The War In Iraq (and WMDs)

[MinorityOfOne]

If Bush ignored or glossed over the importance of 9/11, THEN we would really have something to worry about. (Fortunately, he doesn't; unfortunately, he still gives us plenty of other headaches.)

[AisA]

student,

I am curious. With all of the claims and counter claims about the situation in the mid-east, how do you decide what to believe? How do you determine what is true and what is false?

Thanks.

[AwakeAndFree]

Israel is a racist theocracy.  That is a fact.

Is it?

Funny. I live in Israel for 24 years, and I haven't noticed.

The few laws that ARE religiously oriented (for example - having to close stores on certain Jewish holidays and Saturdays) are under constant attack, and many ignore them anyway.

As for being racist - this is far from exact. Israel was (wrongly, I admit) established as a haven for Jews running away from the holocaust. Therefore - there are laws that make immigration to Israel much easier for Jews than for non-Jews. However, there are millions of Arabs, Muslim and Christians, there are Israelis from African, European, American (north and south) and Asian origin - and they receive equal rights and equal protection under the law.

And the most important thing is that the people, by and large, are not racist, nor religious. Over 70% of Israelis are secular!

It's amazing how little the average person knows about Israel. I have a Chinese roommate who was shocked to see half naked women on our daily papers.

As for lack of regard to "basic Palestinian rights" - this is propaganda perpetrated by the terrorists and their dictator. Israel, even while in a state of war, gave better treatment to Palestinians than they would get in Jordan (where they were butchered at the first sign of rebeliousness) or other Arab countries. Israel goes out of its way to target specific individuals and organizations, because it feels reponsible for the civilian population. Notice the assassination of Yassin, who died with his bodyguards and not a single innocent civillian.

I happen to know many people who participate in these actions, and I hear about the extreme length they go to avoid hurting civillians - to the extent of endangering Israeli lives!

In fact, we treat them too well for our own good.

[BlackSabbath]

I believe Student has been banned for being a troll.

[AspiringObjectivist]

I believe he's an angry young man and someone should hug him.

[AwakeAndFree]

Really? I bothered so much for nothing!

Isn't there a way to know these things in advance? There should be a notice: Troll.

Really!

[BlackSabbath]

Calling all the supporters of Israel Nazis is usually a good way to get banned.

I complained and he was banned. My summation of his nihilism is above.

The moderators here are more lenient than I am over at Capmag but they're not that lenient.

[DeeVee]

I am often amazed at the level of ignorance at those who do not understand these logical concepts:

1) the united states has 150,000 all volunteer "citizen soldiers" inside Iraq...who understand who and what we are fighting...who the enemy is. This war is about keep Moslem terrorism over there, and not here....no more 9-11s here...

2) Saddam Hussein was the center of world-terrorism...and had an al Qaeda terrorism camp just 60 miles north of Baghdad, and intended to being the "pan Arab" Islamic leader of all Moslem terrorism.... The bush doctrine of pre-emption was brilliant. Do your own homework regarding this issue. I am not going to do it for you.

3. Clinton, Kerry, Daschle, Madeline Albright, the un, all said Saddam Hussein had wmds...now where are the "witnesses" that Saddam destroyed them. Use your logic....you cannot have it both ways...that Saddam had wimds when the dems were in charge, but now that bush is in office there were no wmds...so where are the witnesses that Saddam destroyed the wmds...(i do not believe in magic.)

4) all Moslems read the same Koran, which says in 21 paraphrased places...to "kill, mutilate, destroy, enslave, crucify...all non-Moslems who do not submit to Islam. A world-wide jihad against non-Moslems has been going on for 1400 years...use your logic and figure out that Islam is not a friend to non-Moslems.

5) Saddam was kept in check by American military all during the 90s, which destroyed a great part of Saddam's military apparatus in the first gulf war...under the first president bush.

6) if you have been paying attention to the current military press conferences and briefings, you will note that Iraq is being flooded with insurgents from iran, and other Moslems countries...as well as awash with lethal weapons, all being used against American troops...all bought from the illegal "oil for food" program boondoogle from the corrupt united nations, headed by Kofi Anan and his son.

7) you will never learn anything as long as you just listen to the democratic party...or the five second sound bites of American tv....and their enforced ignorance.

8) it is constant comments like this after one year of being Iraq, and the overwhelming evidence of 9-11...the convinces me, that objectivism cannot be learned...one is either born seeking out objective and logical thought, or one seeks emotion as a way of life.

Deevee....

