Raed in the Muddle
By contrast, Raed in the Middle blathers thusly (spelling and punctuation errors are his):
I really feel ashamed and disgusted seeing all of those heads falling down. Every new head that is cut shows how much we, seculars, are isolated and marginalized.
All of these feelings of anger after the occupation of Iraq, are being translated into more and more irresponsible violent reactions, but whom are we supposed to blame?
When did this fashion of beheading start anyway?
Did anyone ever heard about beheading before the occupation of Iraq? Before the silly right-wing war of terror?
Who do you really think created these monsters cutting heads?
I was defending my theory the other day, about the dumb administration acting as a super power, while having some Mojito with my French friends. Well, speaking about politics is better than listening to all of that crap about NGO work, and security concerns, whatever…
The real war for America as a super power was in the time of the so called cold warÂ, when the American policy makers decided to create a small monster called bin ladin to open another front against the former USSR, just like how the Israeli policy makers created, or at least facilitated, the creation of Hamas in the 80s to add another crack in the body of the PLO.
When the work of bin ladin was done, he turned his beard and started planning to bite his master; uncle sam.
It is smart though, I don't blame the American decision makers, and maybe I'’ll adopt the same strategies if I was in their place. (thank god I'm not)
My point here is that even the American policy creators didn'’t expect to have a government which is as dumb as the bush admn, the war on terrorism is nothing more than a war for supporting the international right wing.
I mean, if u want to act like the roman colonial empire, at least do it right…
People in the middle, and on the left are not in the scene,,, We are living the era of bush and bin ladin, the era of bombing and beheading. The era of arrogant ethnic wars that everyone thought it was over many centuries ago.
I didn't see that the war on terror can reach to anything by using tanks and missiles, and I still do.
It just made it worse, made the east-west relation more complicated
I didn't see that attacking clerics like As Sadr would be the right answer, because he is strong enough to fight back, and he will become a national hero, and that happened. As Sadr is a national hero who is planning to join the next elections, after defeating the American army (he didn't surrender, he is still having his army, right?)
As I said once before, don'’t tell someone to go to hell, unless u can really send him there.
What are we gaining? We, Americans and Arabs, what did we gain after all of those years of the war on terror?
Thousands of bodies, and more hate.
What did we, Iraqis, gain after months of occupation and destruction? A silly selected government? With a CIA agent as our PM and a Sheikh of a tribe as our president?
Our fat Sheikh speaks English in his conferences… What a great president…
Please, tell him that he is the president of Iraq, an Arabic country, even if he was taking his salary from what's his name… bremer.
When is this comedy play going to finish I am not amused.
Well, let's start from the beginning, Raed.
You should be ashamed and disgusted- but mostly ashamed, and very much so indeed. You should be ashamed for your ingratitude toward those who are trying to give you your freedom, and who died to rid you of Saddam Hussein. You should feel shame, too, for the aid and comfort you are giving the people who cut off those heads.
"Who are we to blame?" For the cutting off of the heads of innocent human beings, Raed, or for the venal stupidity which greets a friend willing to shed his blood to free you from a monster as if he were an enemy? I think it's clear who is to blame for that unjustified anger. You, who feel it, are. You can't really blame your own, irrational malice on anybody but yourself.
Who should be blamed for the cutting off of those heads? How about the people who cut off the heads, Raed? How about ungrateful people like you, who give them their rationale and their excuse through what can only be willful, malicious ignorance?
Where did this head-cutting business begin? Let's start where it didn't begin.
It didn't begin with the occupation of Iraq.
It was quite a fashion in the days of Mohammed, Raed. It figures prominently in the Koran. It has never entirely disappeared from the Islamic world in the millenium and a half since then. Surely even a secular Muslim like you should know that much Islamic history! They've been doing it in Afghanistan for a very long time. They cut the heads off captured Russian soldiers with those knives of theirs, Raed- and they filmed it, too. They're cutting off each other's heads still today.
Yes, al Sadr still has his "army," if you want to call it that. He has it because he keeps suing for peace, and then breaking his word. It's not a matter of not being able to send him to hell. We keep letting him off the hook, because you're right: we don't have the heart to be as ruthless as we should be. The view is popular in some American circles that a city should disappear in a radioactive cloud whenever an innocent American is beheaded. Most of us, fortunately, believe that to do so would be going much too far. In fact, it would be counterproductive- though if we were who you choose to think of us as being, we wouldn't hesitate.
Nevertheless, you have a point. Our downfall is our compassion. We should have cared less about the people of Fallujah. We should have wiped it and al Sadr from the face of the Earth instead of accepting the truces he keeps asking for, and then breaking. We should have given the people of Fallujah forty-eight hours to either turn over al Sadr or evacuate the city, and then leveled the place. And we could have, Raed. We still can. But we probably won't- not because al Sadr is so mighty, but because we care about the people of Fallujah a great deal more than he and his thugs do.
