatred. If they continue down this path, they will soon hate Islam itself for being the religion of those who did not support their cause. Then, they will hate Allah for being the God of the religion of those that did not support their cause. After that, they will hate all of existence for the universe not catering to their hatred. Finally, they will hate and destroy themselves for not being strong enough to destroy all of existence. Hatred always leads to the destination of self destruction, and this case is likely no exception. The fact that they are going down this path is abundantly clear. That shrine was a holy place for all of Islam, and they destroyed it. Only those who hate Islam would destroy it. If they truly lived up to their claims, they would sooner sacrifice their war than see that place destroyed, with a handfull of exceptions, this situation not being one of them. This bombing makes it perfectly clear what our enemy is. Suffice to say that we should come down on these Jihadists and show neither mercy nor pity, though we must be carefull not to fall to our own hatred.

SeVeR, keep history in mind. Iran can't really be trusted. The Russian proposal is a good one though. Hey, and don't think I support all of Bush's decisions. I would probably have signed on to Kyoto if for no other reason than to help Blair out, and I definitely would've booted Cheney in 2004, and given Rice the VP position. I mean, us redneck conservatives know how to operate our firearms and don't end up causing hunting accidents. (Though we do from time to time shoot lawyers, but those aren't really accidental shootings. ) I also would have dealt with Iraq differently. I would've smuggled in weapons and black ops forces over the Turkish border to bolster the Kurdish rebellion. Then, I would've kidnapped Baathist leadership (easier said than done, but in the end probably do-able), and had the Kurds execute them in shame trials on the internet much like the insurgents are doing to civilians now. Then I would've had them hide from the reprisal strikes, until the Baathists start asking themselves who should be the next leaders. Then, and only then I would've directed the Kurds to start attacking in the open, waited a week, and only then would I have officially declared war and sent US conventional forces in. I also would not occupy Iraq, but instead would pull all forces out, and then when the insurgents attempt to occupy again (they would have to, or else the civilian population would just let them rot in their caves and form a democracy without them), I'd move back in and take them out again, continuing the pattern of withdrawing, forcing the enemy out into the open, and then hitting them again as many times as necessary. Ultimately, Bush's solution is both more righteous and has less moving parts to it. My solution would have fewer American casualties and the war would have been over faster as far as the public would be concern, but there would have been much higher civilian casualties, the Iraqi public probably would have hated us afterwards, and ultimately democracy would not have been guarenteed. In the end I figure that since my solution is much much worse than the one Bush used, I probably don't have the right to criticise his decision.

Ducky, when you put it that way, burning down your house does sound pretty tempting. Some of the things you wrote would get a somewhat violent reaction from me. To be honest I'd probably punch you in the face if we ever met in person. PK2's point is that in the US, we've let secularism get carried away, and in many cases our Christianity is relegated to a side culture. I mean, "The Lion, the Which, and the Wardrobe" is considered by many to be a religious movie for having religious "undertones". If we still had our cultural iden!@#$%^&*y "religious undertones" would be in a lot of movies, and we would only consider a movie religious if the main plot was religious. Example: "passion of the Christ". Yes, there is a bit of Christianity on the TV, but its always on obscure channels. The major networks don't want to show it. As a matter of fact, they usually like to take potshots at Christians whenever they get away with it. The Simpsons and South Park are the two main offenders at the moment. In the end, the muslim world probably is at war with us because we are beginning to resemble the Ottoman Empire, which many of their cultures developed while fighting. The Ottoman's did the exact same thing...in the interest of secularism they destroyed their own religious and cultural iden!@#$%^&*y until in the end they just collapsed. They forgot who they were and what they accomplished and they just simply let their nation fall apart one piece at a time. The US is currently facing a similar problem. For example, New Orleans got damaged by a hurricane instead of rebuilding it we are wondering whether we should bother. For another example, 40 years ago we landed on the moon, even after the Apollo 1 disaster, but now we not only don't go to the moon but our fleet of space shuttles is grounded, and conspiracy theorists are wondering if it was possible in the first place. We've made the mistake of letting our melting pot culture evolve into a non-culture. The Ottomans had a non-culture too, and if you look at the history of the Middle East, most of the regions were in constant rebellion against the Ottomans, for long enough periods that it became an aspect of their cultural development. To that end, they probably grew to hate everything that was Ottoman, including having a non-culture. Still, these cartoons violate two details in free speech. Slander, Libel, and in general Lying is not considered free speech in most countries. Its also not considered free speech to deliberately cause pain and suffering, for example yelling "fire" in a crowded building in order to cause a panic. For arguement's sake, I will ask "Are the Muslim communities as a whole violent?" Case 1: the Muslim community is violent. If we assume they are as a whole violent, then we could predict that such cartoons would lead to violent reactions. In that case, the publications deliberately caused the riots, which caused pain and suffering. Thus, they aren't free speech. Case 2: the Muslim community is not violent Then portraying them as violent is libel, and the cartoons are not free speech. Either way free speech doesn't cover these cartoons. In reality the situation is somewhere between case 1 and case 2, but half libel + half inflametory provides a whole unjustification of the cartoons. A popular quote is "The Pen is Mightier than the Sword". If that's true, why do we relegate our militaries with highly professional battle-tested Generals and Admirals along with civilian oversight, but don't put any restrictions on the more powerfull press?

