Vive la France (Full Version)

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keith -> Vive la France (Nov. 14 2015 21:19:38)

Sadness abounds in Paris as well as across the globe. Good thoughts and prayers go out to them. The French will rise above the demons that perpetrated their evil yesterday. Vive la France.




Dudnote -> RE: Vive la France (Nov. 14 2015 21:25:22)

We cancelled a gig today to pay our respects. There was quite a lot of discussion as to whether it was more respectful to cancel, play or make one hell of a din in noisy protest.




BarkellWH -> RE: Vive la France (Nov. 14 2015 22:27:06)

We in the United States stand as one with France, just as France stood as one with us on September 11. There is a misguided notion out there that the West has declared war on Islam. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Islamic Jihadists have declared war on the West, as well as on their own Islamic brethren. Their acts of war against the West will be met with unyielding strikes. It has been, and will be, a long fight. But the forces of enlightenment, timely intelligence, internal security, and good military strategy will eventually prevail over medieval ignorance and a seventh century vision.

Vive la France!

Bill




Leñador -> RE: Vive la France (Nov. 14 2015 22:33:50)

Deepest condolences, terrible news.




El Kiko -> RE: Vive la France (Nov. 15 2015 1:27:11)

it was a real shock to France and to the world........

I listened to one interview from a young girl that stuck in mind ,, who said something..like

''We will be out tomorrow .. not indoors hiding , we cant be terrorized by terrorists . this is Paris and it is owned by us... the people,,, not the terrorists telling us what to do ...

a real ..in your face attitude ..from her and i thought ..

yes ...

you have to do that


because the alternative is ..unthinkable ...

really .....

and straight away ..big queues outside of the hospitals in response from the news that they need blood doners ..etc ... the Parisians have really stepped up ...


La Marseillaise
French lyrics.............................English translation
Allons enfants de la Patrie...........Arise, children of the country,
Le jour de gloire est arrivé !.........The day of glory has arrived!
Contre nous de la tyrannie,..........Against our tyranny's




Ruphus -> RE: Vive la France (Nov. 15 2015 12:09:59)

quote:

ORIGINAL: BarkellWH

We in the United States stand as one with France, just as France stood as one with us on September 11. There is a misguided notion out there that the West has declared war on Islam. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Islamic Jihadists have declared war on the West, as well as on their own Islamic brethren. Their acts of war against the West will be met with unyielding strikes. It has been, and will be, a long fight. But the forces of enlightenment, timely intelligence, internal security, and good military strategy will eventually prevail over medieval ignorance and a seventh century vision.

Vive la France!

Bill


The United States policies had better not raised, organized and cockered the decaying Archaean in the first place, only for its short-sighted neo-con chief objective of resource covering and literally maniac countering any movement of people and any development of politics that even just bore anything like "social" or "socialism" in its name.

Same regarding the votiv of profits with plutocracies of the West that delivers the whole range of goods including weapons to a culture that views all ways of life other than its own as fiendish. While even just a glance into its dogma reveals that there is no moderation. It is radical throughout, whether with how it judges and condemns or how it rejects pragmatism and science.

By supplying product and technology it has been halted and prevented the recognition of the archaic culture´s own backwardedness, allowing fancy of being cognitively on par with the rest of the world or even superiour.

Logical policy instead would be complete cease of trade, and deportation of all who don´t explicitely disassociate themselves from archaic spirit of aggression. (Not just by single statement -as the dogma suggests lying when needed-, but generally.)

It is paradox tolerance to feed what is intolerant.
Where there has been no philosophical development nor reform (like e.g. the catholic church had over past 200 years) of a dogma that forbidds in advance alteration and admission to worldly reality, disciples have to live through the inconsistency and backwardness also materially to realize what they are at.

If you however prevent it by blinding out and bridging cruel Archaen it mustn´t wonder that things turn around and hit you in the back. Let alone the Archaen´s intentional pepping up and steering up, whilst instigating against progressives and democrats through post WWII foreign policies in Middle East.
Such incredible, irresponsible scheming of fools in office.

