A Forum for Grinches and Ho-Ho-Hoes

[dtb]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
do you have a link to a newspaper story about them?

Alas, no. They survived, you see.

[spookyfish]

Originally posted by dtb
I heard this too (the part about your being safer if you're in the water). Someone I know was in Thailand on vacation, and was on a boat. She and her husband survived by hanging onto the boat and riding it out.

Holy crap.

Come now, don't leave out the important details. Are they American?

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by bilmore
He should have signed the letters. Big deal. Why is this primarily important to people who are always looking for a slam on Rumsfeld, and (seemingly, from what I've seen) unimportant to the supposed victims?

OK. We agree. I never said it was a huge deal, if you look at my posts, I just said it showed a real "tin ear." I take it you agree.

Originally posted by bilmore
Incredibly sharp and focused, with aims and goals that match up well with mine, a no-nonsense way of dealing with things, and an unwillingness to allow form to triumph over substance. How many people would have even tried to give an honest answer to the soldier's question about armor? I can think of several in his position in the past who would have stammered a quick "we'll look into it" non-answer.

I'd agree with much of your first sentence. However, the down-side is that when a guy like that is wrong, he can be _really_, _really_ wrong, and unable to see the other side. I think he'd have made a better President than SecDef. Perhaps better at "the vision thing" than at the implementation (or prone, perhaps, to trust the wrong people).

I'm actually finally reading through "Bush at War" now (its been a busy year), and Rumsfeld comes across very well so far. Very smart and thoughtful guy.

His excellent discussion of his effort to revisit all U.S. war plans and reevaluate and update them all, beginning with the underlying assumptions, makes me wonder how his shop could have so badly fucked up the post-war planning and implementation in Iraq. Its hard to keep your place on the Honor Roll when you get a D on the exam.

S_A_M

[sgtclub]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4130599.stm

[Sri Lanka rejects Israel's help]

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by bilmore
Incredibly sharp and focused, with aims and goals that match up well with mine, a no-nonsense way of dealing with things, and an unwillingness to allow form to triumph over substance. How many people would have even tried to give an honest answer to the soldier's question about armor? I can think of several in his position in the past who would have stammered a quick "we'll look into it" non-answer.

Did you consider the part where Rummy claimed that the shortage of armored vehicles was due to "the laws of physics," because factories were building them as fast as they could, to be honest?

Even though it was proven false the very next day?

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
I'm actually finally reading through "Bush at War" now (its been a busy year), and Rumsfeld comes across very well so far. Very smart and thoughtful guy.

S_A_M

God, what a puff piece. Woodward should be embarrassed (if he's still capable).

[spookyfish]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Did you consider the part where Rummy claimed that the shortage of armored vehicles was due to "the laws of physics"?

What? They're being sucked into black holes?

[andViolins]

Originally posted by sgtclub
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4130599.stm

[Sri Lanka rejects Israel's help]

I was thinking more along the lines of sad and pathetic as opposed to unbelievable.

[The Larry Davis Experience]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
2. And say the sunnis boycott, they will learn that next election they should show up.

This of course all hinges on your assumption that the people who are disenfranchised, be it out of fear of violent reprisal or stupidity in listening to the mullahs crying boycott, will channel their feeling of second class citizenship into a renewed effort at the ballot box. The fact that they will be stuck with fewer seats to vote for because of the initial governmental structure being created makes this ballot box effort even less likely in my book, which is why I wish a different decision had been made.

How is anyone who lives/lived in Fallujah being registered at this point? Or Samarra? It may be the fault of the few wackos, but it's a whole group of people who may be getting left out of the future of Iraq. I don't see why this is any less unfortunate than the way the Sunnis kept the Shiites down (and yes I am speaking metaphorically and don't expect the rape rooms to reopen). To me it's a big deal, and unsurprisingly, I think Ty is right to question it. If he questioned it after the fact you'd just say he's a second guesser.

This nation building stuff is hard. I think we've proven this many times over just in the reversals we've made during our Iraq exploits. But as you say, I can give it some time. It will be an interesting year for the Iraq project.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by spookyfish
What? They're being sucked into black holes?

Given that, at the time the question was asked, I think about 800 of the group's 833 HV's had already been uparmored, he was probably referring to the anthropic principle.*

(If the laws of the Universe were not conducive to the development of intelligent creatures to ask about the initial conditions of the Universe, intelligent life would never have evolved to ask the question in the first place. If the vehicles lacked armor to the extent people made it sound, the soldier would have already been dead, along with lots of other soldiers in that group, and could never have asked the question.)

((Yes, I'm reaching in the analogy, but I've wanted to refer to the anthropic principle for weeks, and I can just barely shoehorn this in here.))

[bilmore]

Originally posted by The Larry Davis Experience
This of course all hinges on your assumption that the people who are disenfranchised, be it out of fear of violent reprisal or stupidity in listening to the mullahs crying boycott, will channel their feeling of second class citizenship into a renewed effort at the ballot box.

Does this mean Dean will try again?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4130599.stm

[Sri Lanka rejects Israel's help]

Before you get all hot and bothered, wait for an article that makes clear what's going on. From this, it's hard to tell:

Israel has cancelled plans to send a 150-person rescue mission to Sri Lanka after the devastated island objected to the military composition of the team.
The delegation - including 60 soldiers - had been due to set off on Tuesday to help after Sunday's tsunami disaster.

