"Shock and awe" starting

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-12272494,00.html

It depends on what you mean by permission. Normally simply not preventing someone from doing something isn't described as giving them permission. Should it be different when it comes to not preventing a government from taking some action?

can anyone actually list the nations in the coalition? i wonder...

Australia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, the Phillipines, Afghanistan (obv), Columbia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Australia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Denmark, the Netherlands, and basically Eastern Europe and Soviet break-aways as a block: Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland, and then like Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Uzbekistan, blah, blah, blah.

It's just a funny list to me because saying "El Salvador and Uzbekistan are on our side" raises questions like "what, were Malawi and Benin busy or something?"

To be used to open the can o'whup-ass, no doubt.

Also Spain and *sigh* Portugal. Leftist party members left parliament today because they weren't allowed to wear their "NOT IN MY NAME" t-shirts- there are very important conflicts going on in our country right now as you can see.

I thought Kirkuk was under Kurdish control?

fuck.

OMG this is so awful.

-
Alan

(as for gold, I am tracking it on my PC and it seems stable. equities prices are moving upon this show of dominance... gold will naturally decline in a surging equities market)

-
Alan

There is a portable TV here that we are watching it. One guy is getting off on it. I hate the people I work with.

newsguy: "b-but...we wouldn't use that in the middle of a city, right??"

warguy: "well, uh, yeah we dropped that on the palace! which is right in the center of the city. and we hope they're watchin, cuz we aint done nothing yet."

I shall now have to bite down and get a lot of spring quarter work done here at the library. There is nothing else I can do unless I want to sit here paralyzed.

As for it being "saturation bombing", I'd like to point out that you could hit tons of key targets in a city like London or NYC without massive collateral damage to the civilian population, and I doubt that in Iraq, there are schools full of kids at 9:30pm next door to the presidential palace. I'd let people who actually know something about warfare or downtown Baghdad to give me info.

1. The irony
2. Have you been to Manhattan?

His palace going up in a mushroom cloud. unbeleivable. . .

Any/all bombs can produce a mushroom cloud -- It comes from the rising hot air currents caused by shit blowing the fuck up.

Oops is OTM.

-
Alan

YOU ARE FUCKING INSANE AND KNOW NOTHING ABOUT MANHATTAN! There are plenty of homes/condos/apartments around the UN you nimrod!

In other news, Rummy's on the teevee now...

Even if current tech cuts that in half or better, with this amount of shit there will be significant misses.

Punk'd was on MTV a minute ago if anyone's interested.

They're all across the street... you could pretty clearly pick off the UN. There were tons of residences around the WTC, and while the WTC was in a vast plaza, they still pretty much came down right in place. In peacetime people get paid good money to bring down a building without damaging others around it...

somehow i don't think two thousand lbs of bombs care much for the little yellow lines in the center of the blacktop

We’re not talking one bomb. We’re not talking about taking out one target with a field around it.

In NYC for example, if you had previously wanted to take out the city’s emergency response center (a prime military target), what would you have taken out? The WTC.

A better example is Washington DC, since it, like Baghdad, is home to the political center

You can’t think of Baghdad in terms of Western cities. It has been so constructed that military targets are interspersed in civilian areas. E.g., military communications centers next to schools; military barracks next to hospitals, etc.

Yes, cruise missiles are known to strike buildings in precisely the correct way so they implode and fall in on themselves and not on other buildings.

I do think (hope) that these attacks aren't killing as many civilians as it appears, because it makes no sense to at this stage (or any stage, really).

Yeah my parents in fucking Tudor City 50 yards away from the UN would be just fine, assholes. Think before you post stupid shit. I could get comments like those above from other messageboards.

yet you're all willing to assume the worst

As for bomb blasts taking out everything nearby, lets use an example. While it may not have been dropped from a bomb, the explosives in the Ryder truck in Oklahoma City were around 4000 lbs, and yet nothing but the Federal Building was touched. Not because it wasn't real high explosive, but because buildings absorb a lot of explosive energy. Kinda like when a race car hits a wall and flys apart. Except that the building was never designed to fly apart, and the car was.

