Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Neubob on June 24, 2006, 04:10:25 PM
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A Modest Proposal...Peace, liberty and amnesty for the insurgents. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13521628/site/newsweek/)
A quote:
Those sound like the demands of some of the insurgents themselves, and in fact they are. But they're also key clauses of a national reconciliation plan drafted by new Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who will unveil it Sunday.
PM's sure got a set of balls on him... My only question is, who's to pay for said compensation to victims of the coalition's military operations?
I have a feeling I know who's going to be taking the blame when this new administration is digested and summarily excreted from the Iraqis' collective bowels.
Here's a little exercise in free thought... How as it that post WWII Japan was successfully occupied and restructured, and this place, from what it seems, cannot be? A fundamental difference in the occupation? A fundamental difference in the national identity? Or was it simply that we left Iraq with too many options, and Japan with none at all?
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Amnesty for insurgents who attacked American and Iraqi soldiers?
Yea lets do that, Oh, while were at it lets give them some wepons of mass destruction and a few dozen missles.
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Japanese are honorable people, even in defeat--cannot say the same about many arabs
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Well how do we all think this will end or progress?
Sounds like a great solution if you want to keep the country together.
I dont think the US will let it happen though.. I think they will probably guerentee the protection of the northern curds or the southern shia and withdraw from the center and let the country splinter. Let the southern oil fileds join Kuwait and make a kurdish state from the south end of the northern oil filed all the way north.Most of thier military problems become more managable and most of the resources stay under control if they follow that plan.
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Originally posted by Neubob How is it that post WWII Japan was successfully occupied and restructured, and this place, from what it seems, cannot be? A fundamental difference in the occupation? A fundamental difference in the national identity? Or was it simply that we left Iraq with too many options, and Japan with none at all?
MacArthur.
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Originally posted by Neubob
Here's a little exercise in free thought... How as it that post WWII Japan was successfully occupied and restructured, and this place, from what it seems, cannot be? A fundamental difference in the occupation? A fundamental difference in the national identity? Or was it simply that we left Iraq with too many options, and Japan with none at all?
Japanese where not only granted amnesty after the war for crimes that make anything every commited by any iraqi look like kids play, their national leader who led them to war was granted amnesty and kept his palace for decades after the war. So I dont know if that comparison is the one you want to pick. (how many US service men have been slowly consumed while kept alive by Iraqi insurgents?)
But if you insist
Japan commited some aggression to warrent the invasion, that might be an issue.
Japan was not created by the amalgamation of several distinct cultural groups at the whim and to the benifit of an external power.
Japan was defeated in the war they chose to fight, the Iraqi insurgents have not been.
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Originally posted by Neubob
Here's a little exercise in free thought... How as it that post WWII Japan was successfully occupied and restructured, and this place, from what it seems, cannot be? A fundamental difference in the occupation? A fundamental difference in the national identity? Or was it simply that we left Iraq with too many options, and Japan with none at all?
The fundamental difference was in the culture. Japan had/has a cohesive culture and national identity under a single revered (and just de-deified) figure-head who decreed that MacArthur's constitution would be honored and therefore it was. None of the leaders of Islamic states can do the same, Iraq least of all.
my $0.02
asw
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Originally posted by Pongo
Well how do we all think this will end or progress?
Sounds like a great solution if you want to keep the country together.
I dont think the US will let it happen though.. I think they will probably guerentee the protection of the northern curds or the southern shia and withdraw from the center and let the country splinter. Let the southern oil fileds join Kuwait and make a kurdish state from the south end of the northern oil filed all the way north.Most of thier military problems become more managable and most of the resources stay under control if they follow that plan.
Heres how I think it will progress, we pull out, democracy ends, a muslim fundementalist govt takes over, and were right back where we started.
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Originally posted by dmf
Heres how I think it will progress, we pull out, democracy ends, a muslim fundementalist govt takes over, and were right back where we started.
Somehow, I don't think that democracy is something that they need, understand or even want. Democracy, at least in theory, allows the people to have serious sway over the direction their governments take. I firmly believe that given this right, they'll just put themselves under the command of another dictator within a generation or so, and yes, as stated above, all democractic checks and balances will be removed and the net progress will be zero.
Trying to impose our beliefs on them is a mistake. Either they identify a problem and proceed to fight and die for their own freedom, or they continue to live and die under their own tyranny. We will never successfully win liberty for them.
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We should pull out.. then issue the Iraqi Security Force our new Top Secret Weapon.
The .5 kiloton Nuclear Hand Grenade.