Instead, a smaller team will escort a convoy carrying emergency supplies, Israeli officials said.

Sri Lanka restored diplomatic ties with Israel in 2000, despite objections from the island's Muslim minority.

Neither side has officially explained the change of plan, although some reports say the objection came from Sri Lanka's military.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by bilmore
That's a cruel denigration of the word "vote".

That was kind of my point. Just because you hold an election and people get a chance to cast a ballot, that doesn't mean you have a democracy. Voting is not an end in itself.

Maybe I'm too optimistic, but I see the Iraqi society as being not that different than ours. There are two (or maybe three, depending on how you count) religions there. Each religion has some small share of radical nutjobs, who will freely give others' lives for their gawd. But, the mass of people are in the middle, basically believing, but certainly not about to crash planes into buildings or pull tripwires on vests just because of some raisins. (sp?). They yearn for some explanations of the unknowables, and they want a structure that tells them that, by sticking to a defined morality, they're not going to handicap themselves, because others will stick to it, too, but that's really all they're looking to their religion for, not unlike most people here.

They've had - what? - generations of strife. They've had a taste of prosperity, and also a taste of hell, through the auspices of SH. Mussolini made the trains run on time, with some obvious drawbacks. So, too, did SH. So, they know what a functioning infrasrtucture can bring them, quality-of-life-wise, and they want to take part in a society that offers them that, along with some control and freedom. They want to feed their families, send their kids to school, and be a part of the world. They want a Coke.

So, I think that the bulk of the society - Kurd, Shia, and Sunni - will find it more important to work to form a workable group that can build a healthy society, and be prosperous, and join the rest of us, than to fight for their tribal or sectarian advantage.

The bulk may be trying right now, but it doesn't seem to be going very well. When the police are targets, that's bad.

Obviously, if the Shia majority elects a government that governs to the clear advantage of Shia society, this won't work. But, I'm thinking that what will prevail will be a religion-neutral group, one that governs for Iraqis, and not some segment of Iraqis. If that happens - even if the Sunni's lose, but then see that the government treats them fairly, shia or sunni or whatever - then and only then can they form an honest-to-gosh cohesive civil society.

You're not paying attention to who's actually running and what they're saying, are you? Or does this religion-neutral group have a name?

Meanwhile, the question I've been talking about is not really about who's going to win. The question is about whether Sunnis are going to be represented much at all.

I think the chances of this happening are better than even. I also think this would be the greatest leap forward the entire middle east could possibly take at this point - leading to pressure all over the region for a similar result, starting with Iran, and maybe Syria.

If you understand my optimism for this, and if you understand that I think that right now - today - is the optimal time for this attempt - then you will understand why I think it so vital for the entire world that we make the attempt that we're making now, painful or not, and why I think that a Kerry win would have been so bad for the entire world.

I think I understand your optimism, but in a clinical way I'm not sure you'd appreciate. It would indeed be wonderful if what you describe were to happen. I've never argued with the wondrousness of the vision. This is kind of like arguing about Jaguars or Land Rovers. They're good-looking cars. Me, I wouldn't buy one unless I had the money for the repairs, and for a nice second car to drive while the first one's in the shop. You're not going to change my mind by telling me how nice the Jaguar or Land Rover is when it runs.

Which is not even to get to your crap about Kerry, since conservatives here were so busy saying that his plan was the same as Bush's. I think there is no particular virtue with sticking with a failing policy instead of trying something new, but whatever.

Might even help you understand why I like Rummy.

No, this I really don't understand. Because the people who really believe in this vision of democratizing the Middle East should be ripped at Rumsfeld and Bush right now for screwing it up by trying to do it on the cheap. I can respect the neo-cons who had this vision. I disagreed, but I can respect the views. But this last comment tells me that for you, it's about shilling for Bush et al., not about a vision of democracy in the Middle East.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
You're not paying attention to who's actually running and what they're saying, are you? Or does this religion-neutral group have a name?

2. As an aside, an NPR radio story this morning talked about the major Shia party in the election. When asked about reporters about the party's stance on the "issues," they had no articulable position on any issue at all, save getting the Americans out of country as soon as fucking possible.

Agree with the thrust of your point that this election seems to be almost entirely about ethnic and religious blocks. Bilmore's vision of these folks putting those divisions aside to make it all work is indeed nifty, and I wish it to be so, but from the reports that we've seen coming out of there, and the fact that this election seems to revolve almost entirely around the ethnic and religious divisions that Bilmore thinks we'll get past on Feb 1, I can't see it.

No, this I really don't understand. Because the people who really believe in this vision of democratizing the Middle East should be ripped at Rumsfeld and Bush right now for screwing it up by trying to do it on the cheap.

2. See, e.g., Bill Kristol.

[The Larry Davis Experience]

Originally posted by bilmore
Given that, at the time the question was asked, I think about 800 of the group's 833 HV's had already been uparmored, he was probably referring to the anthropic principle.*

(If the laws of the Universe were not conducive to the development of intelligent creatures to ask about the initial conditions of the Universe, intelligent life would never have evolved to ask the question in the first place. If the vehicles lacked armor to the extent people made it sound, the soldier would have already been dead, along with lots of other soldiers in that group, and could never have asked the question.)

((Yes, I'm reaching in the analogy, but I've wanted to refer to the anthropic principle for weeks, and I can just barely shoehorn this in here.))

You should have kept waiting.