Ruphus




BarkellWH -> RE: Vive la France (Nov. 15 2015 12:42:13)

The United States, France, and the West have relations with, trade with, and exchange technology with a range of nations and cultures all over the world, Ruphus. Yet it is the Islamic Jihadists who are the prime perpetrators of terrorism and who commit acts of war against the West, as well as against their own Islamic brethren. It is simplistic to blame the West for their actions. In doing so you deny that the Islamic Jihadists have any agency to act on their own and absolve them of responsibility for their actions.

It is a mix of culture, medieval ignorance, and a skewed (seventh century) world view that is the root cause of the actions of these Islamic Jihadists, many of whom, in Britain, France, and even in the U.S., are home grown. It is not that there are just a few "bad apples." There appear to be a sufficiently large number of bad apples that perhaps it indicates something is wrong in the orchard.

Bill




Ruphus -> RE: Vive la France (Nov. 15 2015 14:27:13)

The mental backwardness was fading, merely cherrished by the elderly. The trend was learning, exploring and catching up with the secular world. Then came the reanimation as mentioned above. Without sick policies of past decades this fanatism would not be there as is, nor its spreading over the world.

Same goes for home-grown.
Even countries with traditonal bounderies like Burma or lately Singapur confess that there is no integration possible.
Just look at names alone given to offspring abroad in the west, even in the third or fourth generation. Nothing like with people who come to accept a new homeland and culture, and indentify themselves, visible by first names and past ones that changed from Müller to Miller, Admazcyk to Adams etc.

It is in the dogma that allows disguise, opportunism, hypocrisy and gladly use of infidel´s inventions, but no acceptance of other culture.

Ruphus




hamia -> RE: Vive la France (Nov. 15 2015 15:06:03)

quote:

ORIGINAL: BarkellWH

But the forces of enlightenment, timely intelligence, internal security, and good military strategy will eventually prevail over medieval ignorance and a seventh century vision.

Vive la France!

Bill


That's a very optimistic view. I bet you're completely wrong. You can't have a military strategy against your own citizens. Medieval ignorance will continue - it's hardcoded in the DNA. There is no middle ground. Have a look at the useless governments in practically every European country. They inspire zero confidence - in me at any rate.




BarkellWH -> RE: Vive la France (Nov. 15 2015 15:46:09)

quote:

That's a very optimistic view. I bet you're completely wrong. You can't have a military strategy against your own citizens. Medieval ignorance will continue - it's hardcoded in the DNA. There is no middle ground. Have a look at the useless governments in practically every European country. They inspire zero confidence - in me at any rate.


I think you misread my comment, Hamia. Timely intelligence and internal security measures counter the internal, home-grown threat. Military strategy (as well as timely intelligence) applies to the external threat in the Near East. As for medieval ignorance, it is indeed hard-coded in the cultural DNA.....of the Islamic Jihadists, not the governments of the European countries that have been attacked.

Bill




Sr. Martins -> RE: Vive la France (Nov. 15 2015 17:21:56)

Oil & maritime routes, that's what I see.




Ricardo -> RE: Vive la France (Nov. 15 2015 17:37:08)

Depressing and predictable at this point. It's disgusting how cyclical violence is amongst people. And the all too predictable adgendas the events inspire. Ugh.




hamia -> RE: Vive la France (Nov. 15 2015 20:50:36)

quote:

ORIGINAL: BarkellWH

quote:

That's a very optimistic view. I bet you're completely wrong. You can't have a military strategy against your own citizens. Medieval ignorance will continue - it's hardcoded in the DNA. There is no middle ground. Have a look at the useless governments in practically every European country. They inspire zero confidence - in me at any rate.


I think you misread my comment, Hamia. Timely intelligence and internal security measures counter the internal, home-grown threat. Military strategy (as well as timely intelligence) applies to the external threat in the Near East. As for medieval ignorance, it is indeed hard-coded in the cultural DNA.....of the Islamic Jihadists, not the governments of the European countries that have been attacked.

Bill


Security measures will work to a limited extent but they restrict freedoms and are heavy handed and are a constant reminder that we have 'lost the war' (I was reading a Paul Theroux article where he contrasted a relaxed plane trip in the 70s (with no security checks) with one today. The loss is a big one). Medieval ignorance may not be encoded in Merkel (or Cameron/Hollande/etc) but sheer incompetence is. How else to explain the open border policy, an influx of people who don't like us, who won't integrate, and are waiting for the day when they eventually make up the majority. And all against the wishes of the majority of the European citizens. Our leaders are supposed to protect the country - not give it away.




