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Post by Cranky on May 24, 2005 18:10:52 GMT -5
Oh my, how the mighty have fallen. One may disagree with US policy, one may call Bush a moron but in the end of the day, a once mighty butcher who had compared himself to Nebuchadnezzar and becoming the NEXT Middle East Emperor.......is reduced..........to his underwear.  By the way, if anyone thinks that these photos were taken "accidentally" or for someone looking to make a quick buck, think again. This is intended to intimidate and demoralize. If you don't agree, just think of the timing. As the new Iraqi government is facing vicious opposition, these photos "leak" out. Sure.......and my name is Mr. Happy.  |
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Post by arctic on May 24, 2005 21:22:05 GMT -5
I don't think the United States had much foresight in releasing these photographs. It does them more harm than good.Saddam Hussein was a horrible dictator. No doubt about that. Many Iraqis have good reason to hate him. No doubt about that either. Still, he is an Iraqi and a Muslim and many people in the Arab world resent the Americans for humiliating him. It doesn't win hearts and minds.
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Post by mic on May 25, 2005 3:51:29 GMT -5
If this was effectively planed by the US foreign office, then it is in a quite weaker position that I thought.
The basis for non-occidental (and sometimes occidental) hate towards America can only be increased by such moves. How can a pro-american government say : "see, that's what you'll become if you don't obey" ? It places them in a very difficult position and discredit them in the eyes of their people. "If Americans do that, we can do it too". Stabilizing a country is definitly not easy, and you won't do it with humiliating somebody. It requieres something like a contrat social, a social contract if you want to use Rousseau's words. "Intimidate and demoralize" ? In my opinion, definitly not. It gives protesters even more credit and support. You think they will happily see their ex-tyran be humiliated ? Perhaps not even that will happen. How do you say it ? Bygones are bygones ? A few will be happy. But then ? What does that bring ? Nothing but more instability. If the US army and State Department has no other solutions than that, it means that their position is not very strong.
Not a wise move in my opinion. Doesn't help Washington relations either with Europe or the Arab world. Neither does it help Irak's government.
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Post by Habs_fan_in_LA on May 25, 2005 11:28:48 GMT -5
Oh my, how the mighty have fallen. One may disagree with US policy, one may call Bush a moron but in the end of the day, a once mighty butcher who had compared himself to Nebuchadnezzar and becoming the NEXT Middle East Emperor.......is reduced..........to his underwear. By the way, if anyone thinks that these photos were taken "accidentally" or for someone looking to make a quick buck, think again. This is intended to intimidate and demoralize. If you don't agree, just think of the timing. As the new Iraqi government is facing vicious opposition, these photos "leak" out. Sure.......and my name is Mr. Happy. I feel very bad for Mr. Hussein, and I'm sure the people he tortured feel bad too.  |
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Post by arctic on May 25, 2005 11:55:52 GMT -5
[/quote] I feel very bad for Mr. Hussein, and I'm sure the people he tortured feel bad too. [/quote] That may be, and you may be gleeful too, but you should think about the big picture. It reinforces the bad reputation Uncle Sam has in much of the world. This childish prank demonstrates that the Abu Ghraib pictures were not the product of a few bad apples but an institutional character defect. |
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Post by HardCap on May 25, 2005 12:04:33 GMT -5
I feel very bad for Mr. Hussein, and I'm sure the people he tortured feel bad too. [/quote] That may be, and you may be gleeful too, but you should think about the big picture. It reinforces the bad reputation Uncle Sam has in much of the world. This childish prank demonstrates that the Abu Ghraib pictures were not the product of a few bad apples but an institutional character defect. [/quote] The pics were released by a British tabloid, not the US military...some greedy G.I. sold them - so it was not Uncle Sam who wanted them out...as for that part of the world hating the US - no need to fuel the fire - the fire has been raging for decades in that part of the world. Hence the beheadings of innocent civilians, journalists like Daniel Pearl, etc. Give them an excuse, any excuse and they`ll gladly run with it and use disproportianate anger and violence. No surprises there. |
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Post by PTH on May 25, 2005 17:46:37 GMT -5
The pics were released by a British tabloid, not the US military...some greedy G.I. sold them - so it was not Uncle Sam who wanted them out... What's to say that the US military didn't think that people would see it that way, and therefore made sure it was published outside the US ? Yeah, that part of the world (Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, whatever - it's all the same really.) has really got it in for the US. The US has done nothing but try to promote democracy, love, cute flowers and a better life for everyone. The US just: -put the bloody murderer Hussein in power and kept him there, encouraged his regime to invade Iran (killing 1.5 million Iranians), and supported his regime when it should have lost that war. And gave them WMD. -fomented a revolution in Iran to bring back the Shah and supported his iffy regime for 25 years -made Afghanistan into a battlefield by pumping them full of weapons to make them fight the Soviets, and later invading once again, then bailing once the threat was gone. But really, they just want peace in the world. |
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Post by arctic on May 25, 2005 19:54:04 GMT -5
The United States routed the Taliban in Afghanistan and made the world safe again for a bumper crop of opium poppies.
