Prager University: The Middle East Problem

[Martin Radwin]

Equality,

How far are you going to take this bombing crap?

You said it already a few times and I let it go.

Enough, already.

I don't like kiiling women and children and I don't like people who preach that.

Michael

Michael,

You assume that I like the Idea of killing women and children. I am simply recognizing the reality of war. In war you do not win by killing more of the enemies soldiers than they kill of yours, you win by making war so unstomachacheble the enemy no longer has the will to fight. How did we win against the Japanese? We made war with us impossible. The reality is who makes war possible? is it a state? is it an army? no, a state must be able to pay for its armies. This is why I am also for arming every dissident in Iran. So long as a population goes along with the state (ie does not openly and physically oppose) the population is not "innocent".

to demonstrate my point. If a US soldier in Iraq is in a fire fight with an enemy combatant and that enemy comes out holding a woman as hostage and is still firing on the soldier that soldier should return fire with the intent to kill even if it endangers the life of that soldier, even if that soldier knows he will take the woman's life. It has nothing to do with that woman, it has to do with the rules of war. If your enemy knows that holding a woman hostage will not stop you from killing him you will find women dont get held hostage.

when you go to war total war is the only option

I ask this question with no agenda. Have you ever been a soldier in a war and been in battle?

I'll take a shot at speculatively answering this question, even though I don't personally know the degenerate to whom the question was posed.

Of course he's never been a soldier in war or been in battle. It is almost always the most cowardly chickenhawks who scream the loudest about total war, killing the enemy without remorse, and salting the earth with them. Easy words coming from a sociopath who has never experienced the hell of life in a war zone. This pathetic excuse for a human being would piss in his pants if he were ever in such an environment and heard bullets flying by him and bombs exploding.

Martin

[equality72521]

Equality,

How far are you going to take this bombing crap?

You said it already a few times and I let it go.

Enough, already.

I don't like kiiling women and children and I don't like people who preach that.

Michael

Michael,

You assume that I like the Idea of killing women and children. I am simply recognizing the reality of war. In war you do not win by killing more of the enemies soldiers than they kill of yours, you win by making war so unstomachacheble the enemy no longer has the will to fight. How did we win against the Japanese? We made war with us impossible. The reality is who makes war possible? is it a state? is it an army? no, a state must be able to pay for its armies. This is why I am also for arming every dissident in Iran. So long as a population goes along with the state (ie does not openly and physically oppose) the population is not "innocent".

to demonstrate my point. If a US soldier in Iraq is in a fire fight with an enemy combatant and that enemy comes out holding a woman as hostage and is still firing on the soldier that soldier should return fire with the intent to kill even if it endangers the life of that soldier, even if that soldier knows he will take the woman's life. It has nothing to do with that woman, it has to do with the rules of war. If your enemy knows that holding a woman hostage will not stop you from killing him you will find women dont get held hostage.

when you go to war total war is the only option

I ask this question with no agenda. Have you ever been a soldier in a war and been in battle?

I'll take a shot at speculatively answering this question, even though I don't personally know the degenerate to whom the question was posed.

Of course he's never been a soldier in war or been in battle. It is almost always the most cowardly chickenhawks who scream the loudest about total war, killing the enemy without remorse, and salting the earth with them. Easy words coming from a sociopath who has never experienced the hell of life in a war zone. This pathetic excuse for a human being would piss in his pants if he were ever in such an environment and heard bullets flying by him and bombs exploding.

Martin

Martin you are right I have never been in war. However this does not mean that I have not been in a situation where the same principle applies. my youth was not an easy one and i did whatever it took to survive, this is why I advocate total war, and I do so knowing fully well what it means. A valuable lesson i learned from my youth was not the need for total war so much as if others believe you will use total war. If you make the threat you must be willing to carry it through. For example if we were to elect a president who openly stated their military philosophy as that of total war, and it was believable this would be enough to accomplish the desired end.

The Art of War

I.7 It is only one who is thoroughly acquainted with the evils of war that can thoroughly understand the profitable way of carrying it on.

