Hard News: Unhappy Birthday
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How there are moral imperatives in Iraq, but not in some other places around the world - Sudan for example - I just don't get.
I take it you're comparing a rather hasty intervention in Iraq vs the lack of intervention in Sudan?
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Lucy I disagree.
Hayward is a talented writer and held court there at the time, although with a clear agenda and questionable ethics in claiming Jewish Heritage, something he no-longer does. Notably prior to this he started a Zionist group then had a hissy fit and a 180degree change in his view of the world. Eatons very average thesis thanked him for all his support etc. And yes I've read both although not without being stopped at my 1st attempt by the Library staff and one endorsement had been removed from it.
Orange at best stayed on beyond his best days lets say.
Canty has its own real Nazi whos name escapes me. He lied about his past as a Nazi & lived happily at Canty Fine Arts painting his days away.There was a rise of Holocaust Deniers world wide in academia at the time - Butz. Irvine was not so roundly refuted back than and still sits on the Canty Library shelves today.
And Lucy you might want to look at the logic of a non-holocaust thesis coming to a conclusion about the holocaust.
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I've always thought it would be better to get a local jewellery designer to create a ring for you than to just buy some generic bling.
Agreed. I did a basic design and took it to the local jeweler in Kingsland. That way the engagement and wedding rings could be designed to interlock in a nice funky way. And no diamonds for my honey, it was a moonstone and a small tanzanite.
I had planned to make my wedding ring out of palladium, which was half the price of platinum. When I commission the ring, someone had found an industrial use for it and the price had gone up 300%. Ouch !
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Re: gangs in the military - Michael Herr's 'Dispatches' (Vietnam era) has a passage that describes how a group of Detroit Black Panthers (arguably not a gang per se) were smuggling home an 81mm mortar piece by piece, so that they could 'take out a police station'.
If anyone has slightly more than a passing interest in gangs in the military, I recommend the George Gittoes documentary 'Rampage'. Not the best film ever, but worth a look. He follows a Miami boy from a bad neighbourhood (real bad....) who signs up and goes to Iraq. The film gives a snapshot of what happens to him and his family and friends back at home both while he is over there and when he returns.
James - you need to get it into your head that the reason people are really, really, REALLY pissed off has NOTHING AT ALL to do with Saddam.
Let me run a hypothetical scenario past you (bear with me for a couple of minutes). I am at home, minding my business. You call around and insist we go out for a walk in the local woods, leaving immediately. Now, these woods aren't some overgrown local park. They are dense, trackless wilderness that is full of hidden dangers - ravines, fast-flowing rivers, thick bush etc etc. They need to be approached with caution. People can get lost and die in there if they aren't careful. Everyone locally knows this.
You are dressed in jeans, T-shirt and sandals. I ask you where your walking shoes are. I ask you where your map and compass are. I ask you where your foul-weather gear is. I ask you where your radio is. I ask you if you have any survival rations. I ask you why we have to leave right this minute. I ask you why we are going for a walk in the first place.
You dismiss my questions with a laugh. I persist. You continue to dismiss my questions out of hand. I persist. You get a bit angry, continue to dismiss my answers, and imply I'm crazy. I persist. You become very angry, and tell me that if I am not with you, I am against you, and that I should trust you - you know what you're doing.
For some reason (maybe I have some sort of weird brainfart), I eventually go along with you.
Five hours later we are in the middle of the woods. It is raining, the temperature is dropping, and night is falling.
It is at precisely this moment that you turn to me with a big ol' shit-eating grin on your dial, and say: 'well, looks like we're lost. But don't worry - it doesn't matter how we came to be in this situation. The important thing now is that we get out alive, right?'
Personally, I would have the greatest difficulty not becoming murderously enraged at that point.
Now, getting to the point: around 2001/2002/2003, when all of this military build-up was occurring, you may recall that large numbers of people were asking certain questions. For starters: Where is the equipment for the troops? What happens once Saddam is gone? Who is going to be in charge of Iraq? How is Iraq going to be governed? How are we going to rebuild the infrastructure? How are we going to deal with the tribal divisions? How long are we going to be there? Saddam has been bottled up for 10 years - why the hurry? Why now? And so on. And on. And on.
Most of these questions were dismissed out of hand, and the people that asked them were marginalised. If they persisted, the implication was put about that they were not a team player. Possibly (whisper it) a bit inclined towards treason and treachery.
And now here we are, five years later. And at precisely this moment, you are turning to me with a big ol' shit-eating grin on your dial, and saying 'hey, it doesn't matter how we got here. The important thing is that we all muck in together to clean up this mess, right?'