Where did this head-cutting business begin? In the jealousy and the hate and the bile and the paranoid distrust and the venal and perennially self-defeating irrationality you and the cutters off of heads have in common, and which have kept the Arab world poor and powerless and wretched for centuries.
That's where it began, Raed. It continues in the dark, cold heart of Islamofascist fanatics, in the black souls of Osama and his ilk. It continues in precisely the kind of illogic you specialize in. It grew into its present form with attacks on embassies and naval ships, and with the murder of thousands of innocent Americans in New York and Washington. And it is fostered by the naive ingratitude of people such as you, who make the darker side of my own soul wish that we would do as you ask, withdraw our troops from Iraq, and leave you to the chaos you deserve, and into which our premature departure would surely plunge you. Or better, perhaps we should put Saddam Hussein back in power before we leave, and right the horrible wrong we did you by shedding American blood to liberate you from him.
But of course, we wouldn't have to bother. You'd have a new Saddam in place in short order.
"Silly right-wing war of terror?" Silly, Raed? Have you no sense whatsoever? And have you no shame? Say those words to the families of those who died on 9/11- or to your own countrymen who died at Abu Gharib when far, far worse than those miserable morons in American uniforms briefly did on their own initiative was done as a matter of considered and routine policy by Saddam's secret police.
When Osama bin Laden was fighting Soviet oppression in Afghanistan, it is true that we supported him. But don't you dare suggest that somehow we "created" him! It's the darkest and most irrational part of the Arab soul that did that, Raed. All we did is to give him credit for the rationality both of you so clearly lack. "His master, Uncle Sam?" How dare you?
"International right wing?" Do you seriously believe that there is such a thing as an "international right wing?""Fight back?" It was al Sadr who attacked our troops, Raed! You deserve nothing better than Saddam!
What will you Arabs gain? Free elections, Raed! A government of your own choosing... and that in a matter of mere months! If you don't like the people in the interim government, vote them out! But if we were to leave now, you would never have the chance!
But you, Raed, throw into grave doubt the notion that you can handle freedom. If any significant percentage of the Iraqi people think like you do, a new strongman will take Saddam's place very soon. Soon enough, you will see how paranoid your lies about our building "permanent bases" will turn out to be. Or perhaps they will be permanent. Perhaps the new Saddam who will surely rule you permanently if we end our temporary occupation too early will use them to keep you in line.
You are no more eager to have us gone than we are to leave. We are in Iraq, it's true, to protect our own interests from a man who had built a stockpile of poison gas and biological agents and tried to build an atomic bomb, made fools of Hans Blix and company for twelve years, smuggled them out of the country, and would have replaced them the second Hans Blix left the country for good. But he's gone, Raed. We're there now to protect you from gangsters like that "national hero" al Sadr you so admire, from the chaos that will surely ensue if we leave too soon. The carnage that would come then would make what's going on now look like a tea party.
And you deserve no better, Raed.
But, you know something? We're a decent enough people that we won't give you what you deserve. We're a compassionate enough people that we'll endure the insults and the lies and the paranoid fantasies of the effete Europeans, the irrational Arabs, our own brain-dead Left, and ungrateful jerks like you. We'll let you spit on us to keep you alive, and someday soon you'll be free because of us.
But you aren't ready to do without us yet, Raed. Your new democracy would never survive. You would lose it to a theocracy like Iran's, or to another Saddam, before it ever got off the ground. If the interim government isn't more powerful yet, it's because you still aren't sure that you want to be free, or even what "free" means, and because you still think that gangsters like al Sadr are heroes. If we left now, your democracy wouldn't las a year. Iraq would be plunged into civil war, and a theocracy would be the best you could hope for. You just aren't ready to do without us. Your new leaders are smart enough to realize that- and if anyone has any doubt about it, all they would have to do is to read the puerile, juvenile nonsense you write about those who are dying so that you will have a fighting chance to keep your independence when you get it.
These are not thoughtful words you write, Raed. These are not the words of someone capable of thinking rationally about political matters, much less of governing himself! Or is it merely that your jealousy of America and its power and wealth and influence makes you unwilling to think rationally even about your own self-interest?
If you really believe what you write, you are a fool, Raed- and you deserve to get your wish. You deserve everything you would get if we were simply to up and leave.
You are not worthy of the sacrifice of a single American's blood. But we'll continue to shed that blood, Raed- because that's who we are. in exactly the same way that who you are is an ignorant and malicious ingrate.