Or in the words of the Latin's

Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum.

[Dennis Hardin]

Dennis,

A hate blog is your source?

Gimmee a break.

If I were not familiar with this (I have heard Osama bin Laden himself say on video--I think it was in a documentary and I can find it if need be--that he worships death while the West worships life), I would think you have something to hide.

Why use crappy sources when credible things can be found?

Is the urge to spin hatred more important than presenting the truth through objective facts?

It's not as if there is nothing out there.

Michael

EDIT: Here, let me help--a set of links organized at the Jewish Virtual Library. I haven't been through all these videos from Palestinian TV, but from what I have viewed, I have not heard Prager's alleged Hamas motto yet. What's a mind blower for me is that there is plenty of despicable stuff on these videos that can be used. Why did Prager make that motto up? Does he want to be discredited? (If I can't find a reasonable source for that "motto"--nor anyone else--I can only conclude Prager made it up as propaganda.)

You win, Michael. You found me out. I googled Azzam Tamimi and found the same quote on numerous other websites (all hate blogs, to be sure) which I could use to cover up for my true hate-mongering agenda. But something tells me you have known all along that I am evil to the core—along with my co-conspirator, Dennis Prager. How stupid we were. We should have known we couldn’t fool you.

Curses! Foiled again!

[DavidMcK]

I agree Michael, and thanks for making it clear that ethnic cleansing is evil whomever the 'cleanser' is or the cleansee.

You also said a lot of things to the idiot that some of us are too polite to say.

[Dennis Hardin]

My malicious campaign of conspiracy, propaganda and lies continues...(I just can’t help my evil, slimy self.)

From The Washington Times(another popular hate blog)

"Consider, for example, the sentiments offered by one Jamal Abdel Hamid Yussef, openly explaining operations of the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades (military wing of Hamas in Gaza): 'Our suicide operations are a message... that our people love death...' "

And here you can see where Prager, having made up this nasty-sounding motto, wrapped a towel around his head and paraded before television cameras as Hamas Member of Parliament, Fathi Hamad...(That Prager is a ruthless, cunning devil, but not near clever enough to fool the adroit, steely eyed Michael.)

From Palestinian Media Watch:

"Hamas had already announced publicly before the war that using 'women, children and the elderly' as 'human shields' was indeed Hamas policy -- and that Hamas was proud of it. Hamas Member of Parliament, Fathi Hamad, pronounced with enthusiasm on Hamas TV that Hamas had made 'death an industry,' and that its message to Israel ('the Zionist enemy') about its use of civilians as shields was, ‘We desire death as you desire life.’ "

Dennis (aka Snidely Whiplash)

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

You win, Michael. You found me out....

Dennis,

That's a game I don't play with decent company and I have no intention of demeaning you. (On the contrary, I like and respect you a lot.)

My sole intent is to keep the standards of sourcing high enough for responsible use.

When people get yelling and oversimplifying all the time, the only way I am able to make any sense out of it is by sticking to facts that can be verified at non-biased sources.

I believe I am not alone in my yearning for simple rationality in presenting facts.

Michael

[Dennis Hardin]

Equality,

How far are you going to take this bombing crap?

You said it already a few times and I let it go.

Enough, already.

I don't like killing women and children and I don't like people who preach that.

Michael

You would have a big following over at The Huffington Post, I'm sure.

Obama's drones kill more women and children than terrorists

Marvelous insight, there. Of course, we all know that the lives of women and children are intrinsically more valuable than those of men.

But what the hell, it sounds holier-than-thou, so let's throw it out there and puff up our chests like he-men. Then let's stamp out all bombing and send our young men (and women) to die in combat. By your "logic," self-defense is only legitimate if we don't accidentally kill any innocent women and children, no matter what the cost in terms of the wasted lives of American soldiers (men and women).

How do you live with yourself, as a citizen of the nation which extinguished the lives of all those innocent women and children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Thank God Obama is President and not you.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dennis,

I am always amazed at how irrational and imprecise a person gets when hatred moves him or her.