Actually I think supposedly the German intelligence network is the second best in the world, and the absolute best in actually intentionally spying on people. I will note that due to the clandestine nature of intelligence networks it could very well be that someone else has a better network and no one knows. Still, their intelligence network is legendary. For example, they are the only nation known to have had a triple agent. To that end, asking "How did Germany get this information?" is like "How did the US take out the Baathist standing army so easy?". Germany's spies just simply outmatched the Baathist security forces plain and simple. Its always been my opinion that the invasion of Iraq was an unpopular war that had to be done, and that Bush, being more of an actual leader than a baby-kissing politician, didn't have the political savvy to put the blame on somebody else. To that end Germany's actions are consistent with my opinion...they knew it had to be done, so they helped us, but didn't want the political fallout, so they kept it secret. Now French and German opinion is slowly beginning to come around, probably as a result of Palestine electing Hamas, so they just let this information slip so as to join the winning side. (Again, Germany's spies are the best in the world - I wouldn't bet on them doing anything by accident.)

[OOC]I wouldn't say Jackie Chan would have to fear Chuck Norris. Both of them are uber-fighting machines. In fact if they were in a martial bout using a point system, I'd bet on Jackie Chan, though if it were a fight to the knockout I'd bet on Chuck Norris. In a streetfight, it depends, because Jackie Chan knows how to use objects in the environment as weapons, but Chuck Norris probably is smart enough to carry a gun on him and knows how to use it, meaning he won't miss his shots and will be carefull to stand out of Chan's reach. I guess that means I'd bet on Chuck Norris because an Uzi is a more effective weapon than a trashcan lid.[/OOC] *Picks on a poor kid from the projects named Robert and steals his lunch money.* Robert runs to Chuck Norris, who in turn gives Robert a few pointers. *Attempts to steal Robert's lunch money again* *Robert does an uber roundhouse kick that knocks me unconcious with one hit* Chuck Norris then throws a rock in the air, sending it around the world three times until it lands squarely on my head, knocking me, erm, double unconious. Robert, with Chuck Norris as his coach, then goes on to win a martial arts compe!@#$%^&*ion.

