IRAQ A GOOD IDEA?

[retread]

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More and more lies are being exposed!  More and more deaths are taking place!  Why? Why aren't people standing up for truth?
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David,

I have been trying to identify the "more and more" lies that you speak of without much success.  What would be helpful to me is if you could post a simple easy to understand list of these lies that you speak of.  That way, I might have a greater understanding and appreciation of your posts.

Thanks,
Retread

[editor]

Joe have you ever read Ishi the last of his tribe?  How about Burry my Heart at Wounded Knee?  Perhaps this would open your eyes about "Scalps"  and "Raided Cabins"

I read Meinkampf.

It was interesting, because Hitler did exactly what he said he would do.  It's a good thing we didn't try to stop him before we had "proof."  That wouldn't have been fair.

Brent

[Oscar]

Joe have you ever read Ishi the last of his tribe?  How about Burry my Heart at Wounded Knee?  Perhaps this would open your eyes about "Scalps"  and "Raided Cabins"

Joe,

There is something you don't understand.  The aboriginal inhabitants that had survived their constant internecine warfare at the time of the beginning of European colonization of North America have been absolved of all guilt by the liberal elitists.

In these folks minds, nothing matters but the bad treatment recieved by the "Indians" from the Europeans, (of which there was plenty). This is the only part of the story that matters.

Thomas Maddux

[Joe Sperling]

David----

It would do you good to read "The Journals of Lewis and
Clark". There truly was mistreatment of Indians by Europeans, of this there can be no denial. But there were tribes(and Lewis and Clark ran into them) who were utterly heartless and cruel "savages". As were the Aztecs(in Central America) who performed human sacrifices, tearing the hearts from living victims before their "gods". As Tom has mentioned, liberals today conveniently forget these things and paint the Indians as "all wise victims of European aggression".  Every part of the world has had it's "invaders", just as North America itself had one tribe warring with another(unless you're naive enough to believe that  all of the indians lived together in perfect harmony and peace.--this is a terrible lie--as they warred with one another, taking slaves and torturing. The taking of "scalps" didn't originate with calvarymen---they scalped other tribesmen on a regular basis, inflicting torture and stealing wives.). Throughout the world there has been slavery. The Egyptians(Africans) had the jews as slaves---The Zulus were renowned for their slave owning of other tribes. Later, these same africans became slaves to the Europeans--history repeats and repeats itself,with no one race or people absolved of any guilt.

[editor]

David----

It would do you good to read "The Journals of Lewis and
Clark". There truly was mistreatment of Indians by Europeans, of this there can be no denial. But there were tribes(and Lewis and Clark ran into them) who were utterly heartless and cruel "savages". As were the Aztecs(in Central America) who performed human sacrifices, tearing the hearts from living victims before their "gods". As Tom has mentioned, liberals today conveniently forget these things and paint the Indians as "all wise victims of European aggression".  Every part of the world has had it's "invaders", just as North America itself had one tribe warring with another(unless you're naive enough to believe that  all of the indians lived together in perfect harmony and peace.--this is a terrible lie--as they warred with one another, taking slaves and torturing. The taking of "scalps" didn't originate with calvarymen---they scalped other tribesmen on a regular basis, inflicting torture and stealing wives.). Throughout the world there has been slavery. The Egyptians(Africans) had the jews as slaves---The Zulus were renowned for their slave owning of other tribes. Later, these same africans became slaves to the Europeans--history repeats and repeats itself,with no one race or people absolved of any guilt.

Yes, but the most important thing to remember about the Indians, or Native Americans, is that they cry big tears when litter is thrown onto the highway by the white man driving a station wagon.

I think that says it all right there.  Indians a good, and if we just gave them money, our world would be a better place.

Brent

[Oscar]

Brent,

Believe me, we "give" them lots of money.  It's called Indian Gaming.  

Joe,

Once I was reading a book written by a companion of Hernan Cortez who was with him throughout the trip up from the coast until after the conquest of Tenochtitlan.

He described how the Aztecs ate human flesh.  They only ate the arms and legs.  The bodies were fed to their dogs and to the animals in Moctezuma's zoo.

He said that they used a sauce made out of tomatos with peppers and chiles mixed in....SALSA no less!  