I do not recognize myself in your words. And if anyone checks my posts objectively, they will not recognize me either.

I do recognize your hatred.

Sorry to say that, but that's what I see.

Hatred for the sake of hatred.

I wish you serenity.

Michael

[9thdoctor]

I do not recognize myself in your words. And if anyone checks my posts objectively, they will not recognize me either.

For some reason you’re a magnet for this kind of thing. Dan Ust’s inexplicable blow up was the worst example. Meanwhile, here’s a dribbling fool over on SLOP referencing you in his opinion of the latest ARI imbroglio:

Before this I sympathized with the ARI position, given people like Michael Stuart Kelley who claim to advocate Objectivism and yet twist it beyond all recognition to suit their own agendas and emotions.

Ergo, if it weren’t for you he’d have had his Kronstadt earlier. So cut out your Chubby Checker routine.

I wish you serenity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5513mXmQbw4

[Brant Gaede]

Equality,

How far are you going to take this bombing crap?

You said it already a few times and I let it go.

Enough, already.

I don't like killing women and children and I don't like people who preach that.

Michael

You would have a big following over at The Huffington Post, I'm sure.

Obama's drones kill more women and children than terrorists

Marvelous insight, there. Of course, we all know that the lives of women and children are intrinsically more valuable than those of men.

But what the hell, it sounds holier-than-thou, so let's throw it out there and puff up our chests like he-men. Then let's stamp out all bombing and send our young men (and women) to die in combat. By your "logic," self-defense is only legitimate if we don't accidentally kill any innocent women and children, no matter what the cost in terms of the wasted lives of American soldiers (men and women).

How do you live with yourself, as a citizen of the nation which extinguished the lives of all those innocent women and children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Thank God Obama is President and not you.

You can not defend or advocate a just war of self defense in the context of the ignorant and stupid unsophistication of Equality. In the context of WWII, I could have been a crew-member of the Enola Gay. Why? Because at that time and place the context wasn't the war per se, but ending the war and all the greater death and destruction that would have necessarily followed other possible courses of action.

When I was in Vietnam the 10,000th American was killed. One of those was almost me. I escorted two bodies to the morgue at Saigon. Two men I had known and fought with. I had blood on my uniform, maybe still on my face. It wasn't busy that day. There was a long row of empty marble slabs. I wondered how many more would be laid out on them. During my year there I learned what a no-win fight for nothing cluster-fuck it was so I happily left and left the army. If we had been fighting for freedom and to win, I would have stuck around until we did win and been generally more reckless with my life. At that time I had a lot of undigested Ayn Rand in me.

In Jump School at Ft. Benning in March 1965, one of the NCOs stated to us trainees that it looked like conventional forces were going to be committed to Vietnam. The Marines landed a couple of months later and they sent in the Air Cav Division from Benning. I wondered if it was going to be like Korea with 30-40 thousand Americans killed. No, I thought. They must have learned from Korea. But then I thought of one big difference: the borders. Korea was on a peninsula and they hacked a line across it and stopped the fighting. You couldn't do that in Vietnam. Later on, in 1971, I wrote in my unpublished book exactly how the Vietnam War would end and I was almost exactly right. I didn't say when for I didn't know when and I didn't know that the Mekong Delta would hold out the longest. (The rest of the book was a bunch of crap.)

Anyway, the day before my 21st birthday, after graduating from Jump School--I had to do an extra week--I got on a bus for North Carolina to begin my Special Forces training at Ft. Bragg. As the bus pulled out we went by the wooden barracks of the First Cav. There were soldiers laying about and doing various things. I wondered how many of them would die in Vietnam. A whole lot did. Watch the Mel Gibson movie.

--Brant

[Martin Radwin]

Equality,

How far are you going to take this bombing crap?

You said it already a few times and I let it go.

Enough, already.

I don't like killing women and children and I don't like people who preach that.

Michael

You would have a big following over at The Huffington Post, I'm sure.

