From: Ross A. Finlayson (extropy@apexinternetsoftware.com)
Date: Wed Nov 27 2002 - 03:25:28 MST
On Sunday, November 24, 2002, at 11:43 PM, John K Clark wrote:
> "Anders Sandberg" <asa@nada.kth.se>
>
>> the attacks were so extreme, so unprecedented that even many
>> people who reflexively claim they hate the US kept silent or
>> even seemed to reconsider: yes, the US is capitalist and uncultured,
>> but it is not the taliban. Many otherwise neutral people becaume
>> quite sympathetic to the US. This really could have become the
>> democratic West against terrorism. But then the US government
>> botched their diplomacy.
>
> How has American diplomacy been botched? It seems to me that Bush is
> getting
> pretty much everything he wants and the only price paid is that left
> wing
> Europeans feel less sorry for the USA; I doubt pity was what he was
> looking for anyway.
Au contraire.
I'm an American and come to hate Bush. Where was he? Poor sap.
> Speaking of the taliban, if Bush had listened to these
> same Europeans a year ago they'd still be in power and chopping peoples
> hands off in the soccer stadium, Osama would still be able to operate
> in the
> open at a safe base and I don't think the world would be a better place.
> A year from now Bush will be known as either a brilliant hero or a
> moronic
> villain and I'm not sure which. The war with Afghanistan was a huge
> success
> but I don't know if Iraq will be as smooth. I hope so.
>
> John K Clark jonkc@att.net
>
>
I'm disgusted at the censorship and propaganda.
The war with Afghanistan was piddling. All in all an only very minor
shift in situation has occurred in Afghanistan. Well, I guess the opium
production is back to historic levels. There were really not that many
totally extreme mullahs, now there are just as many but they don't meet
at Taliban meetings. The Taliban was kind of evil. I'm not going to
suggest what Muhammed's opinion would be, I don't actually know. I
blaspheme casually. It's pretty well understood that the Afghanis
didn't bomb the World Trade Center.
Hey, when you lay blame on the Saudis don't forget the Pakis. The Paki
ISI (secret police) wired directly to Muhammed Atta some $100,000.
Hell, while you're at it don't forget that the CIA funded terrorists in
Afghanistan, back when they were still called freedom fighters. They
might not have funded those who destroyed the World Trade Center,
they're almost certainly different terrorists than the militia
mujahadeen.
I wonder what the House of Saud (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, U.A.E.) thinks
about an Iraq invasion. Iraq, apart from being part of OPEC, is among
their competition, a hostile occupation of Iraq would set their nearest
competitor back twenty years, again.
I wonder what Israel thinks about an Iraqi invasion. Currently the
right-wingers almost have a coalition government except Labor walked out
and all. That is to say the current policymakers are in the minority
and would not be well-regarded were there not pressing territorial
disputes. They want America to invade Iraq so that America would be an
even bigger bad guy and then they could pale in comparison.
Most people I ask are pretty sure the administration are crooks.
It would take very little for a hard-core right-wing policy to be almost
totally unpopular.
I wonder what America thinks about invading Iraq. It's pretty hard to
get accurate information out of the conglomerate news media. Remember
when Clin-ton used to be all about polls, or so it was said? At least
they were some kinds of accurate polls, presumably, instead of poll
numbers to best influence polls about the polled numbers.
Speaking of polls, polls had a different prediction than the recent
election.
Most Americans would rather be at peace with the world and unafraid,
with opportunity and then stability.
Most Americans have no clue of the global financial economy and how
criminal parts of it are.
Antioptimism? The economy's in a shambles, in some ways. America needs
to rebuild light industry, heavy industry, and medium industry to be
economically viable, before it crushes itself under defense and
entitlement outlays. We can rebuild heavy industry with infrastructure
refurbishment, retrofit, renewal, and research, along with Big Space.
Medium and light industry comprise a myriad of nearly essential
day-to-day items and services and the establishment of lots of quality
light industrial shops and economies.
Let's see, if I was doomsaying, everyone dies tomorrow, upwards of
ninety-five percent. That's what doomsaying is, normally apocalyptic
predictions that don't come true. Optimistically, the survivors would
interbreed rapidly.
Anyways, that's not going to happen. I was talking to a what-would-be
combat trooper tonight, he wants "not war".
Don't get me wrong, I'm coming from multiple generations of combat
troopers, baby, I say, we need to work out our civilian corruption
WorldCom, and, as they say Enron, issues, before we go killing a bunch
of people.
Ross
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