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Alan

As for "think about posting stupid shit", sorry I have those Jane's guides and read them. I'll remember not to learn anything in advance of a war next time so that make assertations like "that's a mushroom cloud! must be a low level nuke/daisycutter/whatever." (not trying to be a dick to Fletre, even though we've had our arguments in the past, I can understand the mistake).

-
Alan

you could hit tons of key targets in a city like ... NYC without massive collateral damage to the civilian population

Could you define tons of targets and massive collateral damage? And can you then reconcile that with an ap. 10% failure rate of precision-guided munitions?

I think it's pointless to cry over what might or might not be happenning to civilians in Bahdhad. This is a fucking war! Of course people are going to die! This would be the reason so many of us have opposed this war all along. Why act shocked now?

Why am I reminded of WS Burroughs?

NYC there aren't a lot of military targets, so I'd say maybe the UN, the WTC if it was still there, perhaps Wall Street and the ports. Ports and UN I stand by the fact that you wouldn't see hundreds of people die in collateral damage. A couple because residential areas aren't that far and people would be walking around, but condos and apartments nearby wouldn't fall. Then again, if it was wartime, people probably wouldn't be walking around. Also, how much "collateral damage" occurred early in the WTC attacks? Obviously, all the people killed were citizens, but I'm talking outside the buildings due to the planes hitting them (which weighed a lot more and hit a lot harder than a cruise missle)? Forget the buildings falling. If a war was happening, people would have been running from the WTC and looking to get in the subway to begin with, long before the buildings got hit.

You're also forgetting what time it is. Its 9:30 there, no 12:20. No kids are in school, so if they are nearby, no one got killed. No one is wandering around the street either, with Iraqi patrols out and cruise missles hitting the last two days.

As for the smart bombs missing, sure, one or two might have. But considering how large many of these targets were (the presidential palace in Baghdad is huge) is it likely that a bunch went off target and hit hospitals and such? Who knows? Again, jumping to conclusions. We'll eventually find out one way or another (whether the US is honest or the Red Cross blows their whistle, eg Panama).

Hundreds of people weren't killed though. That's what I'm saying. Yea, kids died in the Murroh (sp?) building, but in the nearby office buildings, they weren't carting hundreds of people out who were killed by the blast. There were some cuts from glass, but that was about it.

And before you accuse me of not understanding in the past few days I've engaged in deep conversation with many people about if DFW were attacked. A prime target would be Lockheed Martin where my stepdad works. No one involved in these discussions was offended. It's something we have to think about these days.

Now, if you lost a loved one in WTC then please accept my sympathies. However I still don't think that qualifies this discussion as "offensive".

I’m hoping and praying. As massive as the bombing may be, I think there will ‘only’ be about 100-200 civilian deaths. I am not pleased with any civilian deaths in wartime, but it will certainly not be Dresden.

Stencil, yeah I guess I am morbid but that wasn't really my point re: these discussions. I guess I just like to have an idea in my mind of all possible outcomes.

i love all the painstakingly detailed super-3D flyover MAPS of Baghdad all the networks have got now

so we can remember what it looked like once, i guess

Wow. That has nothing to do with anything I said.

Let's recap: "just because large bombs fall in a city does not automatically mean hundreds or thousands of innocent people died as a result. don't jump to conclusions." There. I think I'm done here now.

what to do, what to do. north korea anyone?

And I did say that to start with about 70 posts ago. "you can hit targets in every other city in the world without automatically wiping out innocents, baghdad is no different" is essentially equal to "just because large ordinance landed in downtown Iraq doesn't mean lots of innnocents died". Different words, sure, but basically the same meaning.

But when it appears that people are sticking their heads in the sand, it irritates me. Life is harsh. Where has everyone else been? We all know what happens when war starts, this is why we were all out in the protest marches, right?

Can someone please remind me what the reaction was like to the Gulf War? YES WAR IS TERRIBLE. But there are these apocolyptic reactions that I'm just stunned by.

