inconclusive ramblings trailing off into lunacy . . .

[Michael Tee]

I've got to admit to being a little shaken up by the description of the Sunni torture chambers just found by the U.S. military in Iraq.  Nothing that the U.S. didn't already sponsor in the Dominican Republic under Trujillo or in Argentina or Chile under the generals or in Nicaragua under Somoza, but it's pretty fuckin bad nevertheless.  Actually, it's worse than pretty fuckin bad - - they have hit rock bottom.  It just doesn't get any worse.

These guys have to be stopped.  And if the U.S. is the only power that can stop them, then let it be the U.S. that does the job.  Regardless of how bad the U.S. itself might be.  They can only be the equal of their opponents, they can't possibly be any worse.   

Of course you gotta wonder how much Negroponte contributed to the formation of the Shi'a death squads.  The Sunnis already knew their craft - - learned it under Saddam.  But even if you can credit the U.S. for creating 50% of the problem, that seems kind of irrelevant now.  Stopping these guys dead in their tracks is a whole lot more important than arguing about who created them in the first place.

Bottom line is I don't trust the U.S.A. but nothing could be worse than letting Sunni and Shi'a death squads continue to exercise a free hand.  These guys have just got to be wiped out.  By whoever can do it.  But if that's the U.S. and Britain, at the end of the day won't they just leave one of their puppets in charge who is either from one group of torturers or the other?

Maybe the only solution is to draft an army of 500,000 additional guys and send 'em in to lock the place down for thirty years, till a whole new generation of American-educated Iraqis can take it over and run it on more or less "Western" political principles.  Teach them John Stuart Mill instead of the Koran while they're growing up.

[Plane]

Who are you and hat have youdone with Mike T?

[Michael Tee]

I'm Michael Tee but I'm just starting to realize the enormity of the problem.  It's insoluble.  The real problem is that the U.S.A. really doesn't give a shit about the tortures that the Shi'a and Sunni inflict on one another.  Hell, they supported Saddam for years, knowing that that's exactly how he kept the lid on.

I'd back them in a New York minute if I felt they were there to put an end to these atrocities but reality is they just don't give a shit.

And who else but the Americans would have the capability and the clean hands to make a difference?  Denmark?  New Zealand?

plane, this is a really hopeless situation.  The situation basically is that the bad guys rule the world.  In theory the U.N. could and should do the job.  But the bad guys rule at the U.N. too.    This shit is going to go on forever and ever.  Till the end of the world.

[Plane]

Don't loose heart MT ,  as many problems are still caused by idealists as crooks just as it aways has been.

[Michael Tee]

I don't even know what that means, plane.  Or what difference it makes.  Right now right under your nose and my nose there is this shit going on every fucking day and nobody and nothing is going to stop it.

[Plane]

Are the strong ever innocent ?

If something that we could halt goes on without our interference are we guilty too?

If we interfere with evil , but our interference itself produces some evil , what do our good intents count for?

If our choice is between two evils and e must take sides or stay nutreal , how indeed do we choose ? Is it a sort of math in which one of the choices will clearly produce the least evil?

I appreciate the role you play as a tweaker of the conscience, there are many like you and you serve us all well to ensure that even the least likely dirt gets dug up .  Do you have a spritual cousin doing this same service for our opponents?

If Democracy and freedom take root the people can fight problems like these you have just found in the same manner as we have fought simular problems in England and the US , gradually and with setbacks.  If a dictator runs things such problems will be covered over better and complainers will be much less heard from.

In Tiawan , S.Korea and Japan a simular pattern of autocratic semi-democratic rule has gradually improved to be less autocratic and more representtive.

If it takes two or five more centuries , should our goal be to inflict democracy anywhere we can?  Does the introduction of democracy releave us of further responsibilitys?

[Michael Tee]

<<I appreciate the role you play as a tweaker of the conscience, there are many like you and you serve us all well to ensure that even the least likely dirt gets dug up . >>

Always nice to be appreciated.  Thanks, plane.