Obama's drones kill more women and children than terrorists

Marvelous insight, there. Of course, we all know that the lives of women and children are intrinsically more valuable than those of men.

Perhaps we should modify the post name to "Obama's drones kill more innocent men, women, and children than terrorists". There. Is that better?

Here's a description of some of the wonderful results of U.S. government intervention in Pakistan:

http://www.winnipegsun.com/comment/columnists/eric_margolis/2009/05/17/9482521-sun.html

"PARIS -- Pakistan finally bowed to Washington's angry demands last week by unleashing its military against rebellious Pashtun tribesmen of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) -- collectively mislabelled "Taliban" in the West.

The Obama administration had threatened to stop $2 billion US annual cash payments to bankrupt Pakistan's political and military leadership and block $6.5 billion future aid, unless Islamabad sent its soldiers into Pakistan's turbulent NWFP along the Afghan frontier.

The result was a bloodbath: Some 1,000 "terrorists" killed (read: mostly civilians) and 1.2 million people -- most of Swat's population -- made refugees.

Pakistan's U.S.-rented armed forces have scored a brilliant victory against their own people. Too bad they don't do as well in wars against India. Blasting civilians, however, is much safer and more profitable.

Unable to pacify Afghanistan's Pashtun tribes (a.k.a. Taliban), a deeply frustrated Washington has begun tearing Pakistan apart in an effort to end Pashtun resistance in both nations. CIA drone aircraft have so far killed over 700 Pakistani Pashtun. Only 6% were militants, according to Pakistan's media, the rest civilians.

Pashtun, also improperly called Pathan, are the world's largest tribal people. Fifteen million live in Afghanistan, forming half its population. Twenty-six million live right across the border in Pakistan. Britain's imperialists divided Pashtun by an artificial border, the Durand Line (today's Afghan-Pakistan border). Pashtun reject it.

Many Pashtun tribes agreed to join Pakistan in 1947, provided much of their homeland be autonomous and free of government troops. Pashtun Swat only joined Pakistan in 1969.

As Pakistan's Pashtun increasingly aided Pashtun resistance in Afghanistan, U.S. drones began attacking them. Washington forced Islamabad to violate its own constitution by sending troops into Pashtun lands. The result was the current explosion of Pashtun anger.

I have been to war with the Pashtun and have seen their legendary courage, strong sense of honour and determination. They are also hugely quarrelsome, feuding and prickly.

One quickly learns never to threaten a Pashtun or give him ultimatums. These are the mountain warriors who defied the U.S. by refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden because he was a hero of the anti-Soviet war and their guest. The ancient code of "Pashtunwali" still guides them: Do not attack Pashtun, do not cheat them, do not cause them dishonour. To Pashtun, revenge is sacred.

HAM-HANDED

Now, Washington's ham-handed policies and last week's Swat atrocity threaten to ignite Pakistan's second worst nightmare after invasion by India: That its 26 million Pashtun will secede and join Afghanistan's Pashtun to form an independent Pashtun state, Pashtunistan.

This would rend Pakistan asunder, probably provoke its restive Baluchi tribes to secede and tempt mighty India to intervene militarily, risking nuclear war with beleaguered Pakistan.

The Pashtun of NWFP have no intention or capability of moving into Pakistan's other provinces, Punjab, Sindh and Baluchistan. They just want to be left alone. Alarms of a "Taliban takeover of Pakistan" are pure propaganda.

Lowland Pakistanis repeatedly have rejected militant Islamic parties. Many have little love for Pashtun, whom they regard as mountain wild men best avoided.

Nor are Pakistan's well-guarded nukes a danger -- at least not yet. Alarms about Pakistan's nukes come from the same fabricators with hidden agendas who brought us Saddam Hussein's bogus weapons.

THE REAL DANGER

The real danger is in the U.S. acting like an enraged mastodon, trampling Pakistan under foot, and forcing Islamabad's military to make war on its own people. Pakistan could end up like U.S.-occupied Iraq, split into three parts and helpless.