Also, whether or not the NYC discussion is based on an erroneous belief, it's hardly an offensive conversation. It's not like he's fucking advocating blowing up NYC, calm down hstencil. Clearly he is wrong because the "obvious targets" in NYC, if they were taken down without any damage to anything besides those buildings, WOULD BE FULL OF NOTHING BUT CIVILIANS (anything on Wall St, the piers, WTC), the exception being the UN which is "governmental" in nature but doesn't support the war. So you'd have massive collateral damage in the form of all the people who have nothing to do with anything who are inside the building.

And Baghdad is specifically laid out to intersperse "targets" in civilian areas to make them harder to strike.

I understand this, and its a pure theoretical. And like I said twice before, Washington DC is a much better choice for such a theoretical. Is this done now?

:i'd like to note that by "collateral damage" in the NYC theoretical, its people outside those locations who would be killed, obviously minimized if it was accepted that we were in wartime conditions much like Baghdad is now:

One thing I do remember about the first Gulf War is that many people I knew behaved in ways I'd never seen before. I'm not convinced that "solemn realism" is any less strong an emotion as any other.

(nor would you attempt to deny someone else their right to theirs)

Crawler on NBC says US forces put US flag up over airfield (?) they had occupied in Iraq but were then asked to take it down. Complaints from inside British Parliment remind that the goal is to liberate Iraq not occupy it.

American flags over Iraq = disturbing.

Troops Told to Carry Freedom, Not the Flag
By JIM DWYER

CAMP NEW JERSEY, Kuwait, March 19, 2003 — As United States troops rolled toward the Iraq border this week, they were given orders on two matters of decorum: no throwing of candy to Iraqi children and no displaying of flags — regimental, state or even the American flag.

Hear, hear.

I'm finding it more offensive and inflammatory to read one line snarky, um, "simpering" to use other people's words than to read a million paragraphs about blowing up all of NYC.

and no one is discussing the poor kittens.

to suggest that this is 'selective' in some way implies that the anti-war faction chose to be worked up over iraq in a way they wouldn't have if the us was warring with, say, sudan

i don't think thats at all accurate

And I think Matos was right about me at least. I get angry very quickly in situations where other people get sad. It's just my response. It doesn't mean I'm heartless, just, well, wired differently.

March 20, 2003
Troops Told to Carry Freedom, Not the Flag
By JIM DWYER

CAMP NEW JERSEY, Kuwait, March 19, 2003 — As United States troops rolled toward the Iraq border this week, they were given orders on two matters of decorum: no throwing of candy to Iraqi children and no displaying of flags — regimental, state or even the American flag.

Military officials say that candy giveaways would draw swarms of children to the convoys, a dangerous proposition with thousands of trucks, Humvees and trailers barreling toward Baghdad. [as jess noted upthread, something like 47% of Iraq's population is under 17 -h]

As for the ban on flags, its effect was apparent in this camp today, where no more than a handful of vehicles mustering for the invasion displayed any.

Officials say the flag could give the citizens of Iraq the wrong idea about the convoys of artillery, ammunition and soldiers. They are not, these officials say, an army of conquest, intent on claiming Iraqi land or treasure for the United States, but a liberation force. They are concerned that streams of American flags would be seen as provocative.

"It's imposing enough that we're coming into another society," said Capt. Frank Stanco, a commander with an artillery unit in the 101st Airborne Division. "I tell our soldiers we want to maintain our professionalism. We could be making history. I call it being quiet professionals."

In 1991, at the end of the Persian Gulf war, American military convoys entered Kuwait festooned with the stars and stripes after a quick rout of the Iraqi Army occupying the country. Soldiers recall being greeted rapturously by the Kuwaitis.

This afternoon, thousands of soldiers sat in long convoys, fully packed and waiting for orders to begin an invasion that would carry many of them 400 miles north to Baghdad. Only a handful of the vehicles flew American flags.

The no-flags order was passed along to the 101st Airborne by its commander, Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus, who said the decision had been made by his superiors. "It's the right thing to do," said General Petraeus, a way of underscoring the American commitment to ousting the Iraqi government to enhance security and human rights, and not to seizing the country.

Spokesmen for the United States Central Command in Qatar said they were unable to provide information about the order today.

The question of flag flying provoked a small debate among artillery soldiers waiting to leave camp today. Specialist John Garcia said he was angry that he had been ordered to take down his flag, and that so few countries were supporting the United States and Britain in the military campaign.