 <<Do you have a spritual cousin doing this same service for our opponents?>>

Suppose I don't, plane.  Suppose your "opponents" are just totally sunk in depravity without one single dissenting or questioning voice among millions.  Would you adjust your own standards of conduct accordingly?

In answer to some of the other questions you asked, IMHO, I don't see why the strong are precluded from being innocent, it's always a question of how they choose to exercise that strength.  I don't see strength itself as evil.  Fidel Castro is strong and he's good too.  Seems like Hugo Chavez is cut from the same mold, but we need more time to see.  Fidel is a giant, a man like that comes along maybe once in a century.  Chavez - - who knows?

Your next question was a lot more complex than it looks on the surface.  I think there's a sliding scale of guilt or innocence, pending on what your actions could cost you and your loved ones.

As for introducing democracy - - I think it's OK to teach democracy, but to forcibly impose it on another country or society?  I don't see that happening anywhere.  Germany and Japan had parliamentary governments that were more or less democratic before they fell into fascism.  It was fascism that was the aberration, not democracy.  But to force democracy onto a country that never had it?  Or worse, in the case of the Iraqis, on a tribal culture that existed outside of the whole Greek idea of citizenship and its responsibilties and duties?  AT the very least, I'd have to say that there would be better ways of doing it than at the point of a gun.

I am looking at something that is so bad that it should be stopped.  Here and now.  Without all the philosophizing about right and wrong intentions, etc.  These guys (death squads, Sunni, Shi'a) need to be killed.  All of them.  Not just the Sunni.  Either the U.S. can do the job - - which means setting aside the Maliki government and taking over direct rule - - or it can't.  And if it can't, it should stop pretending it can, and just get the hell out.  IMHO.

[Plane]

What worked in Japan was Douglas McArther telling the Jappannese what was going to happen , he made the writing of the Japaneese Constitution a job for his staff.

McArthers staff included some very sharp people and some liberals , they turned out a constitution that makes our own look crude.


The Japaneese  were thouroughly beaten , freindless and ready to accept .


I wish that the process used in Iraq had gone smoother , but I don't wish that we had beaten them down worse first to make them more accepting. I wish that we had used this same method for consitution writeing in Cuba and the Phillipines , the improvement we effected there was not as good as we got  in  S.Korea and Japan , but of course Douglas McArther knew that stry well and avoided some of the mistakes we made seventy years earlyer.


Will we learn something in Iraq that will make us better for all the world? Will we be stung ad humiliated there so badly that we will withdraw and allow a killing feilds episode to occur without interfereing?

Would empowering the people of Iraq be a mistake?

Even if we eventually fail we will have attempted to produce a good thing.

[Michael Tee]

<<Even if we eventually fail we will have attempted to produce a good thing. >>

What you attempted was to invade another country for your own selfish purposes and then ran out of lies to justify it.  In the course of the criminal aggression, you realized you had stumbled into the inside of a hornets' nest and found that some of the hornets were even more evil, vicious and sadistic than your own trained killers.  Then you tried to make yourselves look good by comparing yourselves with people who were even worse, and pretending that your purpose in going there was a noble one all along.

Meantime I see that the body of one of your soldiers was pulled out of the river "with signs of torture."   Nobody will ever say what they did to him.  If people knew, they'd probably demand a total all-out war.  Never thought I'd say this, but I actually feel sorry for the guy.  He fell into the hands of animals  Worse than animals.  Never thought I'd say this either but I hope your guys find the guys who did this and blow them off the face of the earth.

This whole thing is just so fucking depressing.  I blame Bush.  Ultimately.  But now I think he's just in over his head.

[Plane]

<<Even if we eventually fail we will have attempted to produce a good thing. >>

What you attempted was to invade another country for your own selfish purposes and then ran out of lies to justify it.  In the course of the criminal aggression, you realized you had stumbled into the inside of a hornets' nest and found that some of the hornets were even more evil, vicious and sadistic than your own trained killers.  Then you tried to make yourselves look good by comparing yourselves with people who were even worse, and pretending that your purpose in going there was a noble one all along.