Thomas

[editor]

Brent,

Believe me, we "give" them lots of money.  It's called Indian Gaming.  

Joe,

Once I was reading a book written by a companion of Hernan Cortez who was with him throughout the trip up from the coast until after the conquest of Tenochtitlan.

He described how the Aztecs ate human flesh.  They only ate the arms and legs.  The bodies were fed to their dogs and to the animals in Moctezuma's zoo.

He said that they used a sauce made out of tomatos with peppers and chiles mixed in....SALSA no less!  

Thomas

Yes, but they had such a rich culture!  The white man just assumed that they were better than the Aztecs.

If the white man wasn't able to defeat them, with far fewer forces and better technology and strategy, then the Aztecs would still be here today.  Of course, there is always the possibility that they would disappear like the cultures that came before them.   Perhaps the continuous eating of eachother doomed their culture?  The huge numbers of people being sacrificed may have made the idea of emigration seem rather attractive.....

but they had a rich, rich culture.   Too bad the white man came on the scene.   I would love to go to one of those ball games they used to play.   The festival of Queztequaltl would have been a wonderful cultural experience where we could have observed differing, yet equally valid beliefs put into practice.   Actually, their religious practices are probably more than equally valid, because their culture was so rich.

We need to return to pagan practices in order to regain a proper respect for the earth.

Brent

[brian]

One of them is  Might Makes Right.
Another is,  To The Victor Go The Spoils.

while i recognize the validity of what you are saying, i think that us foreign policy should be implemented with a little more foresight and depth of understanding of the international community. right now we are the big dog, but a big dog can be taken down by a truly pissed-off pack of little dogs. much of the power in the world today is economic, and from my vantage point the scales are tipping more in the direction of economic power every day. i think its possible that military power will someday no longer be the dominant decision-making power on the planet. europe is uniting (are you keeping your eyes on the EU?) and consolidating its power.

what we did in iraq is violently attack a country that had not violently attacked us, in full view of the entire world. naturally, noone likes to see the big dog get this kind of attitude - it spells trouble for all the smaller dogs. and the smaller dogs are uniting. we squashed a helpless third world country because bush was determined to, and he gave us the propoganda (much of it untrue) needed to get his war. the arabic countries hate us for this. the europeans hate us for ignoring their opinion on the subject. canada is nervous to be sharing a border with us when we behave like this. the administration is finally starting to catch on to the fact that these predictable reactions are indeed happening exactly as predicted:

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/10/01/public.diplomacy/index.html

we are now at a place where we are forced to dump billions (at least) of dollars into building iraq into a better country than it was before we bombed it, simply to save face. i would be shocked if we do not grossly exceed pres bush's $87 billion estimate. all that cost and effort for what? what is our big payoff? we are not taking their oil, and i don't read of anyone being grateful to us for what we did (including most of iraq). the terrorist threat towards us from the arab community has grown as its fear and hatred of us has grown. thats a pretty scary oops. and bush is now in the awkward position of trying to convince countries he thumbed his nose at to help us buy our way out of our mess. everyone will probably get in line or get out of the way eventually, but when the time comes that our superiority is seriously threatened they will remember.

this was not a case of two rams butting heads. this was a case of a ram (the usa) demolishing a hornet's nest just because the ram felt like it. and the two queen hornets got away.

as always, there is a lot more that could be said about these complex political problems, but i at least don't want them to get too oversimplified in people's minds.

brian

[editor]

Quite right Brian

I wasn't attempting to justify our foreign policy, or simplify it to that level, but merely trying to make the point that these are two of the very few laws that actually govern in this life.

Might can make right either way, as you pointed out.

The problem is that we didn't declare war, and didn't fight a war.  Perhaps because we didn't have the political, or even moral justification to declare war.

We should have done so, and conquered Iraq, or we should have stayed out altogether.  Halfway, compromised measures are almost never successful.