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Post by Habs_fan_in_LA on May 26, 2005 3:43:52 GMT -5
The United States routed the Taliban in Afghanistan and made the world safe again for a bumper crop of opium poppies. Mother Theresa did wonderful work with the poor people of Calcutta, but some people will still complain that she wasn't sensitive enough like Lady Di. In "The Life of Brian" the leper complains that since he was cured and it's harder to beg for a living. I'm tired of worrying about the people we help being ungrateful and hurting their feelings. If that's American arrogance, so be it. We went over there and eliminated the tyrant. If we had to wait for Germany and France to do it we would still be feeding their UN ambassadors caviar as they draft the umpteenth resolution. |
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Post by mic on May 26, 2005 6:00:05 GMT -5
I'm tired of worrying about the people we help being ungrateful and hurting their feelings. If that's American arrogance, so be it. I think you missed what international politics is all about. Things like "helping", "being grateful", "feelings" don't exist. At least since the XIXth century with a few exeptions. The White House doesn't think about who they could "help". Neither does Pekin, Moskow, Paris, London or Berlin. Those who do think in those terms work for the EU, the UN, WTO and a few other organisations. It's all about power politics : who can gain the most power and the most ressources. You speak about "American arrogance", but failed to define it properly. What's called American arrogance is the fact that America has progressively got the habit of coupling power politics with what some call "imperialistic" politics which got very strong under George W. Bush's presidency. And that's what does disturb a lot of people. Thinking in terms of "good", "bad", etc. is a journalist's thing. But no something that should be used as foreign policy. Colin Powell didn't do it. And I hope Condoleeza Rice won't do it either. |
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Post by HardCap on May 26, 2005 9:56:33 GMT -5
The pics were released by a British tabloid, not the US military...some greedy G.I. sold them - so it was not Uncle Sam who wanted them out... What's to say that the US military didn't think that people would see it that way, and therefore made sure it was published outside the US ? Yeah, that part of the world (Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, whatever - it's all the same really.) has really got it in for the US. The US has done nothing but try to promote democracy, love, cute flowers and a better life for everyone. The US just: -put the bloody murderer Hussein in power and kept him there, encouraged his regime to invade Iran (killing 1.5 million Iranians), and supported his regime when it should have lost that war. And gave them WMD. -fomented a revolution in Iran to bring back the Shah and supported his iffy regime for 25 years -made Afghanistan into a battlefield by pumping them full of weapons to make them fight the Soviets, and later invading once again, then bailing once the threat was gone. But really, they just want peace in the world. I love conspiracy theorists like you - you fail to use reason and are blinded by hatred. You sit there, nice and comfy with no threat and all the freedoms...aks the women of Afghanistan if they would ratter be going to school or if they prefer being shot in the head by the Taliban on a football field for leaving the house without permission? |
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Post by arctic on May 26, 2005 10:05:49 GMT -5
[The pics were released by a British tabloid, not the US military...some greedy G.I. sold them - so it was not Uncle Sam who wanted them out...[/quote]
You know this for a fact?