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Originally posted by Neubob
Somehow, I don't think that democracy is something that they need, understand or even want. Democracy, at least in theory, allows the people to have serious sway over the direction their governments take. I firmly believe that given this right, they'll just put themselves under the command of another dictator within a generation or so, and yes, as stated above, all democractic checks and balances will be removed and the net progress will be zero.
Trying to impose our beliefs on them is a mistake. Either they identify a problem and proceed to fight and die for their own freedom, or they continue to live and die under their own tyranny. We will never successfully win liberty for them.
I didn't say they needed democracy, democracy won't work in a land that has been tribal for thousands of years.
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Originally posted by dmf
I didn't say they needed democracy, democracy won't work in a land that has been tribal for thousands of years.
Ummm, you do know where the term "cradle of civilization" comes from, right????
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Umm.. you do know the Cradle of Civilization and the Cradle of Democracy are two different places, right?
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Ummm...you do know it's "arsenal of democracy", right???
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Originally posted by dmf
I didn't say they needed democracy, democracy won't work in a land that has been tribal for thousands of years.
Match, game; set.
You, condi and my ex wife should do lunch. It'll be the three smartest women in the world...
lemme know whatcha come up with for border security and education reform.. if the subject gets around to world hunger, I'll have my people call Jolies people.. solve that one and we'll call it a trifecta.
;)
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How as it that post WWII Japan was successfully occupied and restructured, and this place, from what it seems, cannot be?
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Japan had the **** kicked out of it. Iraq, even with all the pain and suffering saddam caused, has in no way whatsoever suffered in 40 years what Japan suffered in 4 years. Just wait. Islam is headed for an asskicking of biblical proportions....and the west is going to bleed severely as a result. The whole world is headed for a spinal adjustment of intense proportions.
Yay :aok
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Originally posted by Neubob
A Modest Proposal...Peace, liberty and amnesty for the insurgents. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13521628/site/newsweek/)
How as it that post WWII Japan was successfully occupied and restructured, and this place, from what it seems, cannot be?
Hmmm... wasn't their government and utility infrastructure left largely intact?
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japan intact? are you serios?
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The infrastructure was devasted and Japanese were starving, Sandman.
The government deck was reshuffled, but MacArthur knew the only way he could get action and results to rebuild the infrastructure was to put the same people who wielded power before and during the war in power again. And that he did. So the deck was shuffled, but the same cards were at the top.
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Originally posted by Neubob
Somehow, I don't think that democracy is something that they need, understand or even want. Democracy, at least in theory, allows the people to have serious sway over the direction their governments take. I firmly believe that given this right, they'll just put themselves under the command of another dictator within a generation or so, and yes, as stated above, all democractic checks and balances will be removed and the net progress will be zero.
Trying to impose our beliefs on them is a mistake. Either they identify a problem and proceed to fight and die for their own freedom, or they continue to live and die under their own tyranny. We will never successfully win liberty for them.
The democracy thing is a pile of rubbish anyway you look at it. What if we spent half a trillion dollars in iraq to install a democracy and they elected a pro Iran govt? Not gonna happen.
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Originally posted by WhiteHawk
The democracy thing is a pile of rubbish anyway you look at it. What if we spent half a trillion dollars in iraq to install a democracy and they elected a pro Iran govt? Not gonna happen.
Like I said before, I'd rather see what would happen if we spent half a trillion developing and implementing alternative fuel technologies.
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Originally posted by Neubob
Like I said before, I'd rather see what would happen if we spent half a trillion developing and implementing alternative fuel technologies.
My exact thoughts nuebob. :aok . Kinda makes a guy wonder wtf!
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Originally posted by WhiteHawk
My exact thoughts nuebob. :aok . Kinda makes a guy wonder wtf!
I hate to say it, but I think that there are just too many people in power who have a lot to profit from maintaining the status quo when it comes to our dependance on oil.
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Originally posted by Neubob
I hate to say it, but I think that there are just too many people in power who have a lot to profit from maintaining the status quo when it comes to our dependance on oil.
Yea, its called world domination. The oil people wouldnt be able to squeeze our baIIs if there was any competition .
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Don't really care much about democracy... Only a strong bill of rights that only allows the government very few powers and less money.
lazs
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Originally posted by WhiteHawk
Yea, its called world domination. The oil people wouldnt be able to squeeze our baIIs if there was any competition .
Well, they're gonna need to find a way to dominate the world using hydrogen, or ethanol, or cold fusion, or liquidified cow flatulence, because as it is, their handing the camel ****ers too big a piece of the pie... Hell, these very same oil people, if they could only dislodge their heads from their rectums, could stand to profit from a much needed, and soon to be inevitable change in the way we power our vroom-vrooms.