"When they're in trouble, they don't call Russia, China, France, Turkey," said Specialist Garcia. "They call 911, the United States." That's why I put my flag on my Humvee."

Another soldier, Specialist Robert Bratton, said: "You can't blame them. You got a lot of Americans back in the States against it."

A sergeant, Elmer Smith, said the United States was seen as interfering in the affairs of too many countries.

Specialist Bratton said, "What's the reason we're fighting?"

Specialist Garcia answered, "I think Saddam Hussein got them weapons."

Specialist Bratton shook his head.

"I think it's oil," he said.

Sergeant Smith offered his theory. "I think it's revenge for his father," he said.

To Captain Stanco, who did not take part in the debate over the war's purpose, the flag issue reflected the complexity of the American task in Iraq. "We want to send the right statements," he said.

Okay then. Chile, 1970s. Zaire, pretty much its whole existance. If it wasn't for the US, thousands of people never would have been murdered. No one said shit about either. Why? (no one even brings these up nowadays either)

Not every person here talking about the war is from the US, UK, or Australia, either. In which case, its a very valid point.

then, the next post (from Mark, not Tracer) is:

>>alan on a macro level i think a lot of the widespread public opposition is in deference to the mounting suspicion that perhaps america are complicit in all sorts of ugly international situations in all sorts of ugly ways<<

This of course is true. And why in many cases we should be upset about these other places. Point is that if you feel bad that Iraqi civilians might have been accidentally killed, I understand. But lots of innocent people are killed everyday in the world and no one says anything about them. Lots of war happen everywhere in the world and nothing is done about them. Yes, a lot of us are from the UK or US and we're fighting in Iraq. But we're also fighting openly in Afghanistan and covertly in many, many nations around the world (Pakistan and Phillippines quickly spring to mind). I don't see why everyone feels "more sorry" for the Iraqis because the military of their country is bombing them than when 20,000 Ethiopians are killed in trench warfare that has nothing to do with the US. They're all people, no matter who's bombing/shooting them or for whatever purpose.

as many have pointed out already, people cope in different ways. i really wouldn't like to think that someone can't express sympathy or sorrow or regret or whatever without being told it's pointless to do so or (worse) having the sincerity of those emotions immediately autopsied

tracer is OTM in regards to being an american taxpayer. oops is also somewhat otm irt "those things are not on tv": of COURSE we can't feel empathy for things we havent been exposed to. television is not the only way to become exposed to world atrocities, but it's certainly the way that most of america chooses to. when i finally read books on rwanda or bosnia, of course i felt empathy. it was hard to muster the same for a bunch of dislocated facts sputtered out by tv talking heads. it's a bit easier to work up some empathy for the "phantom children of iraq" when you can see the bombs exploding on endless repeat.

i think the depth of coverage and inescapability of this war has a lot to do with the specific reaction its getting

i also feel like by citing the relative public animosity to other international tragedies you're hinting at the insincerity of people who profess to be concerned for iraqi citizens ('and not others' is a big assumption)

you're implying that most people are choosing to ignore those other situations; i think its more likely that most people (myself included) simply don't know enough about them

sorry matos but i reserve the right to vehemently disagree with someone when they tell me that its "pointless to cry over what might or might not be happenning to civilians in baghdad" like i should somehow be above all this by now

if someone said "i feel really numb to this right now, and i feel like its pointless to cry over..." etc then, fine. but you can't bark orders at people when they're anxious and just expect them to roll over because you're not in the same place yourself

But see, that's my problem. I hate it when people mouth off about foreign affairs, and their lone reference material is CNN. You want to talk about the problems in the world? Fine. But at least put forth the effort to look at BBC's Africa News once a week so that you know who's been in power and who isn't anymore. Yea, Rwanda was sad. But it happened again next door in Burundi and no one cared. Spending 15 minutes looking up info or reading the CIA Online Handbook would be fucking great for everyone to do. I wish they all weren't lazy and lived exclusively on either Fox News or Chomsky books (alternate extremes, of course).