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Post by HardCap on May 26, 2005 10:07:58 GMT -5
[The pics were released by a British tabloid, not the US military...some greedy G.I. sold them - so it was not Uncle Sam who wanted them out... You know this for a fact?[/quote] More plausible explanation than saying the US military and government put them out to humiliate...let's get Gomery on the case and investigate  |
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Post by arctic on May 26, 2005 10:20:07 GMT -5
[The pics were released by a British tabloid, not the US military...some greedy G.I. sold them - so it was not Uncle Sam who wanted them out... You know this for a fact? More plausible explanation than saying the US military and government put them out to humiliate...let's get Gomery on the case and investigate [/quote] It may be plausible but it's not yet known to be factual. But considering some of the egregious gaffes by the U.S. military during the Rumsfeld regime I wouldn't automatically give them the benefit of the doubt. As for an investigation, good luck. The stonewalling and coverups have been and still are monumental. Sure I know this happens elsewhere ... in Britain and Canada too ... but Rumsfeld takes the cake. Lots of abuses would never have reached the light of day without the inconvenient and embarrassing presence of journalists. |
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Post by HardCap on May 26, 2005 10:30:12 GMT -5
You know this for a fact? More plausible explanation than saying the US military and government put them out to humiliate...let's get Gomery on the case and investigate It may be plausible but it's not yet known to be factual. But considering some of the egregious gaffes by the U.S. military during the Rumsfeld regime I wouldn't automatically give them the benefit of the doubt. As for an investigation, good luck. The stonewalling and coverups have been and still are monumental. Sure I know this happens elsewhere ... in Britain and Canada too ... but Rumsfeld takes the cake. Lots of abuses would never have reached the light of day without the inconvenient and embarrassing presence of journalists.[/quote] I do not trust main stream media to report the facts anymore. As with The New York Times' pre-election story on the allegedly missing 370 tons of explosives in Iraq, or Dan Rather's use of forged documents to slime Bush on election eve, stories that make the U.S. look bad are put on Page 1, on the cover or on prime-time TV. They don't have to be real. In their "myopic zeal," as CBS described what drove its bogus National Guard story, the media don't care if the stories are true as much as they want them to be true. Stories that make our enemies look bad are treated differently. Witness the brouhaha over photos of Saddam Hussein in his undies. NBC's "Today" show led off one morning with an interview with one of the tyrant's lawyers and later had host Matt Laurer probing if the Pentagon thought this was a violation of the Geneva Convention. Yet when in mid-April new Saddam-era mass graves were discovered in southern Iraq, including one believed to hold as many as 5,000 corpses, NBC didn't cover that story. Media enmity toward the White House and its policies can be seen in the remarks of Linda Foley, president of the Newspaper Guild, a union with 34,000 members. She told the National Conference on Media Reform May 14 that U.S. soldiers "target and kill journalists from other countries, particularly Arab countries." Her views echo the remarks of former CNN executive Eason Jordan, who accused the U.S. military of targeting journalists in Iraq. The real question is whether journalists are targeting America. The only thing being flushed down the commode these days seems to be media credibility. |
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Post by arctic on May 26, 2005 10:49:27 GMT -5
You seem to be going to the other extreme, sliming the mainstream media. You don't appear to be unbiased. It would be helpful in pursuing any rational argument to know where you are coming from. What do you believe in? Who are your heroes, your mentors, your preferred sources?