Now, do you see that there is a small chance that I just might possibly be the teensy, tiniest, weeny bit grumpy? Possibly not all that inclined to get with the programme? That I might be reaching for a dictionary and looking up words like 'responsibility', 'negligence' and 'impeachment'?
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I take it you're comparing a rather hasty intervention in Iraq vs the lack of intervention in Sudan?
I'm not comparing the situations as similar.
But I think if you took polling data from the Sudan, there'd be sections of the population that would be 100% in favour of anyone coming in to stop them being... well killed.
Yet people argue over polling data as justification for being in, or not in, Iraq.
If public opinion of people was the determining factor in international interventions, Iraq wouldn't be top of the list then or now.
I really just don't understand why it's ok to use these figures for Iraq.
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There was a rise of Holocaust Deniers world wide in academia at the time - Butz. Irvine was not so roundly refuted back than and still sits on the Canty Library shelves today.
So does Mein Kampf. The existence of objectionable and/or incorrect material in a university library does not immediately indicate the university's support for that material. And employing someone who lied about his past doesn't make the uni responsible for or automatically aware of that past.
It's been my (and others') experience as a student at Canterbury that the History department neither supports nor teaches Holocaust denial. It's possible that my lecturers and fellow students are lying through their teeth, but somehow I find them a slightly more reliable source than you.
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Lucy I'm not saying Canty History are Holocaust Deniers. I am saying there were a group at that time who were influenced to this end and that they are a subgroup of the Uni. Here I differ from the findings on Haywards thesis but base it on the same evidence.
At that same time Antisemetic jokes at Uni diners were widely reported after a visiting academic got the hump with them over it.
But I'll finish now unless you want to address the logic of your 1st statement. That the thesis wasn't about the holocaust but then drew conclusions about the holocaust.
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But I'll finish now unless you want to address the logic of your 1st statement. That the thesis wasn't about the holocaust but then drew conclusions about the holocaust.
As to that, I can only repeat the story I heard - which was, essentially, that it was included because the author got overexcited about what he thought he'd worked out and decided to include it. The material was unfortunate, but the inclusion of something basically unrelated to the main topic of one's paper because one is overly impressed with one's own cleverness - that's pretty normal. God knows I've done it in an essay or two.
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Not wanting to cross swords Lucy but have a read of the thesis and the findings. It is a lot wider than that.
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I really don't get how either side uses polling data in relation to Iraq.
I'm kinda with you and immediately regretted my inclusion of that polling reference in my post...for every poll I can provide you can counter it with another..Al Jaz ran a poll last night here which ran almost exactly counter to the ABC poll, and in an series of almost ethnically exclusive armed zones such as Baghdad I'm doubtful if any polling has much relevance.
moral imperatives in Iraq, but not in some other places around the world
and I scratch my head at poor Burma / Myanmar.
In Singapore last week and noted the official "invest in Myanmar" brochures.
Still Singapore has quite a history.
And for the rest of the world the response to what is going on there all seems so bloody half hearted. A UN envoy shaking a few hands and smiling for photo ops whilst mumbling tsk-tsk.
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for every poll I can provide you can counter it with another.
Yes. And ignoring "for every poll that's done, there's umpteen places that aren't polled that might like a little more attention on either the occupation of their nation, or the lack of occupation of their nation."
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rich lock - take your set of circumstances and add some scared and hungry children in the forest together with a psycho child killer on the loose.
do you still want to stay in your warm safe house and do jack shit?
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So sagenz, what you're saying is this: in the set of circumstances I have outlined, plus your addition, I should do the following:
Immediately run out of my house, even though I have neither equipment or a plan and I'm not actally trained in either police enforcement or search and rescue, and run into the woods like a headless chicken hoping that it all turns out all right?
Would that be an accurate assesment?
Please don't try the 'won't-somebody-think-of-the-children' response. It doesn't. Fucking.Wash.
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Ralston's little tanty was cute, in a twitchy-eyed sort of way. It was all about how RB is an 'ignorant blogger ... who believes strange things'.
I think his point was amateur posing as expert on everything.
its fine to have an opinion on everything but it gets dangerous when you put yourself up as an authority on stuff you are merely an amatuer enthusiast at. maybe believing your own hype.moody bugger that ralston is he does have a solid background in journalism and deserves due credit for it, and respect for his comments on the nature of said field.
is it a bad thing that the population starts to take blogs as the voice of authority? maybe they should have a users warning,
"some of this content maybe complete shit and most of it is opinion".