If this continues, at some point patriotic Pakistani soldiers may rebel and shoot the corrupt generals and politicians on Washington's payroll.

Equally ominous, a poor people's uprising spreading across Pakistan -- also mislabelled "Taliban" -- threatens a radical national rebellion reminiscent of India's Naxalite rebels.

As in Iraq, profound ignorance and gung ho military arrogance drive U.S. Afghan policy. Obama's people have no understanding what they are getting into in "AfPak." I can tell them: An unholy mess we will long regret."

Did you get that? 700 Pakistani Pashtun killed by CIA drones, only 6% estimated to be militants, the rest civilians.

1.2 million refugees driven from their homes in Swat. This is what your taxes and mine are going to pay for. Are you happy about this? Does it make you proud to be an American?

But what the hell, it sounds holier-than-thou, so let's throw it out there and puff up our chests like he-men. Then let's stamp out all bombing and send our young men (and women) to die in combat.

What an excellent false dichotomy. Apparently, according to you, we have only two choices -- to bomb the hell out of Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and all these other wonderful places where the U.S. government has been engaged in endless bombing compaigns, or to send our young men and women to die in combat. How about this for a third alternative -- stop bombing all of these countries and get our soldiers the hell out of these countries at the same time, so that no more of them have to die. Sure, it's a radical concept, not having the U.S. at war with half of the entire world, but maybe it's just worth giving it a try.

By your "logic," self-defense is only legitimate if we don't accidentally kill any innocent women and children, no matter what the cost in terms of the wasted lives of American soldiers (men and women).

By your logic, the U.S. government can murder people around the world with impunity, all in the name of self-defense, even though the people it is killing are no threat whatever to the people of the U.S., just as the Iraqis or the Pakistani Pashtun are no threat to Americans at all but have been and continue to be slaughtered by our government.

How do you live with yourself, as a citizen of the nation which extinguished the lives of all those innocent women and children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Thank God Obama is President and not you.

And there it is. You and Michael both identify as objectivists. Barack Obama has been systematically destroying this country via his multiple horrible policies, from ObamaCare to trillion dollar deficits to massive inflationary destruction of the dollar, to continued destruction of our civil liberties on a massive scale, to his declaration that he has the right to murder anyone anywhere in the world, including U.S. citizens, to his continued support of torture, to his vile escalation of the Afghan and Pakistan wars and his vile murdering of Pakistanis via escalated drone attacks.

And yet despite all this, you thank God than Obama is president rather than Michael. Michael just hasn't demonstrated sufficient blood lust to satisfy you.

Martin

[Brant Gaede]

The United States should slowly but surely withdraw from Afghanistan by dividing this pseudo-country up to other countries as will

be done regardless but with more bloodshed.

Instead of a sane, free energy policy we have gotten oil wars devolved into a war--Afghanistan--which has not much oil at all.

That's insanity begetting insanity.

--Brant

send your sons to fight and die

Edited November 12, 2010 by Brant Gaede

[BaalChatzaf]

--Brant

send your sons to fight and die

Not for nothing. I want to see results or at least the possibility of results.

Be it noted that I attempted to enlist three times and was rejected three times for medical reasons.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

For some reason you're a magnet for this kind of thing.

Dennis (Ninth Doctor),

That has been one of the things that has followed me all through my life. It used to irritate me and perplex me, but not anymore.

I have a few ideas as to why this happens, but when I try to go into them, it always comes out wrong. So I will only mention one point I have noticed over the years (more times than I can count, really).

When I don't inexplicably piss off someone to an exaggerated degree in a discussion, I am usually screwing up in life.

So I have learned that the sudden appearance of this vitriol is a good compass showing that I am heading in the right direction.

btw - About that dude you referenced, he's not a bad kid. I don't believe that. He does talk trash about me at times and I never talk about him (unless someone brings him up). But that's the way it should be priority-wise. Who in truth cares what he thinks about me, much less about anything? I do wish he would learn how to spell my name. That's something, I guess...

Michael