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Post by HardCap on May 26, 2005 10:53:15 GMT -5
You seem to be going to the other extreme, sliming the mainstream media. You don't appear to be unbiased. It would be helpful in pursuing any rational argument to know where you are coming from. What do you believe in? Who are your heroes, your mentors, your preferred sources? Sliming the media...lol..they do enough damage to themselves by reporting false and fabricated stories. Retractions and apologies all round...lol... I agree with current American foreign policy with regards to the Middle east to bring democratic reform to the region. I think prison abuse versus terrorist attacks against innocents are not equal. Neither are beheadings. I read a vast amount from many sources, including blogs from people how are actually there, on the ground...and I do read main stream media articles and judge them against other information. |
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Post by arctic on May 26, 2005 11:48:53 GMT -5
You seem to be going to the other extreme, sliming the mainstream media. You don't appear to be unbiased. It would be helpful in pursuing any rational argument to know where you are coming from. What do you believe in? Who are your heroes, your mentors, your preferred sources? Sliming the media...lol..they do enough damage to themselves by reporting false and fabricated stories. Retractions and apologies all round...lol... I agree with current American foreign policy with regards to the Middle east to bring democratic reform to the region. I think prison abuse versus terrorist attacks against innocents are not equal. Neither are beheadings. I read a vast amount from many sources, including blogs from people how are actually there, on the ground...and I do read main stream media articles and judge them against other information. Terrorist attacks against innocents are demonstrably evil and wrong. But the existence of terrorist attacks on a very large scale and a number of beheadings doesn't make abuse of prisoners right. Nor does abuse of prisoners do anything to deter terrorist attacks and beheadings. Presumably the United States is a civilized country. Therefore its government should not encourage these practices, condone the acts, or create a culture in which psychopaths in the military think these practices are nothing to get excited about. The terrorists do these horrible things because they have a political objective. They want the U.S. out and they want to seize control of the government of Iraq. They are far outgunned by the U.S., so they resort to a strategy that has frequently been used by insurgents. The terrorists are willing to take 10:1 casualties because their passion is stronger and they expect the Americans to pack up and go home. Their casualties are replaced by jihadists recruited from among the 1 billion Muslims in the world. It's an endless supply. The newly recruited terrorists are not as well armed or trained as the Americans but they're willing to walk right up to the Americans and blow themselves up. They also know how to rig ingenious roadside explosive devices and to pack cars with explosives. They create chaos and they blow up civilians, Iraqi policemen and soldiers, and Americans alike. They know that Americans like to do things neat and clean and fast and don't care for prolonged bloody conflict, especially when the alleged justification of weapons of mass destruction was exposed as a hoax. Americans are disturbed by the 1650+ U.S. military dead and the 12,000+ wounded. They don't like the retention of reservists and national guardsmen against their will. Enlistments and reenlistments are down. The generals say the U.S. is winning but the facts on the ground say otherwise. Another thing. The past practices of Saddam Hussein were truly horrible. He deserves to be punished for them. So do the terrorists, and they are being killed by the thousands. Fine. But you can't keep using this history as an excuse for barbaric acts by the U.S. military. Soldiers and marines have been and still are doing horrible things to Iraqi civilians. You can't just ignore killings of women, children, and unarmed men who have nothing to do with the terrorists. There is such a thing as accountability. Of course these atrocities aren't carried out by most men and women in the U.S. military. But wouldn't you agree that those who do do these things should be punished? And perhaps also the higherups who allow them to do these things? If you automatically exculpate the generals and the Pentagon and the administration, then you are implying that there are a lot of psychopaths in the military because these atrocities occur on a weekly or even a daily basis. Or don't the blogs you read mention this. |
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Post by HardCap on May 26, 2005 12:06:15 GMT -5
Sliming the media...lol..they do enough damage to themselves by reporting false and fabricated stories. Retractions and apologies all round...lol... I agree with current American foreign policy with regards to the Middle east to bring democratic reform to the region. I think prison abuse versus terrorist attacks against innocents are not equal. Neither are beheadings. I read a vast amount from many sources, including blogs from people how are actually there, on the ground...and I do read main stream media articles and judge them against other information. Terrorist attacks against innocents are demonstrably evil and wrong. But the existence of terrorist attacks on a very large scale and a number of beheadings doesn't make abuse of prisoners right. Nor does abuse of prisoners do anything to deter terrorist attacks and beheadings. Presumably the United States is a civilized country. Therefore its government should not encourage these practices, condone the acts, or create a culture in which psychopaths in the military think these practices are