What? AP says we're WINNING in Iraq?

[Michael Tee]

<<Don't have one. >>

Good.  Cuz you sure coulda fooled me.

[Xavier_Onassis]

I guess one of the questions we all have to ask is how much this cartoonish depiction of complex foreign policy issues contributes to the belligerence of ill-informed schmucks who seem to think that international politics can be resolved favourably if one just thinks of them as plots for a cowboy movie.

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As in "Mister Gorbachov. Tear down this wall!"

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What the average American does not understand is that US foreign policy is not designed for the comfort, convenience or well-being of the average American, but for the profitability of the oligarchy that actually runs the country.

With or without the invasion of Iraq, we still have to pay through the nose for petroleum products. No amount of offshore drilling will bring down prices this year, and probably not even this decade.

Invading Iraq has resulted in higher insurance premiums for oil tankers. Those insurance companies are not Iraqi-owned, and they have not had to pay any more in claims than they did before the war. So the result is net profit. It has also caused instabiity, and that also results in an opportunity to raise prices.

[Michael Tee]

I think in addition to the oil concessions, which all the pigs are now lining up at the trough for, the brilliance of the concept was that they would totally wreck the whole fucking country and then make the poor buggers pay for their own reconstruction (to American and British contractors, of course) out of whatever oil profits the "multinationals" were going to leave over for them after taking their own cut first.  It looked seamlessly foolproof till it turned out that those ragheads knew how to fight.  Who woulda thunk?

[hnumpah]

It looked seamlessly foolproof till it turned out that those ragheads knew how to fight.

 

Racist now, as well. Who woulda thunk?

[Xavier_Onassis]

I think in addition to the oil concessions, which all the pigs are now lining up at the trough for, the brilliance of the concept was that they would totally wreck the whole fucking country and then make the poor buggers pay for their own reconstruction (to American and British contractors, of course) out of whatever oil profits the "multinationals" were going to leave over for them after taking their own cut first.  It looked seamlessly foolproof till it turned out that those ragheads knew how to fight.  Who woulda thunk?
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Racist now, as well. Who woulda thunk?

Calling someone a "raghead" is  not a racist remark, it is a comment which suggests that a groups' choice of headwear is unstylish or otherwise inappropriate.

I agree that this was the plan that Cheney,  Rummy, et al thought up.
It was poorly planned, since it neglects to acknowledge what happens when all order is abolished, and the number of weapons pressnt in Iraq at the time of the invasion.

[Michael Tee]

<<Racist now, as well. Who woulda thunk?>>

I really never thought that comment needed any explanation at all, but who woulda thunk?  "Raghead" was an ironic use of the word that would have come naturally to the anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, racist American right wing, meant to reflect (and mock) THEIR POV, not mine.  The whole line was ironic, since it was obvious to anyone with even a basic knowledge of 20th Century history that these are very hard-fighting people who would not surrender their lands and their oil any more readily to the Americans than they had to the British.

I think next time I'm going to post a "WARNING: IRONY" label whenever irony is used.  Might save me a bit of time in the long run.

[Xavier_Onassis]

If an Arab calls an American a "Baseball-capper" or a "stetsonian", would that be racist?

I agree with your premise that the assumption that because Iraqis had few major inventions to their credit and had never put anything in orbit, that conquering them and dominating their economy would be easy.

One notes that even Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and Karl Rove to boot, had also never invented anything, nor had they put anything in orbit, either.

[Amianthus]

I agree with your premise that the assumption that because Iraqis had few major inventions to their credit and had never put anything in orbit, that conquering them and dominating their economy would be easy.

December 5, 1989.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Coulda fooled me. I was unaware of any Iraqi satellite.

[hnumpah]

Calling someone a "raghead" is  not a racist remark

Bullshit.

[Amianthus]

I was unaware of any Iraqi satellite.

Just because you're not aware of it does not mean it didn't happen.