Not that the established media have a perfect record for accuracy but its worth giving some of them credit for attempting it.
if anyone's watched the 5th season of the wire its an interesting look into the place of a modern newspaper in the changed world of the internet.
The main newspaper guy Gus Haynes is what I would hope much of print media aspires to be. a decent bloke that values getting the story right, and unfortunately is undermined by forces that want the dramatic angle even if its not entirely factual, or fictitious as is the case for the pulitzer hungry new guy. Thought provoking watching as always.
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Lucy, I've read the thesis.
Whatever the thesis purports to be about, the conclusion is at least holocaust revisionism. The writer does not deny the holocaust, but he does question some holocaust facts, and writes the conclusion in such a way that it [the conclusion] is plausibly read as revisionism through to denialism.
However it's drawing a long bow to conclude from one thesis that holocaust deniers abounded at Canterbury.
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I think his point was amateur posing as expert on everything.
its fine to have an opinion on everything but it gets dangerous when you put yourself up as an authority on stuff you are merely an amatuer enthusiast at. maybe believing your own hype.Rob, get over it.
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Deborah it's not just one thesis.
This is the difference I have with the findings.
Point being there was a wave of Holocaust Denialism through academia at that time and it washed over these shores too.
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I think his point was amateur posing as expert on everything
Which probably has some truth in it, but as usual not all. This is the beauty of forums like this. Russell or someone else places some material, fact and opinion both, online and many others tease it out as far as they want to take it. This seems to be a genuinely new model of public discourse.
A fine example for me was the PAS postings on the 'terror' raids. Many posters had some little piece of the puzzle, which they contributed. I know personally I went from thinking this has to be a load of bollocks to thinking perhaps the Police probably had no other choice.
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Rob, get over it.
eloquent comeback, but then I'm not the one getting called out by a quite sizable media expert :)
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is that you get to challenge the journalists quality of research.
Well go on then... challenge away.
oh I do, but the best response I get is
Rob, get over it.
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Would that be an accurate assessment?
Rich: Totally. Your analogy could even be extended further: with his behaviour so unsuited to the local culture and conditions, that guy you're with is easily perceived as being like a psycho himself -- enough so that the children aren't willing to approach you, and instead seek protection from... the actual psycho child killers, whom they at least know and are familiar with.
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Rich,
I understand your point about Iraq, made with your example of the unprepared hike, but you are not accurate in your suggestion that no preparations and plans were made for post invasion Iraq. In fact the planning for deposing Saddam and a post Saddam Iraq goes right back to the Iraq Liberation act of 1998, signed into law by President Clinton in 1998, 5 years before Bush pulled the trigger.The concept was to knock out Saddam fast (as happened) and put the Iraqis and the Iraqi Army in charge of their country quickly (which did not happen). And therein lays the key mistake, as far as I can deduce, from the books and material I have read on the subject. Bush allowed a dysfunctional national security apparatus to fester and did not intervene to pull things back onto the previously agreed track (put the Iraqis in charge quickly) and to decide key issues as the White House and the Pentagon fought with the State Dept and the CIA. So critical mistakes like not recalling the Army were made. I mean to say, how hard could that be? All you have to do is to announce that Army personnel have just been awarded a 400% pay raise, to be paid to them when they come back to barracks, and bingo, most would come back. Instead people trained in weapons and bombs etc found themselves with no job and no money coming in and access to a bunch of weapons & bombs. And Paul Bremner acted like a proconsul and pissed off everyone. Tragic, absolutely tragic.
So yes, Bush deserves every bit of abuse he gets on that point. But for all of the US mistakes, why is it that all the deaths of Iraqis are all laid at the door of the US when it is insurgents and terrorists who have deliberately, purposely, targeted and killed Iraqi civilians, who have killed many times more Iraqis than those lost to American fire, when the US Armed Forces go a long way out of their way to avoid civilian casualties? The US made mistakes after they got rid of a shithead but where is the outrage at Al Qaeda and the various insurgent groups who have killed so many Iraqis? I haven’t read much abuse of them, compared with abuse directed at Bush et al. I have read a lot of excuse making and moral equivalence regard terrorists and insurgents, a whole lot of that, and it is absolutely sickening.
Polls. What is wrong with using polls, if as best you can tell are legitimate? How else are you supposed to determine opinion on any subject? I think the real issue here is that those who don’t like the poll I linked to on opinion in Iraq don’t like the results of the poll and message conveyed, it doesn't fit their views, so lets just criticize polls instead.