*gets together a lot of money* *hires the one man alive who can survive a fight with Chuck Norris.....Jackie Chan* Jackie Chan leads with a flying kick which is blocked. Chuck Norris parries with a left hook, which is dodged. Jackie Chan and Chuck Norris fight an epic battle for 5 hours, until both are somewhat exhausted. Every piece of furniture in the bar is broken, and all that 1337ness concentrated in one place raised the temperature of the room 5 degrees. Chuck talks to Jackie: "Jackie, why are you fighting for Ailer? He's a druglord, terrorist, bankrobber, and generally a bad guy." Jackie turns to Ailer. "Are you bad guy?" I hesitate. "Are you bad guy?!?" *runs* Jackie Chan jumps in front of me and with a roundhouse kick sends me flying towards Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris stops me in mid-air with a right-hook, then judo-throws me towards Jackie Chan. Chuck Norris and Jackie Chan now play an epic game of Ailer tennis for 5 hours...Chuck Norris wins by one point. Jackie Chan leaves the bar to beat up a group of bad-guys back in China.

yeah, I'm sorry about that last one...most of the crap I put on there was ignorable anyways. I should have just not put it up.

We haven't had a serious one going on for a while. I was thinking of starting a new one, but don't know how popular it would be. Post here if you want a serious thread started, and if you have any ideas other than another 17th Parallel Bar topic post them here.

To be fair, there is no way I can prove that the Baathists would have occupied Iraq for hundreds of years, to do so would require psychic powers, a crystal ball, or a time machine. Its clear that defeating the USSR was dependant upon the strategy of containment, which if I'm not mistaken was Winston Churchill's idea. Communism was so fundimentally flawed that its own collapse was inevitable. In some sense Worthless, the USSR did bring itself down. The theory of no property and a classless society just doesn't work, because somebody has to be in charge, and with that comes effective ownership and class. In my humble opinion, Anarchy, Communism, and Athiesm are the same idea applied to government, economics, and religion respectively, and all three have the same flaw in their basic theory, but I digress. You are right in that the Communist government did infact have all its bases covered it terms of preventing revolution. However, while often referred to as such, Communism is not a governmental system. It is an economic system. The USSR's governmental system was a quasi-federalist system with a single political party, not unlike Iraq. Such governmental systems don't exactly provide human rights, but they are stable. There really wasn't any instablity in the USSR's government. It was the USSR's economy that made them unstable. Protests against the USSR's government occurred for economic reasons. As I formally pointed out, its difficult to revolutionaries to build forces when the government controlls all the employment. However, if there is massive unemployment because the economy is bad, then revolutionaries don't have this problem, because the recruits are out of work either way. A poor economy also solves the revolutionaries' supply problems because while they can't get supplies, the opposing army doesn't have any either. It also solves the morale problems caused by a government controlled media, because the opposing army is suffering from low morale because their families at home are poor. Iraq did have the same government as the USSR, but its economy was capitalistic. Economic sanctions would help destabilize it, but were never going to be enough with an economic system so inherently stable.

Islam didn't earn this reputation. The violent ones (sans people insulting them) are mostly isolated groups of radicals, though I'm not sure I can say that about Palestine any more. Its just the media that's getting annoying to me here. They keep getting into a pattern of making brazingly stupid stories which cause a lot of damage, and then when people want to make them pay for the damage they cause, they hide behind free speech.

Well, we aren't trying to rule out the possibility that life evolved from something that didn't know how to build life. All ID supporters want to do is point out that with DNA having about a billion lines of code that the possibility that life was designed by something intelligent is worth consideration.