Edited April 25, 2004 by GreedyCapitalist

[DeeVee]

SORRY, IT GOT POSTED WITHOUT BEING EDITED

MEA CULPA...DEEVEE

[Betsy]

8) it is constant comments like this after one year of being Iraq, and the overwhelming evidence of 9-11...the convinces me, that objectivism cannot be learned...one is either born seeking out objective and logical thought, or one seeks emotion as a way of life.

I was agreeing with everything up until this.

People most definitely CAN learn Objectivism and many other true and valuable ideas even if they currently hold goddawful ones now. One case in point is David Horowitz, former communist and author of Radical Son.

I know. I have "converted" many people myself including ex-socialists and ex-theists. I have shown emotionalists why it is to their self-interest to stop and think before they act and how to do it. I have shown rationalists where they broke with reality and how to repair the break.

As we live we can learn more and more about how to think, what is true, what is of value, and how to achieve values. Even someone who is irrational and has turned off his brain and tuned out reality can turn it back on. That's because people have free will and can choose to think or not anew every minute and second.

[AwakeAndFree]

Oh, and regading WMDs... I don't know how trustworthee they are, but in my experience they're usually right: Debka-file wrote, at the time the war with just Iraq began, that Iraq was making a concerted effort of transporting WMDs to Syria, so that the Americans won't find anything.

Debka is a publication that claims to draw it's information directly from intelligence officers around the world. They have an English as well as a Hebrew version.

[Charles]

Id have to agree with Betsy on point 8,

Many repressed individuals of such opaque regimes as the Soviet Union will have been able to know quite obviously the cause of their disatisfaction. The fact that there individuality was being supressed, was blindingly obvious. In the West this fact is not so obvious - for many young and energetic people the media's demeaning treatment of them, and the pandering to communal consiousness can lead this repressed indivuduality to express itself in midguided forms...the faceless youth will grab onto anything which will let them express themselves - an opportunity objectivists can seize on by appealing to their sense of individuality.

The key is choice.

[Bearster]

I think I understand what DeeVee was saying, though he didn't say it correctly. Honesty isn't born; it's a chosen virtue.

You can teach someone a fact that has missed, or show him a principle that he has not induced. But there is no way to teach honesty to a dishonest man. Intellectual dishonesty is the reason why Americans today support communism or Islamism.

There is no fact they're missing, or principle they haven't quite induced. They know full well what these death-loving idealogies have achieved, and that is what they want to bring to the USA.

It is certainly true that man has free will. There are certainly rational and honest people who had been irrational and dishonest previously. These rare people "woke up" one day and decided to change.

But the premise that you can change a particular dishonest man is arbitrary. He may decide on his own. But the overwhelming majority of them never do.

[AutoJC]

Israel has killed Americans.  That is a fact.  Does that mean we ought invade Israel?

When? In 1967, when they mistakenly hit the USS Liberty in the Mediterranean during the Six-day War?

Israel is a racist theocracy.  That is a fact.

Like hell it is.Look it up for yourself in their basic law

Is it rude to ask these questions?

In the aggressive manner which you ask them, I think so.

I confess I am an American firster, believing as I do that America was and perhaps still is the greatest hope for freedom and truth that the world has ever known.  But it seems to me many here sound more like the commissars of the Soviet Union when it comes to questioning the actions of our so called leaders.  If the war was just, it was because Saddam was an eminent threat to the people of the U.S.  At this point I don't believe he was.  He wasn't even a threat to our ally Israel, who could have annihilated the entire country without effort.  If Saddam was paying money to Palestinians why does that concern me?  Are Israel’s enemy’s now to be America’s?  When did this happen?  Are objectivists to become intellectual slaves to the prevailing ideologues in Washington DC?  Am I missing something?

First go to this website and learn something about Israel.

[DavidV]

Speaking of "racist theocracies," Saudi Arabia requires that non-Moslems take detours around "sacred" places:

[AshRyan]

Speaking of "racist theocracies," Saudi Arabia requires that non-Moslems take detours around "sacred" places:

WOW.

It's truly disturbing to see a sign like that hanging above a modern highway.

[AwakeAndFree]

Ha. The Palestinians would have hung these signs around Jerusalem, if they thought they could get away with it.

[AutoJC]

Tonight Bush makes a speech.

Will he actually let the Iraqi people decide who governs them after the transition?

From this weekend's Tim Russert 'Meet The Press' interview with Powell:

RUSSERT: In those free, open and fair elections, if the Iraqi people choose an Islamic theocracy similar to what we have in Iran, we would accept that? 

POWELL: We will have to accept what the Iraqi people decide upon....

Powell goes on to say the "thinks" the Iraqi people will make the right choice, saying: "[M]y sensing of what the Iraqi people want is a democracy with a majority, but with respect for all the minorities, all working together to create the kind of country they'll be proud of."