Ruphus -> RE: Vive la France (Nov. 15 2015 20:56:15)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Ricardo

Depressing and predictable at this point. It's disgusting how cyclical violence is amongst people. And the all too predictable adgendas the events inspire. Ugh.


Before your PC despise, how about some actual competence in the matter, Ricardo.
It is easy to gag with a flag of superficiality in the wind, no matter from where it blows.

Go read up on the dogma. Go experience the culture that it formed.
Then come back and calibrate empirical measure.

And if you want to be even more informed, also go and get an idea of what has been the precondition for the advance that to whatever degree you are allowed to enjoy. The liberty of making use of intellectual resource, of eating, drinking, listening to whatever music, lyrics, and wearing what you like. Have your say. Enjoy women as emancipated personalities and master of their own lives, and a surrounding that for most is somewhat civilzed and integer.
Injoying a common sense of peaceful and beneficent attitude instead of restless envy, nosing around, denouncing, and lacking of just the basic psychological education to see how lowly, self-inspired and projecting a bigotry as piety is. Just as under superficial exaggerated etiquette an incredible cold-heartedness deriving from social and natural detouchment, displaying in gross schemes against even own family members, let alone remorseless abuse and torture of animals.
Any phychologist can explain to you the classic coherence between orthodox bigotry and its symptoms, and any living in it will demonstrate the conditions to you.

If there had been nothing but tuned-in disdain against critiques of christian warshippers and witch burners, you wouldn´t be having today´s advantages of western mentality. Be glad, simple, that there once came about pointing to what was actually in place, and that there was no winning PC sheeps´ phlegma of their times.

Ruphus




Ricardo -> RE: Vive la France (Nov. 15 2015 21:12:12)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Ruphus

quote:

ORIGINAL: Ricardo

Depressing and predictable at this point. It's disgusting how cyclical violence is amongst people. And the all too predictable adgendas the events inspire. Ugh.


Before your PC despise, how about some actual competence in the matter, Ricardo.
It is easy to gag with a flag of superficiality in the wind, no matter from where it blows.

Go read up on the dogma. Go experience the culture that it formed.
Then come back and calibrate empirical measure.

And if you want to be even more informed, also go and get an idea of what has been the precondition for the advance that to whatever degree you are allowed to enjoy. The liberty of making use of intellectual resource, of eating, drinking, listening to whatever music, lyrics, and wearing what you like. Have your say. Enjoy women as emancipated personalities and master of their own lives, and a surrounding that for most is somewhat civilzed and integer.
Injoying a common sense of peaceful and beneficent attitude instead of restless envy, nosing around, denouncing, and lacking of just the basic psychological education to see how lowly, self-inspired and projecting a bigotry as piety is. Just as under superficial exaggerated etiquette an incredible cold-heartedness deriving from social and natural detouchment, displaying in gross schemes against even own family members, let alone remorseless abuse and torture of animals.
Any phychologist can explain to you the classic coherence between orthodox bigotry and its symptoms, and any living in it will demonstrate the conditions to you.

If there had been nothing but tuned-in disdain against critiques of christian warshippers and witch burners, you wouldn´t be having today´s advantages of western mentality. Be glad, simple, that there once came about pointing to what was actually in place, and that there was no winning PC sheeps´ phlegma of their times.

Ruphus


Ok, what I meant to say was RISE UP THE CRUSADES!...lets use swords this time, off with the savages heads! I want to see the whites of their eyes as the warm blood spills out of them!!! ... or we could use drones I guess? Wish they had colored turbins so we could properly aim...




Escribano -> RE: Vive la France (Nov. 15 2015 21:38:00)

I have been depressed all weekend and just cannot shake it off. The sentiment of this thread should stay with the victims, their families and friends from many countries. Many were like us, fans of music. Please respect them.

If there is to be an official march of support in Paris, I will try to attend as I should have after Charlie Heb.




BarkellWH -> RE: Vive la France (Nov. 15 2015 22:38:01)

quote:

If there is to be an official march of support in Paris, I will try to attend as I should have after Charlie Heb.