If he hadn’t been taken out, Saddam and his sons and grandson would have continued to imprison and kill and brutalize Iraqis for decades to come. Saddam stated very clearly (see the Delfurs (sp?) report) that his game was to keep as much of his equipment, people, knowledge etc. as possible, get rid of the UN sanctions and restart his various weapons programs. So the most likely scenario if Saddam had been left in place is that we would have nutcases in both Iraq and Iran racing to build the baddest weapons they could, while sitting on top of, or close to a large portion of the world’s oil. Saddam would most likely have continued to support homicide bombers in Israel and his relations with most terrorist groups in the Middle East. Sometimes there are no good options and the decision is to figure out what is the least worst option. Leaving Saddam in place had a big downside, and no one even considers that today.
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You lose your job and somehow that justifies armed insurgency & terrorism against your own people???
Actually Rich your suggested response highlights the exact Clinton reaction to Rwanda, sit at home, wringing your hands and saying "Oh the poor children" when he could have done something about it.
Going out and trying to do something is the only reasonable option.
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Polls. What is wrong with using polls, if as best you can tell are legitimate? How else are you supposed to determine opinion on any subject? I think the real issue here is that those who don’t like the poll I linked to on opinion in Iraq don’t like the results of the poll and message conveyed, it doesn't fit their views, so lets just criticize polls instead.
for a start because several polls came out within days of each other last week all of which contradicted each other. Polling accurately in a warzone is largely impossible, especailly the sort of polls that media organisations do.
The US made mistakes after they got rid of a shithead but where is the outrage at Al Qaeda and the various insurgent groups who have killed so many Iraqis?
A shithead that was happily kept in power and supported by the US on a governmental level (and other Western powers on a corporate level). And not only opened the door for but helped arm these insurgent groups, and continues to arm them now, although they are now your guys..same guys though. As you say..where is the outrage?
You created this game James..you can't say "look at all the bad guys killing people in Iraq"...you handed the bad guys the weaponry, place, and opportunity. 'Sir, I didn't shoot him...I just gave him the gun and unlocked the door' is no defence no matter how often you repeat it.
when the US Armed Forces go a long way out of their way to avoid civilian casualties?
but you are not accurate in your suggestion that no preparations and plans were made for post invasion Iraq
Once again, have a stroll through Rick's Fiasco and come back to me on that one.
And yes I know its disputed, but still not in a meaningful, way yet as far as I know (and since you like polls a you can't really argue too much), but the Lancet attributed quite a percentage to deaths directly to US military action.
If he hadn’t been taken out, Saddam and his sons and grandson would have continued to imprison and kill and brutalize Iraqis for decades to come.
So now you are rolling back around to your much touted "our hell is better than their hell" theme. It doesn't do you credit James.
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The Guardian has a thorough and fascinating story on the various civilian death estimates.
There's a particulary interesting point about the Lancet studies:
Sitting in his office in Camden in north London, where every surface is covered with wobbly piles of files, the Lancet's editor, Richard Horton, admits that the figure "seems crazy". "But the second study validated the first one. The pre-invasion mortality rate is the same in both, and the upward lines of the post-invasion rate are exactly the same", he says.
He is particularly pleased by information unearthed last year by a Freedom of Information request by the BBC's Owen Bennett-Jones. This found that the chief scientific adviser to the Ministry of Defence described the methods used by the second survey as "close to best practice" and added that the "study design is robust". The adviser warned the government to be "cautious" about criticising the survey findings .
It covers the criitcisms of the second study, and concludes thus:
Alas for Bush and Blair, most statisticians do not support their case. Nor can any journalist or other independent witness who has seen the pain of the bereaved still living in post-invasion Iraq or the millions who have escaped to Jordan and Syria. Estimates of the Iraqi deaths caused by Saddam's regime amount to a maximum of one million over a 35-year period (100,000 Kurds in the Anfal campaign in the 1980s; 400,000 in the war against Iran; 100,000 Shias in the suppressed uprising of 1991; and an unknown number executed in his prisons and torture chambers). Averaged over his time in power, the annual rate does not exceed 29,000.
Only the conservatively calculated Iraq Body Count death toll credits the occupation with an average annual rate that is less than that - some 18,000 deaths in the five years so far. Every other source, from the WHO to the surveys of Iraqi households, puts the average well above the Saddam-era figure. Those who claim Saddam's toppling made life safer for Iraqis have a lot of explaining to do.
It's a great piece of analytical wring.
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