nothing to get excited about. The terrorists do these horrible things because they have a political objective. They want the U.S. out and they want to seize control of the government of Iraq. They are far outgunned by the U.S., so they resort to a strategy that has frequently been used by insurgents. The terrorists are willing to take 10:1 casualties because their passion is stronger and they expect the Americans to pack up and go home. Their casualties are replaced by jihadists recruited from among the 1 billion Muslims in the world. It's an endless supply. The newly recruited terrorists are not as well armed or trained as the Americans but they're willing to walk right up to the Americans and blow themselves up. They also know how to rig ingenious roadside explosive devices and to pack cars with explosives. They create chaos and they blow up civilians, Iraqi policemen and soldiers, and Americans alike. They know that Americans like to do things neat and clean and fast and don't care for prolonged bloody conflict, especially when the alleged justification of weapons of mass destruction was exposed as a hoax. Americans are disturbed by the 1650+ U.S. military dead and the 12,000+ wounded. They don't like the retention of reservists and national guardsmen against their will. Enlistments and reenlistments are down. The generals say the U.S. is winning but the facts on the ground say otherwise. Another thing. The past practices of Saddam Hussein were truly horrible. He deserves to be punished for them. So do the terrorists, and they are being killed by the thousands. Fine. But you can't keep using this history as an excuse for barbaric acts by the U.S. military. Soldiers and marines have been and still are doing horrible things to Iraqi civilians. You can't just ignore killings of women, children, and unarmed men who have nothing to do with the terrorists. There is such a thing as accountability. Of course these atrocities aren't carried out by most men and women in the U.S. military. But wouldn't you agree that those who do do these things should be punished? And perhaps also the higherups who allow them to do these things? If you automatically exculpate the generals and the Pentagon and the administration, then you are implying that there are a lot of psychopaths in the military because these atrocities occur on a weekly or even a daily basis. Or don't the blogs you read mention this. As you state yourself - you cannot deter the terrorists - their aim is to kill for a political objective - there is no reasoning with them - so how does abusing them in prison make any difference? You either face the ennemy or you retreat and let the innocents be held hostage by the fanatics...not gonna happen under George Bush. |
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on May 26, 2005 12:15:25 GMT -5
The Abu Ghraib horror show will stand as testimony to US "democracy" in the region for much longer than any election. These are events that are indelibly stamped in the minds of Iraqis, especially young male Iraqis who lost family during the occupation, and Muslims throughout the region. In time some may forgive, but it's unlikely that any will forget. And the harvest will be bitter.
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Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.
There was stunning evidence to support the allegations, Taguba added—“detailed witness statements and the discovery of extremely graphic photographic evidence.” Photographs and videos taken by the soldiers as the abuses were happening were not included in his report, Taguba said, because of their “extremely sensitive nature.”<br>
The photographs—several of which were broadcast on CBS’s “60 Minutes 2” last week—show leering G.I.s taunting naked Iraqi prisoners who are forced to assume humiliating poses. Six suspects—Staff Sergeant Ivan L. Frederick II, known as Chip, who was the senior enlisted man; Specialist Charles A. Graner; Sergeant Javal Davis; Specialist Megan Ambuhl; Specialist Sabrina Harman; and Private Jeremy Sivits—are now facing prosecution in Iraq, on charges that include conspiracy, dereliction of duty, cruelty toward prisoners, maltreatment, assault, and indecent acts. A seventh suspect, Private Lynndie England, was reassigned to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, after becoming pregnant.
The photographs tell it all. In one, Private England, a cigarette dangling from her mouth, is giving a jaunty thumbs-up sign and pointing at the genitals of a young Iraqi, who is naked except for a sandbag over his head, as he masturbates. Three other hooded and naked Iraqi prisoners are shown, hands reflexively crossed over their genitals. A fifth prisoner has his hands at his sides. In another, England stands arm in arm with Specialist Graner; both are grinning and giving the thumbs-up behind a cluster of perhaps seven naked Iraqis, knees bent, piled clumsily on top of each other in a pyramid. There is another photograph of a cluster of naked prisoners, again piled in a pyramid. Near them stands Graner, smiling, his arms crossed; a woman soldier stands in front of him, bending over, and she, too, is smiling. Then, there is another cluster of hooded bodies, with a female soldier standing in front, taking photographs. Yet another photograph shows a kneeling, naked, unhooded male prisoner, head momentarily turned away from the camera, posed to make it appear that he is performing oral sex on another male prisoner, who is naked and hooded.
Such dehumanization is unacceptable in any culture, but it is especially so in the Arab world. Homosexual acts are against Islamic law and it is humiliating for men to be naked in front of other men, Bernard Haykel, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at New York University, explained. “Being put on top of each other and forced to masturbate, being naked in front of each other—it’s all a form of torture,” Haykel said.