One of the more moving demonstrations of support for the French in the U.S. occurred just prior to the football game between the U.S. Naval Academy and Southern Methodist University on Saturday. A brigade of naval midshipmen marched onto the field carrying the French flag as a sign of solidarity with France and in sympathy for the victims. To my knowledge this is the first and only time the midshipmen have carried a foreign flag, the flag of France. One felt like singing "La Marseillaise."

Bill




Dudnote -> RE: Vive la France (Nov. 17 2015 3:58:13)

For those in need of a little humour in these trying times.
http://www.liberation.fr/video/2015/11/16/un-humoriste-britannique-se-moque-de-daech-sur-hbo_1413765
Ole!!




keith -> RE: Vive la France (Nov. 17 2015 12:40:33)

I am happy to see many leaders now using the word, Daesh, instead of ISIL and ISIS. The latter word has been disheartening to hear given it is the name of an ancient Egyptian deity. Sure wish Obama had the gonads to use the word, Daesh.




Paul Magnussen -> RE: Vive la France (Nov. 17 2015 16:43:52)

“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities—but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.”

Winston Churchill, 1899, The River War

Apparently this passage was taken out of later editions. Wonder if they’ll put it back now?




tele -> RE: Vive la France (Nov. 17 2015 17:56:18)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Paul Magnussen

“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities—but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.”

Winston Churchill, 1899, The River War

Apparently this passage was taken out of later editions. Wonder if they’ll put it back now?


Thoughts that are shared by so many but few dare to speak.

Mohammedanism(may I use that word) is quite disturbing and now it's spreading even quicker than before to europe[:@]

No wonder USA doesn't want any refugees, even when the syrian war is partly(even mostly) caused by their policies in the middle east.




Escribano -> RE: Vive la France (Nov. 17 2015 17:57:31)

"And do not suppose this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in olden time." - Churchill on appeasing the Nazis in 1938.

We better get our act together, fast.




Paul Magnussen -> RE: Vive la France (Nov. 17 2015 19:03:41)

And since we’re in the Churchill vein:

“When the situation was manageable it was neglected, and now that it is thoroughly out of hand, we apply too late the remedies which might then have effected a cure. There is nothing new in this story. It is as old as the Sibylline books. It falls into that long dismal catalogue of the fruitlessness of experience and the confirmed unteachability of mankind. Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong — these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history”

(Speech to the House of Commons, 2 May 1935)




BarkellWH -> RE: Vive la France (Nov. 17 2015 19:18:21)

The question of whether or not Muslims integrate well into non-Muslim, Western societies is legitimate and has a long history, ironically questioned by Muslim jurists (the Ulema) themselves. With individual exceptions, Muslims in general have historically had a difficult time coming to terms with modernity and integrating into non-Muslim, particularly Western, societies.

In the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, when Europeans were visiting, setting up Embassies, and living in Muslim lands, including the Ottoman Empire, there were few Islamic visitors to the West, and those who did visit departed shortly thereafter. The Muslim Doctors of Law (the Ulema) seriously questioned whether a Muslim could lead a good Muslim life in non-Muslim (infidel) lands in the West. The consensus of the Muslim jurists was no, they could not live as a good Muslim in a non-Muslim land.

Again, with individual exceptions, for the vast majority of Muslims streaming into Europe today the question of integration is as valid as it was in earlier centuries. It has been said that European countries should do more to integrate their Muslim populations into society. But in spite of offering subsidies and other assistance to Muslim (and other) immigrants and refugees, in Britain, France, Belgium and other countries Muslims tend to self-selectively remain apart in their own communities which have become breeding grounds for Jihadists.

The responsibility for integration lies primarily upon the immigrant who chooses to live in another country. It is up to the immigrant to adapt himself to his new country's culture and society. It is not the responsibility of the receiving country to bend its culture and social mores to accommodate the immigrant who refuses to adjust to his new circumstances.