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Originally posted by Neubob
Trying to impose our beliefs on them is a mistake. Either they identify a problem and proceed to fight and die for their own freedom, or they continue to live and die under their own tyranny. We will never successfully win liberty for them.
Stop making so much sense! You’re bound to get your head ripped off by the Shuckins and Mavericks on this bbs. And Eagle Eye might just bring his whole infantry platoon (lol) and KILL YOU! (They love freedom you see.)
Originally posted by Sandman
Hmmm... wasn't their government and utility infrastructure left largely intact?
Only if rice paper is rad proof.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e0/Nagasakibomb.jpg/180px-Nagasakibomb.jpg)
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Originally posted by Rolex
The government deck was reshuffled, but MacArthur knew the only way he could get action and results to rebuild the infrastructure was to put the same people who wielded power before and during the war in power again. And that he did. So the deck was shuffled, but the same cards were at the top.
That was my understanding. The government was left in place. The reshuffling was to go back to the parliamentary politics that existed before the military took control.
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Left in place?
Certain aspects of the U.S. occupation policy carried out by MacArthur were very harsh. Wartime Prime Minister Tojo and six other leaders were tried and hanged for war crimes. The policies dismantled and abolished the Japanese military establishment and banned 200,000 military and civilian leaders from holding any public office, including the majority of existing Diet members. The large industrial monopolies that had fueled the war effort were broken up. Even government support for the official Japanese religion, Shinto, was eliminated.
At the same time, MacArthur promoted the development of democracy in Japan. He suspended Japanese laws restricting political, civil and religious liberties. He ordered the release' of political prisoners and abolished the secret police. He announced a general election to be held in April 1946, only seven months following the surrender. He also called for the Japanese Diet to pass a new election law to provide for free democratic elections, including, for the first time in the history of Japan, the right of women to vote. In addition, under MacArthur's direction, the growth of labor unions was encouraged, large landholdings were broken up and the education system was reformed.
Surprisingly, all of these developments were accepted and in some cases even welcomed by the Japanese. Of course, Japan was under the control of armed U.S. troops. Still, the ordinary Japanese, seeing death and destruction all around, seemed to conclude that the old way of doing things had failed. War and a humiliating defeat had made Japan ripe for revolutionary change.
A New Constitution
The Meiji Constitution of 1889 concentrated actual political power in the hands of a small group of government leaders responsible to the emperor, not the people. From 1930 to the end of the war this governing group was dominated by the military.
Before 1945, democracy as we know it had little chance to develop in Japan. No free elections or real political parties existed. Women were denied equal rights. From an American viewpoint, although the Meiji Constitution listed a number of individual liberties, few were meaningful. For example, even though free speech was protected by the constitution, the government prohibited what it considered "dangerous thoughts."
Early in the occupation MacArthur saw the need to drastically change the Meiji Constitution. In his autobiography, MacArthur argued:
We could not simply encourage the growth of democracy. We had to make sure that it grew. Under the old constitution, government flowed downward from the emperor, who held the supreme authority, to those to whom he had delegated power. It was a dictatorship to begin with, a hereditary one, and the people existed to serve it.
MacArthur communicated his views to the leaders of the Japanese government who formed a committee to rewrite the Meiji Constitution. After four months' work, by February 1, 1947, the committee had produced a revision with only minor word changes. For instance, in the rewrite the emperor became "supreme" rather than "sacred" as in the old constitution.
MacArthur refused to accept the Japanese revision. He gave his own people the task of writing a "model constitution" which would then be used by the Japanese in preparing another revision, which he wanted completed before the Japanese general. election scheduled just two months away. He saw the election as a test of whether the Japanese people would accept democratic changes in their political system.
Bringing Democracy to Japan (http://www.crf-usa.org/election_central/japan_democracy.htm)
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Originally posted by uvwpvW
Stop making so much sense! You’re bound to get your head ripped off by the Shuckins and Mavericks on this bbs. And Eagle Eye might just bring his whole infantry platoon (lol) and KILL YOU! (They love freedom you see.)
Actually, I'm waiting for red26 to show up and tell me that I, along with everyone else carrying a US passport, should enlist and give my country 2 years of military service before opening my big fat mouth. Seems that my being a contributing citizen and taxpayer haven't earned me jack **** as far as voicing opinions.
Took a real revelation to understand that not every cause our leaders adopt is actually worth the sacrifice of young American lives. In fact, few causes are. There's nothing patriotic about someone who regurgitates the same old slogans, and is ready to vehemently and mindlessly support military action, and inevitably, the loss of servicemen, at the drop of a hat.