Two Iraqi faces that do appear in the photographs are those of dead men. There is the battered face of prisoner No. 153399, and the bloodied body of another prisoner, wrapped in cellophane and packed in ice. There is a photograph of an empty room, splattered with blood.
The 372nd’s abuse of prisoners seemed almost routine—a fact of Army life that the soldiers felt no need to hide.
- www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040510fa_fact
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The cost of "democracy" in the region (and most probably beyond) will be much higher than the spin doctors would have us believe. Thanks for the memories. |
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Post by arctic on May 26, 2005 12:17:35 GMT -5
Terrorist attacks against innocents are demonstrably evil and wrong. But the existence of terrorist attacks on a very large scale and a number of beheadings doesn't make abuse of prisoners right. Nor does abuse of prisoners do anything to deter terrorist attacks and beheadings. Presumably the United States is a civilized country. Therefore its government should not encourage these practices, condone the acts, or create a culture in which psychopaths in the military think these practices are nothing to get excited about. The terrorists do these horrible things because they have a political objective. They want the U.S. out and they want to seize control of the government of Iraq. They are far outgunned by the U.S., so they resort to a strategy that has frequently been used by insurgents. The terrorists are willing to take 10:1 casualties because their passion is stronger and they expect the Americans to pack up and go home. Their casualties are replaced by jihadists recruited from among the 1 billion Muslims in the world. It's an endless supply. The newly recruited terrorists are not as well armed or trained as the Americans but they're willing to walk right up to the Americans and blow themselves up. They also know how to rig ingenious roadside explosive devices and to pack cars with explosives. They create chaos and they blow up civilians, Iraqi policemen and soldiers, and Americans alike. They know that Americans like to do things neat and clean and fast and don't care for prolonged bloody conflict, especially when the alleged justification of weapons of mass destruction was exposed as a hoax. Americans are disturbed by the 1650+ U.S. military dead and the 12,000+ wounded. They don't like the retention of reservists and national guardsmen against their will. Enlistments and reenlistments are down. The generals say the U.S. is winning but the facts on the ground say otherwise. Another thing. The past practices of Saddam Hussein were truly horrible. He deserves to be punished for them. So do the terrorists, and they are being killed by the thousands. Fine. But you can't keep using this history as an excuse for barbaric acts by the U.S. military. Soldiers and marines have been and still are doing horrible things to Iraqi civilians. You can't just ignore killings of women, children, and unarmed men who have nothing to do with the terrorists. There is such a thing as accountability. Of course these atrocities aren't carried out by most men and women in the U.S. military. But wouldn't you agree that those who do do these things should be punished? And perhaps also the higherups who allow them to do these things? If you automatically exculpate the generals and the Pentagon and the administration, then you are implying that there are a lot of psychopaths in the military because these atrocities occur on a weekly or even a daily basis. Or don't the blogs you read mention this. As you state yourself - you cannot deter the terrorists - their aim is to kill for a political objective - there is no reasoning with them - so how does abusing them in prison make any difference? You either face the ennemy or you retreat and let the innocents be held hostage by the fanatics...not gonna happen under George Bush. I'll agree with you that it's too late for the U.S. to retreat (or should I say it's too early?). The stated objective of creating an all-Iraqi defense force that could control the insurgents is unrealistic. A retreat at this point would probably result in all-out civil war, with Iran backing the Shia and all sorts of foreigners (most of the world's Muslims are Sunnis) supporting the Sunnis. It would be as bloody as the Iraq-Iran war of the 1980s, and Iran is on the verge of getting nuclear weapons (while Bush has been yapping unproductively, I might add). |
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on May 26, 2005 12:17:39 GMT -5
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on May 26, 2005 12:20:01 GMT -5
article | posted September 2, 2004 (September 20, 2004 issue)
The Bush Crusade
James Carroll
...George W. Bush plumbed the deepest place in himself, looking for a simple expression of what the assaults of September 11 required. It was his role to lead the nation, and the very world. The President, at a moment of crisis, defines the communal response. A few days after the assault, George W. Bush did this. Speaking spontaneously, without the aid of advisers or speechwriters, he put a word on the new American purpose that both shaped it and gave it meaning. "This crusade," he said, "this war on terrorism."