Brent

[Oscar]

what we did in iraq is violently attack a country that had not violently attacked us, in full view of the entire world. naturally, noone likes to see the big dog get this kind of attitude - it spells trouble for all the smaller dogs. and the smaller dogs are uniting. we squashed a helpless third world country because bush was determined to, and he gave us the propoganda (much of it untrue) needed to get his war. the arabic countries hate us for this. the europeans hate us for ignoring their opinion on the subject. canada is nervous to be sharing a border with us when we behave like this. the administration is finally starting to catch on to the fact that these predictable reactions are indeed happening exactly as predicted:

Brian, concerning your idea that we "squashed" Iraq "because Bush was determined to".

Remember that Bush had nearly unanimous votes from both houses of Congress before going to war.  Both the House and the Senate have Intelligence Committees that can and do interview the FBI and CIA people, independent of the White House.  These guys had EXACTLY the same intelligence Bush did when they voted to approve the invasion of Iraq.

Also, the leaders of both parties from both houses of Congress were brought to White House briefings before the votes, and they said nothing whatsoever at the time about the intelligence being faulty or interpreted poorly.

Did you know that Hans Blix, no friend of Bush, said a few days ago that Saddam Hussein might have actually brought the whole thing on by keeping up the appearance of still having the WMA's?  

What is going on in the press about "lies" is actually much more closely related to the 2004 Presidential election than our reasons for going to war.  The "liberal" media picks up and spreads the party line, and the faithful lefties, filled with righteous wrath,begin wailing and gnashing their teeth.

Notice that even though the Labor Party in England is going through exactly the same issues, they aren't about to can Tony Blair over this.  After Blair blasted the BBC for their "agenda based" reporting...they backed off and said that he hadn't lied at all and had "poorly interpreted" the intelligence he had.

 the terrorist threat towards us from the arab community has grown as its fear and hatred of us has grown. thats a pretty scary oops. and bush is now in the awkward position of trying to convince countries he thumbed his nose at to help us buy our way out of our mess. everyone will probably get in line or get out of the way eventually, but when the time comes that our superiority is seriously threatened they will remember.

I think a case can be made that the terrorist threat has been lessened.  The terrorist threat didn't begin on 9/11, that's just when most Americans woke up to how bad it is.  The Saudi's have been funding schools all over the Islamic world for years where they have taught millions of kids to hate us for our support of Israel and our worldiliness, which they fear will corrupt their kids. (they are right).

Now we come to what can be a legitimate policy debate: Should we take a proactive or reactive stance to the terrorist threat.  Bush, along with Congress, chose a proactive course.  Syria and Iran hate our guts, (nothing new there).

But, they are behaving themselves a whole lot better after they saw what happened to SH and Sons, Inc.  Assad and the Ayatollas have no desire to do anything that would justify us moving into their countries....like getting caught providing support to terrorists.  I am not saying they don't, but they are much more limited in what they can do.  

Right now the news is focusing on the problems in Iraq.  BUT, let somebody blow up some american building or ship and let it be shown that these guys helped, even with money, and you are going to hear Americans howling for their blood.

They REALLY don't want to go there.  So they are forced to severly limit the practical expressions of their long standing hatred of the West, (us in particular).

Thomas Maddux

[vernecarty]

Brian,

I think Canada is counting on The USA to defend us if a need arises; we are not nervous to be shaing a border with the States. The stuff on the news is mostly about discrediting Bush. Things don't look good for Bush right now. A Canadian author David Frum has written a book The Right Man: The Surprise Presidency of George W. Bush. You might find it interesting.

Lord bless,
Marcia

Dubyah's biggest fear has always been that he would see a repeat of the remarkable "one-timer" fate his father experienced. Although the younger Bush's war was not nearly so popular as the elder's, the fickleness of the electorate may hold true also in the younger's case...like Father, like Son...
Verne

[Oscar]

Brent,

Believe me, we "give" them lots of money.  It's called Indian Gaming.  

Joe,

Once I was reading a book written by a companion of Hernan Cortez who was with him throughout the trip up from the coast until after the conquest of Tenochtitlan.

He described how the Aztecs ate human flesh.  They only ate the arms and legs.  The bodies were fed to their dogs and to the animals in Moctezuma's zoo.

He said that they used a sauce made out of tomatos with peppers and chiles mixed in....SALSA no less!  

Thomas

Yes, but they had such a rich culture!  The white man just assumed that they were better than the Aztecs.

