Posts by Russell Brown
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The Independent's lead today, For the first time, a real blueprint for peace in Iraq by 2003-2004 Iraqi defence minister Ali (not Ayad) Allawi is very lucid and, frankly, a better contribution than the endless flow of hot air from most western analysts and commentators. I don't know if he's right, but he reads pretty well.
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... stayed in a cheap but great hotel in auckland ...
Which was, for future reference?
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I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Are you saying that this level of ethnic/religious violence would not have happened had Saddam's regime ended in any other way?
It seems to me that this was brewing for 30 years - Saddam spent that much time fostering and exploiting pre-existing divisions with Iraq. It was really 30 years of civil war and what we have now is the losers - the Shiites - now able to fight back.
If it was such an obvious consequence Neil, why did you never think to mention it when we argued on the merits of an invasion in 2002 and 2003? Why didn't anyone think to mention it?
Why don't I recall one of the arguments for war being that there would be widespread sectarian bloodshed, millions of people displaced and the rise of religious militias, but we might as well get it over with because it's going to happen anyway?
None of this was part of the sales pitch for war. We simply don't know what might have happened if history had taken another course, because there were so many potential courses. But the White House engineered a particular course - and removed the existing political, social and security infrastructure in the process - and now it has to live with what it did.
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Of course we were a lot happier and freer from guilt when we were worshiping the sun or the moon, or a waterfall or something that gave us life. It's only when those clever semites, with a need for the ultimate in social control, came up with the concept of a God we couldn't see, but who could see and hear us and knew our every thought. That's when we began shitting ourselves and racing around trying to freak everone else out. If it hadn't been for Constantine the Christians would still be a fringe loony group wandering round Rome with placards making a bloody nuisance of themselves.
That's a rather nice paragraph ...
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But that's not the point. Russell was referring to the images of his final moments. It's not easy to make yourself look like the bad guy when you're executing one of the most evil and hated men alive, but yet again the Bush Administration came through for us. The images of Husseins final moments - a dignified elderly man surrounded by masked captors jeering as they fasten a noose around his neck - give him a one-way ticket to martyrdom.
It's not about Saddam - it's about how allowing his death to be filmed and broadcast will deepen and antagonise the civil war currently underway.Unlike one ridiculous Kos diarist, I did not feel sad for Saddam. But I did think the execution was going to be fairly irrelevant. It turned out to be much worse than that. The fact that a Shia militia (some days I'm sure we'd call them "terrorists") infiltrated what should have been a demonstration of of some degree of statehood is just damning. The filming, the timing, everything about it is bad. And it does matter what Sunnis think about it.
James' comparison of murder rates is a meme and, I suspect, one which does not bear scrutiny. IIRC, there are currently about three million displaced Iraqis, roughly equally split between external and internal. Most of the Iraqi government resides outside Iraq. Schools and universities can barely be said to be functioning
Even Instapundit linked recently to an interview with an Iraqi rep for Reporters Without Borders who basically said, well, it was better under Saddam - at least people had lives. How hideously wrong does it have to go for a press freedom advocate to say that?
It's a very, very fucked up place and I'm not sure what can be done about it. And I do not buy the line that it "would have happened anyway". That's a disgraceful cop-out.
Perhaps it mightn't have been so bad if the American operation had not been so hideously incompetent. But the Katrina experience suggests that these people think that's just the way things are done:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/12/26/katrina.waste.ap/index.html
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I recall seeing Tutaekuri wine in the supermarket once, presumably named after the Hawkes Bay river.
Yes - turns out the Dogshit River is lined with vineyards.
It was clearly a small run done for export, judging by the back label with a London address. And it had a very happy looking dog on the main label.
Heh.
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Do we ask ourselves... why do I feel horny?, why do I feel happy? why do I feel a sense of foreboding? why do I feel like a chicken kebab?
You feel like a chicken kebab? Man, that's existential.
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Ben, I agree with you about scientists and philosophers of Science. When scientists make statements about the big questions outside Science, they get a lot of attention but really have no more to say than the rest of us. However, the media is always hungry for opinions about Science and Religion.
My cosmologist friend is forever being asked at dinner parties if there's a God ...
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Am I to infer then from the material on this thread, that the true meaning of Tutaekuri is religion?
Ooooooh, you're going to hell for that one boy.
Er, no. Not what I meant ...
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Well, I think I can say that the white chocolate & strawberry tiramisu recipe in the "National Front" issue of North & South is quite edible.
I'll take your word for it. But what are you doing reading the bloody thing?
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