Crusade. I remember a momentary feeling of vertigo at the President's use of that word, the outrageous ineptitude of it. The vertigo lifted, and what I felt then was fear, sensing not ineptitude but exactitude. My thoughts went to the elusive Osama bin Laden, how pleased he must have been, Bush already reading from his script. I am a Roman Catholic with a feeling for history, and strong regrets, therefore, over what went wrong in my own tradition once the Crusades were launched. Contrary to schoolboy romances, Hollywood fantasies and the nostalgia of royalty, the Crusades were a set of world-historic crimes. I hear the word with a third ear, alert to its dangers, and I see through its legends to its warnings. For example, in Iraq "insurgents" have lately shocked the world by decapitating hostages, turning the most taboo of acts into a military tactic. But a thousand years ago, Latin crusaders used the severed heads of Muslim fighters as missiles, catapulting them over the fortified walls of cities under siege. Taboos fall in total war, whether crusade or jihad.
For George W. Bush, crusade was an offhand reference. But all the more powerfully for that, it was an accidental probing of unintended but nevertheless real meaning. That the President used the word inadvertently suggests how it expressed his exact truth, an unmasking of his most deeply felt purpose. Crusade, he said. Later, his embarrassed aides suggested that he had meant to use the word only as a synonym for struggle, but Bush's own syntax belied that. He defined crusade as war. Even offhandedly, he had said exactly what he meant.
Osama bin Laden was already understood to be trying to spark a "clash of civilizations" that would set the West against the whole House of Islam. After 9/11, agitated voices on all sides insisted that no such clash was inevitable. But crusade was a match for jihad, and such words threatened nothing less than apocalyptic conflict between irreconcilable cultures. Indeed, the President's reference flashed through the Arab news media. Its resonance went deeper, even, than the embarrassed aides expected--and not only among Muslims. After all, the word refers to a long series of military campaigns, which, taken together, were the defining event in the shaping of what we call Western civilization. A coherent set of political, economic, social and even mythological traditions of the Eurasian continent, from the British Isles to the far side of Arabia, grew out of the transformations wrought by the Crusades. And it is far from incidental still, both that those campaigns were conducted by Christians against Muslims, and that they, too, were attached to the irrationalities of millennial fever....
- www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20040920&s=carroll
And so, the timeliness of Ridley Scott's "entertainment." |
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Post by HardCap on May 26, 2005 12:27:23 GMT -5
article | posted September 2, 2004 (September 20, 2004 issue)
The Bush Crusade
James Carroll
...George W. Bush plumbed the deepest place in himself, looking for a simple expression of what the assaults of September 11 required. It was his role to lead the nation, and the very world. The President, at a moment of crisis, defines the communal response. A few days after the assault, George W. Bush did this. Speaking spontaneously, without the aid of advisers or speechwriters, he put a word on the new American purpose that both shaped it and gave it meaning. "This crusade," he said, "this war on terrorism."
Crusade. I remember a momentary feeling of vertigo at the President's use of that word, the outrageous ineptitude of it. The vertigo lifted, and what I felt then was fear, sensing not ineptitude but exactitude. My thoughts went to the elusive Osama bin Laden, how pleased he must have been, Bush already reading from his script. I am a Roman Catholic with a feeling for history, and strong regrets, therefore, over what went wrong in my own tradition once the Crusades were launched. Contrary to schoolboy romances, Hollywood fantasies and the nostalgia of royalty, the Crusades were a set of world-historic crimes. I hear the word with a third ear, alert to its dangers, and I see through its legends to its warnings. For example, in Iraq "insurgents" have lately shocked the world by decapitating hostages, turning the most taboo of acts into a military tactic. But a thousand years ago, Latin crusaders used the severed heads of Muslim fighters as missiles, catapulting them over the fortified walls of cities under siege. Taboos fall in total war, whether crusade or jihad.