[Michael Tee]

<<If an Arab calls an American a "Baseball-capper" or a "stetsonian", would that be racist?>>

No, no more than "jarhead," but I think intent is a part of the meaning.  From what I can see, when people use "raghead" it's almost always in a derogatory sense. "Those ragheads . . . "  You know something negative is going to follow to complete the sentence.  You won't hear a Nobel Prize presenter ever awarding anything "to Professor Ali of the distinguished raghead university, al Azhar."

<<I agree with your premise that the assumption that because Iraqis had few major inventions to their credit and had never put anything in orbit, that conquering them and dominating their economy would be easy.>>

They looked on them as technically unadvanced and racially inferior.  They do not believe that darker-skinned people are as  tough as "white men" (i.e. European-descended) and some of them (General Boynton, for example) even believe that "Our God is stronger than their God."  There is literally no limit to the craziness of the U.S. military, although they have some kind of residual sense of how far they can go in their public utterances, for example, extreme pro-Nazi or anti-Muslim sentiments will be sternly rebuked, at least for public consumption.  If you recall the film, Dr. Strangelove Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, there was a fantastic portrayal of an Air Force general preoccupied with the alleged Communist threat to his "vital bodily fluids" and another one of a lower-ranking Air Force officer obsessed with "pre-verts" infiltrating the base.

I wish I could find the 1965 TIME magazine account of the first U.S. invasion troops landing in Viet Nam, which was a classic of U.S. racist thinking.  I paraphrase somewhat, but it was a paragraph of "tough, lean, angry Yanks spoiling for a fight" spilling out of the landing craft and onto the beaches.  All I remember for sure is the "spoiling for a fight."  The description was probably similar to the Nazi supermen that Signal and other Nazi propaganda organs used to describe their troops back in the day.  The inference was that here were men so tough that no foreign enemy could possibly stand up to them.  I think the generals start to believe their own bullshit and guys like Cheney and Bush, who studiously avoided anything like combat operations have no idea what it's all about anyway and fall for their own military's self-assessments. 

[hnumpah]

"Raghead" was an ironic use of the word that would have come naturally to the anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, racist American right wing...

Irony does not require the use of racial slurs or stereotypes. The point could have been made just as effectively calling them by their proper names, i.e., Iraqis, Arabs, Pakistanis, Indians - whichever group of people who wear such headwear you wish to refer to. So, no, I don't quite buy the 'irony' angle, either. After all, if I had used any of the so-called racist code words for a black man, you, with your anti-American and, specifically, anti-Southern bias, would have been all over it, regardless of what explanation I gave.

[Michael Tee]

<<Irony does not require the use of racial slurs or stereotypes. >>

So effectively there's no way to satirize or parody a bigot who consistently uses racial slurs in his speech.  Gee, thanks, Teach, I'll make a note of that.

<<The point could have been made just as effectively calling them by their proper names, i.e., Iraqis, Arabs, Pakistanis, Indians - whichever group of people who wear such headwear you wish to refer to.>>

Wow, lessons in English composition.  Writers' tips.  Membership in this group is paying off in ways I never expected.

<<So, no, I don't quite buy the 'irony' angle, either. >>

Well, that's too bad.  I'll try not to lose any sleep over it.  You're probably the only reader in the group who DOESN'T get the irony, but really at the end of the day, I'm not about to make that MY problem.

<<After all, if I had used any of the so-called racist code words for a black man, you, with your anti-American and, specifically, anti-Southern bias, would have been all over it, regardless of what explanation I gave.>>

Actually, depending on the context, with or without my "anti-American" bias, I'd either be all over it or not, depending on how it read, and I wouldn't have to wait for the explanation.  If an explanation came, and demonstrated that I was wrong, I'd apologize and move on.  But hey, that's just me.

[Xavier_Onassis]

I suggest that if you say something like "Abdul, you stupid raghead", this could be interpreted as racist rather clearly, as the intent is to insult. On the other hand, if we say. "Cheney did not predict the ability of the ragheads to rebel", then this is nort so much racist as a suggestion that Cheney thought of the aforementioned Sons of Ishmael to be incompetent subhumans, a view not necessarily shared by the author of the remark.