If the white man wasn't able to defeat them, with far fewer forces and better technology and strategy, then the Aztecs would still be here today.  Of course, there is always the possibility that they would disappear like the cultures that came before them.   Perhaps the continuous eating of eachother doomed their culture?  The huge numbers of people being sacrificed may have made the idea of emigration seem rather attractive.....

but they had a rich, rich culture.   Too bad the white man came on the scene.   I would love to go to one of those ball games they used to play.   The festival of Queztequaltl would have been a wonderful cultural experience where we could have observed differing, yet equally valid beliefs put into practice.   Actually, their religious practices are probably more than equally valid, because their culture was so rich.

We need to return to pagan practices in order to regain a proper respect for the earth.

Brent

A few years ago I took a class on a field trip to the LA County Museum of Art.  They had a big display of Meso-American artifacts.

One of the artifacts was a ceramic statue of an Aztec priest who had stripped off some poor indian's skin, (they did it while the victims were still alive...even little kids. They believed that their tears caused rain or some such), and was wearing it like a jump suit.

Anyway, the docent, a young "enlightned and compassionate" product of our higher education system, didn't want to discuss that particular artifact.  Sooooo old Mr. Maddux kept asking questions like..."what's that guy wearing?" and "why does he have extra hands and feet hanging down like that?"

Aren't I naughty?


Thomas Maddux

[editor]

Wonderful, rich culture, the Aztecs!

I wonder how it was that the Mayans, Toltecs, and Olmecs dissappeared in to the jungle?  Do you suppose the Aztecs had anything to do with it?  Probably not.

I wish Cortez had not conquered these people.  We might still have some of the benefit of their rich culture today.  Perhaps in the fashion industry.

Brent

[Oscar]

Wonderful, rich culture, the Aztecs!

I wonder how it was that the Mayans, Toltecs, and Olmecs dissappeared in to the jungle?  Do you suppose the Aztecs had anything to do with it?  Probably not.

I wish Cortez had not conquered these people.  We might still have some of the benefit of their rich culture today.  Perhaps in the fashion industry.

Brent

Brent,

The Olmecs were centered around the gulf coast and had their day many centuries before the Aztecs arrived.  

The Toltecs had their empire in the central valley of Mexico, as did the Aztecs.  However, once again, they had come and gone long before the Aztects got there.

The Mayans were in serious decline when the Aztecs entered the valley of Mexico.  They had had many powerful city states in southern Mexico...Chiapas and the Yucatan Penensula.  When the Aztecs arrived this area had declined and many cities had been abandoned.  However, they still had many centers in Guatemala and Honduras.

The Aztecs tried to conquer them but had not made much progress by the time the Spanish came visiting.   It took the Spanish about 150 years to finally bring them under control.  Chiapas has rebelled several times since then.  From 1900 to the 1920's it was almost an independent country.  They are still a headache to the Mexican government.  For some reason, they just don't seem to enjoy being reduced to serfdom by foreign conquerors.  Go figure.

The Aztecs moved into the valley of Mexico in the late 1100's, and didn't become an empire until about 150 years before Cortez. (I'm working from memory here).  They constantly had to reconquer people since all their "subjects" hated their guts.  They never did conquer Tlaxcala, a nearby city who naturally allied themselves with Cortez.  The Tlaxcalans supplied several thousand warriors to help the Spanish conquer the Aztec capital.

Bernal Diaz, who was an officer under Cortez, wrote that as they moved up from the Vera Cruz area, (on the Gulf), they saw wooden cages in almost every town full of people being sent to Tenochtitlan to be sacrificed.  Imagine how a parent felt when the village elders came to collect their kids to send them to the beloved Aztec overlords. They were sent to have their hearts cut out and their skins stripped off, before they became snacks for the Aztec nobility, and finally ended up as dog food.

All of these Meso-American cultures practiced human sacrifice.  I don't know if they all ate people McNuggets.  The Aztecs took a common practice and raised it to new "heights".

Thomas Maddux

[Joe Sperling]

An interesting side note: The Capitol City of the Aztecs was called Tenochtitlan. Apparently the natives sang a song back then which has the same tune and close to the same words as one used today describing a large California Coastal city.

"I left my heart in Tenochtitlan" was a favorite of the Aztecs and often sung at sacrifices.


--Joe