For George W. Bush, crusade was an offhand reference. But all the more powerfully for that, it was an accidental probing of unintended but nevertheless real meaning. That the President used the word inadvertently suggests how it expressed his exact truth, an unmasking of his most deeply felt purpose. Crusade, he said. Later, his embarrassed aides suggested that he had meant to use the word only as a synonym for struggle, but Bush's own syntax belied that. He defined crusade as war. Even offhandedly, he had said exactly what he meant.
Osama bin Laden was already understood to be trying to spark a "clash of civilizations" that would set the West against the whole House of Islam. After 9/11, agitated voices on all sides insisted that no such clash was inevitable. But crusade was a match for jihad, and such words threatened nothing less than apocalyptic conflict between irreconcilable cultures. Indeed, the President's reference flashed through the Arab news media. Its resonance went deeper, even, than the embarrassed aides expected--and not only among Muslims. After all, the word refers to a long series of military campaigns, which, taken together, were the defining event in the shaping of what we call Western civilization. A coherent set of political, economic, social and even mythological traditions of the Eurasian continent, from the British Isles to the far side of Arabia, grew out of the transformations wrought by the Crusades. And it is far from incidental still, both that those campaigns were conducted by Christians against Muslims, and that they, too, were attached to the irrationalities of millennial fever....
- www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20040920&s=carroll
And so, the timeliness of Ridley Scott's "entertainment." I've read this before - wether Bush had used the word or not - we would be at the exact same place we are today. Jihad was launched much before the word crusade was uttered. |
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Post by HardCap on May 26, 2005 12:35:54 GMT -5
all of the western intelligence services had come to the same conclusion as the US...that Iraq was a threat. Please note that Saddam Hussein did all he could to promote this "illusion"... |
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on May 26, 2005 12:36:54 GMT -5
I've read this before - wether Bush had used the word or not - we would be at the exact same place we are today. Not at all. We are where we are because of what actually has happened, not because of what might have happened. So what? That doesn't change the galvanising use of the word "crusade." |
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Post by HardCap on May 26, 2005 12:43:45 GMT -5
I've read this before - wether Bush had used the word or not - we would be at the exact same place we are today. Not at all. We are where we are because of what actually has happened, not because of what might have happened. So what? That doesn't change the galvanising use of the word "crusade." You mean terrorist attacks on American soil, right? Don't seem to me the terrorists need more galvinizing...the Imams motivatate them quite well on their own...no need for help....72 virgins is motivation enough... |
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Post by arctic on May 26, 2005 12:57:47 GMT -5
Not at all. We are where we are because of what actually has happened, not because of what might have happened. So what? That doesn't change the galvanising use of the word "crusade." You mean terrorist attacks on American soil, right? Don't seem to me the terrorists need more galvinizing...the Imams motivatate them quite well on their own...no need for help....72 virgins is motivation enough... This is rapidly degenerating from the dubious to the preposterous and it's no longer interesting for me to linger in this thread. American soil ... 72 virgins ... What next? |
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Post by HardCap on May 26, 2005 13:27:27 GMT -5
You mean terrorist attacks on American soil, right? Don't seem to me the terrorists need more galvinizing...the Imams motivatate them quite well on their own...no need for help....72 virgins is motivation enough... This is rapidly degenerating from the dubious to the preposterous and it's no longer interesting for me to linger in this thread. American soil ... 72 virgins ... What next? do you dispute the facts ? 9/11 attacks happened in New York City - 3,000 were killed (some were muslims) Jihadists (martyrs) are indeed promised heaven and 72 virgins for their good deeds, it's in the Koran. All arguments based on root causes are irrelevant... |
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Post by Disgruntled70sHab on May 26, 2005 13:58:24 GMT -5
I don't think the United States had much foresight in releasing these photographs. It does them more harm than good.Saddam Hussein was a horrible dictator. No doubt about that. Many Iraqis have good reason to hate him. No doubt about that either. Still, he is an Iraqi and a Muslim and many people in the Arab world resent the Americans for humiliating him. It doesn't win hearts and minds. If this isn't putting fuel on the fire I don't know what is. I honestly don't think any objective thought was used when the decision was made to publish the photos. The only word that comes to mind is "sensationalism," for which British tabloids are reknown. Not a good move at all. Cheers. |
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