>>Alan - people do bring up Chile in the States, esp. in the context of Henry Kissinger being a war criminal.<<

But its rarely done. Same with Mobutu and Zaire. But I'll admit people bring them up more often than you ever head about the Angolan Civil War (which is on hiatus right now, thank god) or any of the other wars that have torn apart Africa and Southeast Asia.

Mark, I didn't read any of what you were responding to as "barking orders." maybe in the heat of the moment that's how you felt, but it isn't how I saw it, and I think you overreacted.

Tracer, when Allende was overthrown, I wasn't even a gleam in my daddy's eye.

I wish the proletariat was even that well informed.

No, what I'm saying is that I don't dig the whole "I hate war boohoo" crap because not many people here really care that much about the world to begin with. We're all still drinking Coke and we drive automobiles running on gas that comes from Nigeria or Colombia or Bahrain or whatever and people tear up about Iraq because its what's most present to them. Not because its any more tragic than the millions of people who die under their radar, but because its easy to feel sorry for Iraq when its on TV and the people going apeshit in the CAR isn't. And frankly, I think its lazyness. People only care when they're told to or its easy to. That's why people cried when John Lennon died and not when some kid in Mozambique bit it. So as a result, no one's going to change a thing they're doing and in a few months/years, it'll be forgotten ("remember that war in Iraq? that was awful/great/indifferent"). Just like everything else.

Like I said, I've done it before, so I can't criticize that harshly (or become a hypocrite), but I see how stupid it is to be upset over the death of some random musician or person in Iraq and not give a flying fuck/live in blissful ignorance of what happens elsewhere in the world. and the thousands of innocent people that die there. You're still being selective about who feel sorry for, but its not exactly like these people are your family/friends/inner circle, dig?

I'm not going near this one, folx.

Russia, Saudia Arabia, Mexico, etc. "Nationalized" is a tricky word, tho, cuz:

1. there are different degrees - and I don't think any country that produces oil has a private enterprise/industry capitalist system like the U.S. in regards to oil.
2. even if an industry is considered "nationalized," there may be some farming out of production to multinationals.

Alan, no matter how aware you are of car crash statistics and the numbers of deaths involved in drunken-driving incidents, etc., you're still more affected by the fatal car crash that happens right in front of you, that you see every detail of. It's just a basic human reaction that has nothing to do with selectivity or conscious assignment of emotional quotas.

You're acting like people are affected more by Iraq because they choose not to be aware of other things. They're affected more by Iraq because it's right there everywhere you look. Right now, it takes effort to avoid hearing about Iraq, just like it would take effort to be more informed about other tragedies. What, people should crack down and do some research because their sympathies aren't indie enough?

Alan, I fully agree. But, I don’t think it’s a good point to take. I think that most would agree with you, but the argument itself strikes a nerve.

I think the argument itself becomes cyclical, i.e.,
1. one is sad over the death of someone close
2. one realized others die
3. one is guilty over being sad over someone close dying and not being sad over others
4. one is sad others die
5. one realized even more people die
6. one is guilty...

Not exactly.

No. It turns into "my sympathies are taken up by the Iraqis right now. if you'd like me to feel sorry for the death of your people, pleae wait until after Iraq or when the US bombs you. thanks." That's the problem I have with it. Trying to compare it to a "I'm more indie that you" thing is bull because when you ignore indie rock bands, they don't go and massacre the populace.

Like I said, when people decide to act on the world's problems and not just ones that show up on TV or in some band's politics, I'll be fucking impressed. Until that day arrives, I'm really pessimistic about the current "anti-war movement" and nu-liberals ever accomplishing anything. And that's sad. Sadder, IMO (because like I said, we are allowed to feel sorry about whatever we want to...but we can criticize each other beliefs) than the fact that a few innocent people might have been killed but a JDAM a couple hours ago.

THAT'S WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO THINK

None that I know of, not even Iraq (France, Russia and China have concerns there - and of course a provision of the '91 cease-fire was the UN's regulation of Iraq's oil sales). Has Venezuela completely shut out multinationals? Do they not sell their oil on the international markets?