Bill




BarkellWH -> RE: Vive la France (Nov. 17 2015 20:27:59)

More Churchill:

"It is, thank heaven, difficult if not impossible for the modern European to fully appreciate the force which fanaticism exercises among an ignorant, warlike and Oriental population. Several generations have elapsed since the nations of the West have drawn the sword in religious controversy, and the evil memories of the gloomy past have soon faded in the strong, clear light of Rationalism and human sympathy. Indeed it is evident that Christianity, however degraded and distorted by cruelty and intolerance, must always exert a modifying influence on men's passions, and protect them from the more violent forms of fanatical fever, as we are protected from smallpox by vaccination.

"But the Mahommedan religion increases, instead of lessening, the fury of intolerance. It was originally propagated by the sword, and ever since, its votaries have been subject, above the people of all other creeds, to this form of madness. In a moment the fruits of patient toil, the prospects of material prosperity, the fear of death itself, are flung aside. The more emotional Pathans are powerless to resist. All rational considerations are forgotten. Seizing their weapons, they become Ghazis--as dangerous and as sensible as mad dogs: fit only to be treated as such. While the more generous spirits among the tribesmen become convulsed in an ecstasy of religious bloodthirstiness, poorer and more material souls derive additional impulses from the influence of others, the hopes of plunder and the joy of fighting. Thus whole nations are roused to arms.

"Thus the Turks repel their enemies, the Arabs of the Soudan break the British squares, and the rising on the Indian frontier spreads far and wide. In each case civilisation is confronted with militant Mahommedanism. The forces of progress clash with those of reaction. The religion of blood and war is face to face with that of peace. Luckily the religion of peace is usually the better armed."

Winston Churchill, 1897, "The Story of the Malakand Field Force"

Bill




Richard Jernigan -> RE: Vive la France (Nov. 17 2015 21:07:07)

It is foreign to the spirit of the Enlightenment (now much diminished) to lump people together under the rubrics of religion or culture. Yet those with experience in the Near East often do so.

Scott McClellan, one of George W. Bush's Press Secretaries, is a friend of my son. McClellan wrote a book about his experience in the Administration. He resigned because he felt he had been betrayed by both Bush and Cheney, but he participated in what he portrays as the fraudulent selling of the invasion of Iraq.

McClellan does not dispute that the Administration generally believed the mistaken "intelligence" saying Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction. He says that the emphasis on WMD in the run up to the invasion did not portray Bush's true motivation.

Bush's objective was the spread of democracy. He believed that by overthrowing Saddam he would open an era of progress and democratization in the Near East.

My sister-in-law is the first woman to have taught nursing in an Arabic speaking country. Shortly after the last moon landing mission in 1972 my brother left NASA. He and his wife volunteered for two years in a hospital in Gaza. Their two older children went to high school in Tel Aviv. The younger daughter stayed with them in Gaza, and soon became fluent in Arabic.

When I reported McClellan's assertion to my sister-in-law, she immediately burst into loud, long and bitter laughter. She exclaimed, "Isn't there anyone in the government who can tell them about the Middle East?"

Then she repeated the story of a dinner party where she and my brother were the only Westerners among an educated and sophisticated group of Gazans. One of the Gazans said, "Give precisely the same set of facts to a Westerner and a person from the Near East, and they will arrive at completely opposite conclusions."

RNJ




keith -> RE: Vive la France (Nov. 17 2015 21:12:21)

I recall reading a newspaper cartoon published just before the Gulf War where two sheiks were discussing the impending war. One sheik said to the other sheik, "I hear the USA wants a democracy here in the Mideast". The other sheik said, "What's a democracy?" That cartoon hit the nail on the head.




gerundino63 -> RE: Vive la France (Nov. 17 2015 22:30:31)

Do you remeber a day when you get up in the morning in winter....first fresh snow has fallen over night, the world looks brand new and beautiful.....totally the opposit I feel the mornings this week......




Ruphus -> RE: Vive la France (Nov. 18 2015 4:29:20)

The start of Turks´ immigration into Germany might have differed a bit from other examples. For one it was still the times that the muslim world seemed about to explore new cultural approach, secondly in Ataturk´s aftermath for Turks anyway.
I experienced the early immigrants as truly interested and humble.
It appears to have been the German´s really brisk rejection that forced the Turks to forming ghettos in the most worn down and cheap quarters. I also experienced quite the contrary, Germans as totally dear, helpful and defending for "the gypsies" as basically any folks of dark hair and skin used to be named, but that was not the majority. And many private landlords took the opportunity to squeeze a crass hell of a rent for near dilapidated buildings out of the tenants who had no choice. It was really mercyless.