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Originally posted by Pongo
japan intact? are you serios?
My apologies for being unclear and asking ignorant and inflammatory questions.
I wonder what parallels exist between post-WWII Japan and post-Hussein Iraq. I suspect that the differences outweigh the similarities, but I could very well be wrong. Maybe some of the experts around here can lend insight.
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Originally posted by Neubob
Actually, I'm waiting for red26 to show up and tell me that I, along with everyone else carrying a US passport, should enlist and give my country 2 years of military service before opening my big fat mouth. Seems that my being a contributing citizen and taxpayer haven't earned me jack **** as far as voicing opinions.
Took a real revelation to understand that not every cause our leaders adopt is actually worth the sacrifice of young American lives. In fact, few causes are. There's nothing patriotic about someone who regurgitates the same old slogans, and is ready to vehemently and mindlessly support military action, and inevitably, the loss of servicemen, at the drop of a hat.
I told you to stop making so much sense! It's downright anti-American of you!
<>
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Originally posted by Neubob
Actually, I'm waiting for red26 to show up and tell me that I, along with everyone else carrying a US passport, should enlist and give my country 2 years of military service before opening my big fat mouth. Seems that my being a contributing citizen and taxpayer haven't earned me jack **** as far as voicing opinions.
Took a real revelation to understand that not every cause our leaders adopt is actually worth the sacrifice of young American lives. In fact, few causes are. There's nothing patriotic about someone who regurgitates the same old slogans, and is ready to vehemently and mindlessly support military action, and inevitably, the loss of servicemen, at the drop of a hat.
Close. No cigar.
Lets clear up a little point of order.. you seem to laboring under the misconception that we have an elected government that does the bidding of the people. Most folks that have not served share that belief.. it's the data set programmed into yer skull from all those years spent in the governement school system.
If yah REALLY wanna see how corporate intrests control the government a short stint in service to the corporate shill, watching the greed, avarice and assinine political trashing about that gets yer buddies killed..
Well, suffice to say that surviving government service in 'wartime' and existing inside it during 'peacetime' gives a bit better perspective on how the game is rigged.
What's wrong with the american political system?
Go ahead.. you can say it...
"Corporate Control of the Government".
Once you serve, you know.
And, get this... only one in 10,000 americans currently serve. One in 10,000 knows the TRUTH.
Now, lets enjoy another little 'what if' scernario. Lets have every kid on his/her 18th birthday serve the corrupt system for 2 years.. military service is not required.. just service. State, town, village.. yer kid gets a real job, gets real pay and learns about how the system works. Gets to see the whole mindbending screwed-up corrupt system firsthand without a media filter. Nothin like first hand experience in a cesspool to convince yah that **** stinks.
I suspect that such a system would effect a rapid and positive shift in the political landscape, and I also suspect it would be the end of corporate government... because the 'average voter' would know just how utterly critical a REAL representitive local government is to the saftey, security and welfare of it's citizens is.
Cheers!
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Originally posted by Hangtime
Go ahead.. you can say it...
"Corporate Control of the Government".
Can I get an amen?
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I thought big corporations already controled the government?
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Originally posted by Hangtime
Most folks that have not served share that belief.. it's the data set programmed into yer skull from all those years spent in the governement school system.
Please don't leap to judge, Hangtime. I think that the general theme of my recent posts was how this government is acting irrationally, and how this irrationality is becoming more and more pronounced every day.
I didn't go to a government school, nor did I ever imagine, in my wildest dreams, that the goals of this administration, or any other, had anything to do with my personal interests. In theory, it should, but theory is theory and reality is, well, depressing. Bush's actions don't surprise me, and I've never cast a vote because I thought somebody was going to be 'exactly what we need'. I've cast votes based on who was going to cause me, my family, less rather than more harm. Whatever support I had for Bush was based largely, perhaps solely, on the Republicans' traditional tax policies. The absurdity of this adminstration's current course of action, however, is overshadowing whatever benefits I saw in voting for GW in the first place.
As for government service, last time I spent three hours waiting for a driver's license renewal, the prevailing thoughts in my mind didn't include, 'gee, if anyone knows what's really going on, it's these hard-working souls'.
I do understand where you're coming from. Many people could use a some first-hand experience to get a much-needed reality check. Many people that do serve the government, however, in whatever way, military or other, remain just as ignorant as they were. Sometimes, they get worse.
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Just a thought...
The reason Columbus sailed west to get to the east was to get to the riches of the east without having to deal with Arab traders.