I'm not amused either, Raed. Not amused at all.
I really feel ashamed and disgusted seeing all of those heads falling down. Every new head that is cut shows how much we, seculars, are isolated and marginalized.
All of these feelings of anger after the occupation of Iraq, are being translated into more and more irresponsible violent reactions, but whom are we supposed to blame?
When did this fashion of beheading start anyway?
Did anyone ever heard about beheading before the occupation of Iraq? Before the silly right-wing war of terror?
Who do you really think created these monsters cutting heads?
I was defending my theory the other day, about the dumb administration acting as a super power, while having some Mojito with my French friends. Well, speaking about politics is better than listening to all of that crap about NGO work, and security concerns, whatever…
The real war for America as a super power was in the time of the so called cold warÂ, when the American policy makers decided to create a small monster called bin ladin to open another front against the former USSR, just like how the Israeli policy makers created, or at least facilitated, the creation of Hamas in the 80s to add another crack in the body of the PLO.
When the work of bin ladin was done, he turned his beard and started planning to bite his master; uncle sam.
It is smart though, I don't blame the American decision makers, and maybe I'’ll adopt the same strategies if I was in their place. (thank god I'm not)
My point here is that even the American policy creators didn'’t expect to have a government which is as dumb as the bush admn, the war on terrorism is nothing more than a war for supporting the international right wing.
I mean, if u want to act like the roman colonial empire, at least do it right…
People in the middle, and on the left are not in the scene,,, We are living the era of bush and bin ladin, the era of bombing and beheading. The era of arrogant ethnic wars that everyone thought it was over many centuries ago.
I didn't see that the war on terror can reach to anything by using tanks and missiles, and I still do.
It just made it worse, made the east-west relation more complicated
I didn't see that attacking clerics like As Sadr would be the right answer, because he is strong enough to fight back, and he will become a national hero, and that happened. As Sadr is a national hero who is planning to join the next elections, after defeating the American army (he didn't surrender, he is still having his army, right?)
As I said once before, don'’t tell someone to go to hell, unless u can really send him there.
What are we gaining? We, Americans and Arabs, what did we gain after all of those years of the war on terror?
Thousands of bodies, and more hate.
What did we, Iraqis, gain after months of occupation and destruction? A silly selected government? With a CIA agent as our PM and a Sheikh of a tribe as our president?
Our fat Sheikh speaks English in his conferences… What a great president…
Please, tell him that he is the president of Iraq, an Arabic country, even if he was taking his salary from what's his name… bremer.
When is this comedy play going to finish I am not amused.
Well, let's start from the beginning, Raed.
You should be ashamed and disgusted- but mostly ashamed, and very much so indeed. You should be ashamed for your ingratitude toward those who are trying to give you your freedom, and who died to rid you of Saddam Hussein. You should feel shame, too, for the aid and comfort you are giving the people who cut off those heads.
"Who are we to blame?" For the cutting off of the heads of innocent human beings, Raed, or for the venal stupidity which greets a friend willing to shed his blood to free you from a monster as if he were an enemy? I think it's clear who is to blame for that unjustified anger. You, who feel it, are. You can't really blame your own, irrational malice on anybody but yourself.
Who should be blamed for the cutting off of those heads? How about the people who cut off the heads, Raed? How about ungrateful people like you, who give them their rationale and their excuse through what can only be willful, malicious ignorance?
Where did this head-cutting business begin? Let's start where it didn't begin.
It didn't begin with the occupation of Iraq.
It was quite a fashion in the days of Mohammed, Raed. It figures prominently in the Koran. It has never entirely disappeared from the Islamic world in the millenium and a half since then. Surely even a secular Muslim like you should know that much Islamic history! They've been doing it in Afghanistan for a very long time. They cut the heads off captured Russian soldiers with those knives of theirs, Raed- and they filmed it, too. They're cutting off each other's heads still today.
Yes, al Sadr still has his "army," if you want to call it that. He has it because he keeps suing for peace, and then breaking his word. It's not a matter of not being able to send him to hell. We keep letting him off the hook, because you're right: we don't have the heart to be as ruthless as we should be. The view is popular in some American circles that a city should disappear in a radioactive cloud whenever an innocent American is beheaded. Most of us, fortunately, believe that to do so would be going much too far. In fact, it would be counterproductive- though if we were who you choose to think of us as being, we wouldn't hesitate.
Nevertheless, you have a point. Our downfall is our compassion. We should have cared less about the people of Fallujah. We should have wiped it and al Sadr from the face of the Earth instead of accepting the truces he keeps asking for, and then breaking. We should have given the people of Fallujah forty-eight hours to either turn over al Sadr or evacuate the city, and then leveled the place. And we could have, Raed. We still can. But we probably won't- not because al Sadr is so mighty, but because we care about the people of Fallujah a great deal more than he and his thugs do.