Actually, yes, I think the "monarchy" (it would have still called itself democratic for PR) would indeed have lasted about 500 years without foreign intervention. The Baathists had a very stable system going for them. There's really no way to tell if Saddam wanted his brother or his son to take over, but both were given important jobs. I's say his son because most fathers love their sons more than their brothers. In the end its irrelevent really. What's important is that the man who was set up to take over was another Hussein. Now ofcourse technically Iraq was a democracy and technically no one was going to take over, but in reality there would be one name on the ballot and death threats to any who dared run against him. As I said, the Baathist system was very stable. They robbed the Kurds and the Shiites, about % of the population, and gave it to the Sunnis, which were the people with all of the real power. They had the money, the press, the military, the land and everything else a modern society needs, and were carefull to make sure that the other % of the country had none of those things. The only threat to the Husseins would be high-ranking elites who wanted to be number one, but they weren't ever going to get the support necessary because the Sunnis had such a good deal under Hussein that they wouldn't risk changing leadership. The only thing that was going to bring the Baathist party down was weak leadership, and judging by all other dynasties in history that would take about 500 years to develop. Maybe higher technological levels would make it so it didn't last quite that long, but that is a very real rough estimate. Still yet, even then it would be very unlikely that a democracy would replace it. Most likely another family would have come to power and started the same thing over again. Don't forget that though democracies need public approval to survive, dictatorships do not. Dictatorships survive on force. Its clear from the celebrations that people hated Saddam. There will probably be dancing in the streets when Hussein is finally executed. However, as much as they hated him, they were unable to oppose him. The whole political system was designed to prevent capacity for revolution. It wasn't so much that if you didn't support him troops would come to your house and kill you. It was more like all the businesses are owned by Baathists and if you didn't support Hussein you couldn't have a job and your family would starve. Its very hard to raise an army of people willing to sacrifice their livelihoods. If you wanted to fight the Baathist Army and win, you would need weapons, and Hussein controlled all the weapons, all the money you could use to buy weapons, the communications system you would need to contact someone you wished to buy the weapons from, and the roads, rails, seaports, and airports he would need to use to ship those weapons to you. Additionally, the army would need to be trained, and getting some elite forces to train the revolutionaries is equally difficult. Not only that, but you would need ammunition, gas, water, food, and other continuous supplies, requiring you not to get past the system once, but to set up a continuously flowing supply line. And, since this is modern or post-modern warfare, you would need air superiority, which requires you gain and control an airport, aircraft, and pilots. If somehow you did get an army rolling under these conditions, you'd have a hard time getting additional recruits because Hussein controlled the press, and in every story you'd be portrayed as vicious terrorists fighting a losing cause. For those reasons, dictatorships last way longer than democracy, for it takes multiple acts of stupidity and weakness even to give the public the opportunity to change governments. As much as time changes everything, some things just won't change if you just sit on your hands. Sometimes an outside force is necessary to change things. Historically, 3/4ths of all successfull revolutions required foreign aid. The handfull of occurances of revolutions making it on their own are not frequent enough to bet lives on. Remember that just leaving Hussein alone also costed lives in what he did to his own people, and we have found the m!@#$%^&* graves to prove it. Would you be willing to bet lives on Hussein making a mistake when he has proven for 50 years that he knew how to set up and maintain a dictatorship? Hussein was no fool. His grip wasn't going to slip during his lifetime, and probably wan't going to slip in his successor's lifetime either.

Pernille, you are right in that we shouldn't respect Islam any more or less than our own religions. The fact that a lot of cartoons insult Christianity is also wrong in my opinion. My personal solution to the problem is to not watch those cartoons. If they want to insult my religion, they won't get my business. The fact that they make their money putting up cultural barriers that our predecessors gave their lives to take down is unsettling however. To that end, I say maybe the Muslim protesters have a point. Maybe we should be torqued when the figure of our religion of choice is mocked on TV. Comedy is about making people laugh and about bringing people together. This just divides people apart, giving one group an impression that they have the right to mock and laugh at somebody else for their beliefs. As an American, I think this goes against everything the First Amendment stands for. Maybe western societies shouldn't tolerate this as much as we do. We shouldn't limit free speech, but we should organise movements in the private sector to make sure that those who publish religious hate materials be put out of business.

Yeah, the difference between Castro and Hussein is that Castro's only communistic and Hussein is Baathist. Castro only had interest in attacking the US when the Soviet Union was sponsering him. Now he has no reason. He doesn't hate the western world. He just has a different political philosophy. He's not going to do anything dangerous. Most importantly, he hasn't set up a son to take over when he dies. Hussein did hate the west, and did set his son up. Because of that, we can wait Castro out, but we couldn't wait in Iraq, because we'd be waiting from the beginning to the end of an entire dynasty, which would take centuries. Imagine a world 500 years from now, where society and technology have advanced appropriately. Now imagine a Baathist monarchy in that world. It doesn't fit. Monarchies don't belong in our time and place, let alone the future. To have waited Hussein out would have meant putting human development on hold for however long that dynasty would have lasted. The cost of doing that in human lives would be huge due to things like disease and crime.