Meantime I see that the body of one of your soldiers was pulled out of the river "with signs of torture."   Nobody will ever say what they did to him.  If people knew, they'd probably demand a total all-out war.  Never thought I'd say this, but I actually feel sorry for the guy.  He fell into the hands of animals  Worse than animals.  Never thought I'd say this either but I hope your guys find the guys who did this and blow them off the face of the earth.

This whole thing is just so fucking depressing.  I blame Bush.  Ultimately.  But now I think he's just in over his head.

"In the course of the criminal aggression, you realized you had stumbled into the inside of a hornets' nest and found that some of the hornets were even more evil, vicious and sadistic than your own trained killers."


That Al Queda is vicious? I am not surprised , you should read up on what the tipical treatment was for Russians that they capturd during their War in Afganistan.

[Michael Tee]

<<That Al Queda is vicious? I am not surprised , you should read up on what the tipical treatment was for Russians that they capturd during their War in Afganistan.>>

Then you should never have sponsored them in the first place.  What you got was payback, pure and simple.  The wages of sin.

[Plane]

<<That Al Queda is vicious? I am not surprised , you should read up on what the tipical treatment was for Russians that they capturd during their War in Afganistan.>>

Then you should never have sponsored them in the first place.  What you got was payback, pure and simple.  The wages of sin.

They were what they were , we did not change them , but we used them in the same manner that the Soviets used the Vietnameese , the part that became Al Queda exaggerated their importance greatly , but they did learn quite a bit .

Most of the aid sent by the US was funnelled thru Zia Al Haq , in order to keep our involvement hard to see, we did it his way.

Again I reccomend  the book "Charlie Wilsons War" which is a slice of life in the CIA when it is operateing effectively ,as opposed to the office down the hall where the support of the Contras was drawing a lot of attention.

[Michael Tee]

<<They were what they were , we did not change them , but we used them in the same manner that the Soviets used the Vietnameese , the part that became Al Queda exaggerated their importance greatly , but they did learn quite a bit .

<<Most of the aid sent by the US was funnelled thru Zia Al Haq , in order to keep our involvement hard to see, we did it his way.>>
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I think I got it   If I kill my wife, I'm guilty.  If I hire a hit-man to kill my wife, I'm guilty.  But if I give the money to Zia al Haq and tell him to hire a hit-man to kill my wife, I'm innocent.

And that's cause the hit-man is what he is, I didn't change him but I used him?  Or is it because I gave the money to Zia?

I'm kinda new to this moral evasion business.  The finer points are still eluding me.

[Plane]

<<They were what they were , we did not change them , but we used them in the same manner that the Soviets used the Vietnameese , the part that became Al Queda exaggerated their importance greatly , but they did learn quite a bit .

<<Most of the aid sent by the US was funnelled thru Zia Al Haq , in order to keep our involvement hard to see, we did it his way.>>
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I think I got it   If I kill my wife, I'm guilty.  If I hire a hit-man to kill my wife, I'm guilty.  But if I give the money to Zia al Haq and tell him to hire a hit-man to kill my wife, I'm innocent.

And that's cause the hit-man is what he is, I didn't change him but I used him?  Or is it because I gave the money to Zia?

I'm kinda new to this moral evasion business.  The finer points are still eluding me.

Did I claim innocence in the misery of the Soviet Army ?

I was already working for the government when this was still going on , I would have participated if I had been asked.

[Michael Tee]

<<Did I claim innocence in the misery of the Soviet Army ?

<<I was already working for the government when this was still going on , I would have participated if I had been asked.>>

So if I understand you correctly, the "treatment" dished out by the mujahideen to their prisoners is morally unobjectionable when performed on Russian prisoners and becomes a crime only when performed on Americans?  Or do you mean to say that this treatment is perfectly OK regardless of whether its recipients are Russian or American captives/