Where did this head-cutting business begin? In the jealousy and the hate and the bile and the paranoid distrust and the venal and perennially self-defeating irrationality you and the cutters off of heads have in common, and which have kept the Arab world poor and powerless and wretched for centuries.
That's where it began, Raed. It continues in the dark, cold heart of Islamofascist fanatics, in the black souls of Osama and his ilk. It continues in precisely the kind of illogic you specialize in. It grew into its present form with attacks on embassies and naval ships, and with the murder of thousands of innocent Americans in New York and Washington. And it is fostered by the naive ingratitude of people such as you, who make the darker side of my own soul wish that we would do as you ask, withdraw our troops from Iraq, and leave you to the chaos you deserve, and into which our premature departure would surely plunge you. Or better, perhaps we should put Saddam Hussein back in power before we leave, and right the horrible wrong we did you by shedding American blood to liberate you from him.
But of course, we wouldn't have to bother. You'd have a new Saddam in place in short order.
"Silly right-wing war of terror?" Silly, Raed? Have you no sense whatsoever? And have you no shame? Say those words to the families of those who died on 9/11- or to your own countrymen who died at Abu Gharib when far, far worse than those miserable morons in American uniforms briefly did on their own initiative was done as a matter of considered and routine policy by Saddam's secret police.
When Osama bin Laden was fighting Soviet oppression in Afghanistan, it is true that we supported him. But don't you dare suggest that somehow we "created" him! It's the darkest and most irrational part of the Arab soul that did that, Raed. All we did is to give him credit for the rationality both of you so clearly lack. "His master, Uncle Sam?" How dare you?
"International right wing?" Do you seriously believe that there is such a thing as an "international right wing?""Fight back?" It was al Sadr who attacked our troops, Raed! You deserve nothing better than Saddam!
What will you Arabs gain? Free elections, Raed! A government of your own choosing... and that in a matter of mere months! If you don't like the people in the interim government, vote them out! But if we were to leave now, you would never have the chance!
But you, Raed, throw into grave doubt the notion that you can handle freedom. If any significant percentage of the Iraqi people think like you do, a new strongman will take Saddam's place very soon. Soon enough, you will see how paranoid your lies about our building "permanent bases" will turn out to be. Or perhaps they will be permanent. Perhaps the new Saddam who will surely rule you permanently if we end our temporary occupation too early will use them to keep you in line.
You are no more eager to have us gone than we are to leave. We are in Iraq, it's true, to protect our own interests from a man who had built a stockpile of poison gas and biological agents and tried to build an atomic bomb, made fools of Hans Blix and company for twelve years, smuggled them out of the country, and would have replaced them the second Hans Blix left the country for good. But he's gone, Raed. We're there now to protect you from gangsters like that "national hero" al Sadr you so admire, from the chaos that will surely ensue if we leave too soon. The carnage that would come then would make what's going on now look like a tea party.
And you deserve no better, Raed.
But, you know something? We're a decent enough people that we won't give you what you deserve. We're a compassionate enough people that we'll endure the insults and the lies and the paranoid fantasies of the effete Europeans, the irrational Arabs, our own brain-dead Left, and ungrateful jerks like you. We'll let you spit on us to keep you alive, and someday soon you'll be free because of us.
But you aren't ready to do without us yet, Raed. Your new democracy would never survive. You would lose it to a theocracy like Iran's, or to another Saddam, before it ever got off the ground. If the interim government isn't more powerful yet, it's because you still aren't sure that you want to be free, or even what "free" means, and because you still think that gangsters like al Sadr are heroes. If we left now, your democracy wouldn't las a year. Iraq would be plunged into civil war, and a theocracy would be the best you could hope for. You just aren't ready to do without us. Your new leaders are smart enough to realize that- and if anyone has any doubt about it, all they would have to do is to read the puerile, juvenile nonsense you write about those who are dying so that you will have a fighting chance to keep your independence when you get it.
These are not thoughtful words you write, Raed. These are not the words of someone capable of thinking rationally about political matters, much less of governing himself! Or is it merely that your jealousy of America and its power and wealth and influence makes you unwilling to think rationally even about your own self-interest?
If you really believe what you write, you are a fool, Raed- and you deserve to get your wish. You deserve everything you would get if we were simply to up and leave.
You are not worthy of the sacrifice of a single American's blood. But we'll continue to shed that blood, Raed- because that's who we are. in exactly the same way that who you are is an ignorant and malicious ingrate.
I'm not amused either, Raed. Not amused at all.
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