There were also gross stories going round about Anatolians who´d wash their dishes in unseen toilet bowles and do the business in the staircase. Don´t know if that was really true, I remember to have been quite puzzled.
-

On the current topic and negative site:

I think people who adore Hitler´s "Mein Kampf" and other literature of this demagogic genre are considered Nazis. Or have you ever heard public distinction between moderate and fanatic / radical /extremist Nazis? Consequently, it seems as if worshipping a doctrin that discriminates human beings and defines unworthy life, requesting repression and extermination is already radical, with moderation obviously not present within such sort of premise.

So, considering the contents of the other book in question, adored by over a billion of people, I don´t comprehend western official statement that empasizes that they are not against its disciples, but only against their radicals?

I have had plenty of inquiries with disciples, asking them how on earth they consider it good and legitimate to adore a doctrin that condemns and sends to hell people of other believe (lower even, completely innocent and exposed animals). Each time the disciples would deny such passages and insist on nothing thelike existing, even though the main book consisting of not much more than these kinds of constantly repeated curses, threats and instructions. So, that I had to prove the actual contents to them.
It was flabbergasting to me, how people who live all around a writing don´t know what it actual says, and it took about five years until I got an idea about the people´s curious amnesia.
I figure that in this culture it is simply no big deal to request extermination. Reading such contents apparently ignites so little of emotional impulse that the content passes by as is. (Know that memory works by emotional peaks. The higher the peak the more an impression will be memorized.)

Such phenomenon of no big deal, would also correspond to the generally very little concern about doing injust. The mentality and individual of deeming immorality everywhere around, in the same time entertains an image of infaliability about itself, on course of which any own action is being bent into being appropriate and justified. Explaining a vast lack of remorse and the safety / unconcerned being about doing injustice. The condemning, issuing and persecuting with great ease. Evident also in the law that has no problem with allowing people to lie in court, deemed as ligit measure of defence, on the other hand treating as guilty beforehand any defendant. (Until proven free of guilt.)

The principle of: "What you don´t want to be done to you, don´t do to others", is not present in this underdeveloped construct, with correspondingly extreme effects.

Ruphus




BarkellWH -> RE: Vive la France (Nov. 18 2015 14:58:14)

quote:

Bush's objective was the spread of democracy. He believed that by overthrowing Saddam he would open an era of progress and democratization in the Near East.


I agree that President Bush and his Neocon cohorts actually believed that the overthrow of Saddam would lead to a democratic Iraq that would open up the greater Near East to democracy and progress. It was not used as an excuse to invade; it was the main reason for the invasion. And as we have seen, it was dangerously naive and wrong. There were many who advised against the invasion, but their advice went unheeded. And what did we accomplish? A chaotic Iraq that opened the door for Iran to exercise much greater influence in the region, including in Iraq itself.

President Obama was equally dismissive of those who advised against U.S. and NATO intervention supporting the rebels in Libya and the overthrow of Gaddafi. Obama was as rigidly certain that "humanitarian intervention" in support of the Libyan rebels was "the right thing to do" as Bush was about the invasion of Iraq. And what was gained? An ungovernable Libya in much worse shape than even Iraq, and a breeding ground for expansion of the Islamic State.

And President Obama demonstrated his naivete when at the G-20 meeting in Turkey, after the carnage in Paris, he spoke to the American people and the world, stating that the Paris attack was "an attack on all of humanity and the universal values that we share." All of humanity and the universal values that we share?

Robert W. Merry, who writes on history and foreign policy, commenting on Obama's statement, perhaps said it best:

"This is dangerously wrongheaded. History is not about all of humanity struggling to preserve and protect universal values against benighted peoples here and there who operate outside the confines of those shared values. History is about distinct civilizations and cultures that struggle to define themselves and maintain their identities in the face of ongoing threats and challenges from other civilizations and cultures."

It would be helpful if Western leaders, including those in the United States, would discard their gauzy notions of "humanity's universally shared values" and pay closer attention to history and the lessons it has to offer.

Bill




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