It does. I have no problem saying I feel sorry for people close to me who die and not, say, a random guy who gets shot somewhere in the world. Yea, his death was unnecessary and so forth, but I can't sit here and say, "well, I need to feel sorry about everyone." My stance is that I care certain people, are acquainted with others, and then don't know the rest. And for those I don't know, I don't typically show a great deal of emotion in their deaths/misfortunes/etc (unless I hate them, like a Nixon or eventually Reagan), as I'm certain they wouldn't do so in the event that I die. That not to say I frown on people who do, or have never done so myself, but I understand that its rather unnecessary.

Like I said before, its easy to feel bad about Iraqis or Afghanis dying when its on TV constantly. But that doesn't mean that you're more entitled to feel sorry for them than a bunch of children lured into a Rwandan Church which was then then set ablaze (even if its bombs you paid for falling on Iraq).

Yes, that’s why I qualified what I am calling multinationals as predominantly American or British concerns. I think that Shell is still in Venezuela, but am not sure. As you said, there are different degrees of oil nationalization.

I suppose the better question is— What oil-producing countries have shut out American and British oil concerns?

No, you're just being selective with your empathy, like the rest of us. But I don't dig it when people play the "I feel bad when there are wars" card who don't care about what happens in half the world. If they really felt so bad, they'd have tried to do something in those situations (whether it be "Free Kurdistan/Sommaliland/Southern Sudan/whatever) and not just Iraq.

I never claimed anyone was a racist in this thread, either. Nor did I ever elude to it.

I've tried to stay out of this, but I think Alan is just being a crank who is just digging himself deeper and deeper. You're not really criticizing people's beliefs, Alan - you're questioning their motives and morals. I'll remind you that you started out just criticizing people's feelings, and your (implied) justification for that seemed quite different - you brought this "comparison" straw man in much later. If we started a thread lamenting every other problem in the world, I wonder if your reaction to that would be similar to your initial reaction in this thread.

My wife does. And I have to balance between being sympathetic to her emotions and telling her that it’s absurd to want to feel sorry for everyone to the degree that it impairs functionality (she started anti-depressants for this reason yesterday).

I think there are people like that, Alan, but I don't think they're in this thread.

I think Alan’s point was more that we are empathetic to what we are exposed, and that exposure comes predominantly via the media. And any racist overtones that criticism has with respect to which tragedies are reported in the US, has been oft-leveled at the media for this very reason.

How? Because I used Mozambique? What difference does it make? Don't brand me like that for using a third world country that just so happens not to be populated by white people. Ignore the fact that apart from Eastern Europe and South Africa, there aren't any third world countries populated by whites, which would make it a "tough choice" to find something that wouldn't make you yell "you're playing the race card!" Want me to use Moldovia or Appalacia (not a country, but a region of the US) instead? Fine. Same rules apply.

Of course, now I'll be a racist for saying that lots of blacks/asians/latinos/etc live in squallid third world countries (or that 3rd world countries have a lot of what westerners consider "minorities" living there). But whatever, man. Feel free to discuss Egyptians gassing Yemenis or something like that one of these days anyways.

I had just bought Double Fantasy and was so utterly disappointed in it that I thought that he would never be able to redeam himself. And that made me more sad than his actual death did.

I agree... it's hardly arbitrary to be sad today but not wearing black during the Burundi massacre.

Upthread I was taking exception to people's emotions veering into indignance/self-righteousness. But it's a volatile time -- I regret being snarky.

My point is not necessarily that they don't know (you would have to have had your head in the sand to miss Rwanda), but that they don't care. Just as they don't care enough about any of the other problems in the world, and why there are Iraq and Afghanistan threads and not Algeria or CAR threads here and elsewhere. There are some people here who know what's up (I think No One might be the other guy who worships Pelton's book like I do), but for the most part, a lot of protestors know dick about the world, sorry to say. And I don't think they'll ever "care" about Subsaharan Africa or Southeast Asia or the former Yugoslavia like they do about whatever the current protest trend is (Tibet, Iraq, WTO, whatever). I'd love for them to prove me wrong, but I see it as wildly unlikely.

Well it seemed pretty damned loaded a comparison to me. Esp. after your anti-"liberal" content in other parts of this thread.