Cancer, I've met quite a few ppl on the internet who called themselves God, and every single one of them managed to get themselves permanently banned for some reason or another from the zone and/or forum within 3 months of showing up. Wise up, and don't be a statistic. Ari, that link describes the history of the theorey, not the theorey itself. That really provides no arguement either way. Understand that Intelligent Design has terrible press. People are convinced that its creationism. It isn't. It basically points out that life-forms are more similar to artificial constructions than geographic and weather formations...or basically any natural phenomena that isn't life. Would you say the body has more in common with an automobile or would you say its similar to a rock? Would you say the brain is like a computer, or a sandy beach? Would you describe the bone structure more similar to the framework of a skyscraper, or like a mountain? Lifeforms are machines that work on the molecular level. The possibility that something designed this result mayhaps should be considered.

*touches self to create another such portal* *NPC gets sucked into Aileron* *Aileron gets sucked into NPC* *NPC gets sucked into Aileron* *Aileron gets sucked into NPC* *NPC gets sucked into Aileron* *Aileron gets sucked into NPC* *NPC gets sucked into Aileron* *Aileron gets sucked into NPC* *NPC gets sucked into Aileron* *Aileron gets sucked into NPC* *NPC gets sucked into Aileron* *Aileron gets sucked into NPC* *NPC gets sucked into Aileron* *Aileron gets sucked into NPC* ....... Infinite loop occurs and the whole space-time fabric of the universe collapses.

Paine, that musical sig is annoying. Some of us connect to SSforum in libraries you know. Ducky, apparently millions of Muslims care. You're a zone sysop. Unless T3G is remarkably different than every other zone, you know what it's like to be flamed. Sure, most of the time you just dismiss the guy as an idiot and get on with your life. But, theres a limit where enough is enough. I'm pretty sure that if someone flames you all day, there is a point at which you will silence or ban him for stupidity. Usually when these people show up, they quickly get banned then whine about it on the zone forums looking for support, but people support you instead. Why? Because while technically you could have ignored him, he could have been smarter and shutup. It would have been easier for him to keep his idiot opinion to himself than it would have been for you to tolerate him all day. Everyone has a limit to what they are willing to take. Having such a limit is a sign of mortality, not weakness. To think that oneself will never respond with anger over any and all insults is akin to the delusion of those who think they will live forever. To expect somebody to have no limit in terms of tolerating insults is to demand the impossible. People have limits. Some are higher than others, but one should expect the mockery of a religious figure to be over the limit most people have. While having a limit is not a weakness, it IS a weakness to OVERREACT to an insult. Those who are reacting with violence over this cartoon are wrong and we all agree that they are wrong. What we are debating here is the newspaper company's decision to print something that insulted them in the first place. Free speech or not, a person still is accountable for what he or she says. If published in the US, this cartoon would have violated two little exceptions in the First Amendment. First off it doesn't cover libel, and since Mohammed wasn't a violent radical nor most muslims violent radicals, the First Amendment would not protect it. Secondly, you aren't allowed to deliberately use speech to cause harm to people. For example, yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre, which causes a panic which causes a few people to be stampeded. If you did that, you would be legally accountable for reckless endangerment. For these reasons, this cartoon is NOT free speech. It goes over the bounds in which free speech protects, atleast over the bounds defined in the US. Besides, protesters have as much a right to free speech as the newspaper company. While the violence is unjustified, those who are reacting peacefully to this by holding up signs, demonstrating outside the headquarters, and writing angry but non-threatning letters have every right to do so. To that end maybe some good will come out of this. Maybe the violence will go nowhere but the peacefull protests will bring success, and the Muslim community as a whole will learn that peacefull dialog is more effective than violence.