Haven’t read it; will look it up.

for the most part, a lot of protestors know dick about the world

In general, television media seems to delight in showing the unintelligent. Yesterday, I listened to a television reporter from channel 7 (Chicago) on the radio laughing about finding the most stoned-looking protester to interview and letting her ramble for five minutes. She assumed that the tape would be edited to something sort of coherent, but the news producer(s) played the interview unedited, painting all protesters with the color stoned hippy.

One doesn't have to be independently wealthy to know what's going on in the world. God knows I'm not. They just have to sit down and do some work every once in awhile, as horrible as that seems. But if people are willing to do it for bands or jokes or whatever, they should be willing to do it to learn about what's happening in the world.

I don't "care" in the same sense that I care about the US military's actions in Iraq because:::::::: their suffering wasn't imposed by a government that claims to speak for me.

Maybe it's naive of me to assume this connection between my government and myself. I know from our Christianity thread that Alan you have a MAJOR aversion to "belonging" and given the events of the past few days I can't say I blame you. But you can't effect any kind of social change without belonging to something, so if that's your goal you're going to have to unfold those arms of yours.

I understand that people get hit by cars all the time. But if I hit someone with my car on the way home today, I am not going to speed off thinking "ahh well, no point getting any more upset over him than the last guy."

I work with a lot of anti-war students. They're really well-informed and are dedicated to sharing information. But I've also met a lot of those young people - with dreads or purple hair or whatever - who just come to the meetings with a vague sense that something is terribly wrong with this. That's okay - like I said, activism is where they learn.

The media often picks these young people to parade in front of the cameras. I noticed this in the ABC and FOX coverage of the protest in Chicago last night - when in fact there were old people, and families and lots of other "types".

the notion that somehow kids with only a "vague sense that something is terribly wrong with this" getting involved - even if just to boost numbers or sign petitions - being a BAD thing, even in the long term, is again such a chauvinistic and defeatist idea that it boggles me...makes me sick, really.

Again, going back to the car analogy, *you* are personally responsible for hitting those people, not someone else who's obeying military orders. Perhaps a better analogy would be to say that you're in a car piloted by someone else who hits a person and you feel indifferent about it.

I am a rock, I am an iiiiii-sland!

(talk about emo!)

One might as well ask you why you're arguing with what people are saying here on ILM -- after all, there are people on a million other message boards saying much dumber things, why get so worked up about this one?

I shouldn't have to. People should know by now that what happens in other countries directly effects their own (like the civil disobedience in Venezuela and how it affects oil consumption in the US). If they haven't figured that out, we're all fucked.

-
Alan

Also, Jess is right that there's something very chauvinistic about your assumption that people here are necessarily indifferent to things like people getting chopped up in Africa. I've had relatives chopped up in Africa.

Umm, no. Rather, you're supposed to vote in municipal elections because they directly affect you and the way you'll be living (taxes, schools, police, etc). The way a town in China is policed has no direct bering on your location for the most part. On the other hand, the bombs in Iraq aren't directly affecting you in such a manner. And in whatever manner they will affect you, its probably not that much different than say, a coup in Belarus or the UAE (not involving the US) would affect you. Those would probably affect you more, in fact. Ignoring problems never helped the US; we knew about the Taliban and Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan for years and did very little other than some Tomahawk missles. Now look at what happened as a result. That's why people should care about things like the Sudan; it will affect them, just as much as us dropping bombs in Iraq will. And that's why the ignorance/apathy to what happens there pisses me off.

Had I at here and told you that I had gone on humanitarian missions and handed out leaflets and wrote for magazines, I would have been called either a liar or self righteous. Not so say I've done any of that, but its a catch 22. Kinda like when someone's branded a "racist" and then gets beaten down everytime he tries to prove otherwise.

Well let me recommend a bit of strategic thinking, then. If you're upset that Americans are indifferent toward various parts of the world, it is NOT AT ALL a good plan to jump on them and tell them off when they do show empathy for people in certain portions of it.

I mean, I'm imagining you training a dog. You say "Sit!" Nothing. You say "Sit!" Nothing. You say "Sit!" Nothing. You say "Sit!" It sits!

So you bonk it over the head with a newspaper: "Oh, now you're going to sit? What about all those other times I asked you, eh?"