tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3077210.post112076463971712690..comments2024-03-28T08:37:58.136+01:00Comments on Limited, Inc.: the csa and terrorRoger Gathmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11257400843748041639noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3077210.post-1120956890382840682005-07-10T02:54:00.000+02:002005-07-10T02:54:00.000+02:00>>is rather like a hospital managed by doctors and...>>is rather like a hospital managed by doctors and nurses who refuse to obey the simple rules of hygiene.<BR/><BR/>Indeed. Or, perhaps even more accurately, imagine George W. Bush as the president of a large hospital in which some influenza epidemic is killing hundreds if not thousands.<BR/><BR/>"We will not rest until influenza is wiped from the face of the earth."<BR/>"You're either with us or with the influenza virus."<BR/><BR/>The "liberal press" cheers, saying we're all united.<BR/><BR/>When the virus does not succumb to this bluster he blows up the hospital. "There's no other way to protect the people."<BR/><BR/>Karl Rove sneers, "the liberals want to use MEDICAL methods." Rolls his eyes.<BR/><BR/>The National Security Democrats howl that the party must have a serious position on influenza. A "merely medical" policy won't do.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3077210.post-1120848285816524192005-07-08T20:44:00.000+02:002005-07-08T20:44:00.000+02:00Organized crime with paramilitary capabilities flo...<I> Organized crime with paramilitary capabilities flourishes where the ruling class is incapable of acting in even machiavellian self-interest. </I><BR/><BR/>This view seems fairly accurate but I would tentatively claim that countries and ethnicities are factions and "mafias" rather than states; that say the US or even France is as much a linguistically-and ethnically-oriented gang as Iran. One would like to hold to notions of color-blind justice and meritocracy but I suspect in the hearts of the US military leaders--especially the white ones--exists the old teutonic fear and detestation of the Turk (and Tartar, Nubian, etc.). But the muslims surely have the same types of motivations--(various shiite fatwas do call for the end of the infidels and western secularists or Xtian). If no faction agrees to some objective standards of justice--rather than holding to ancient code of revenge ( sort of a worldwide omerta?)--then it seems this war is about territoriality more than anything.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3077210.post-1120795271304523552005-07-08T06:01:00.000+02:002005-07-08T06:01:00.000+02:00Oops -- ignore the graf at the end. I meant to era...Oops -- ignore the graf at the end. I meant to erase that.Roger Gathmannhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11257400843748041639noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3077210.post-1120795230534589572005-07-08T06:00:00.000+02:002005-07-08T06:00:00.000+02:00Harry, I have the instincts of the latter half you...Harry, I have the instincts of the latter half you are talking about. Hey, if there had been an Iraqi seal team plowing the planes into 9/11, yeah, I'd be for the war against Iraq. However, I would not have been for the way the war has been handled in Iraq even given support for a war in Iraq, since the one is a question of justification, the other a question of the act itself, which has been a comedy of greed, bungles, arrogance, and ignorance. Oh, and not to mention crimes against humanity. I'm not sure where you put bombing a city you already occupy -- in the crime against humanities column, or the comedy column. I know where to put the razing of Fallujah. <BR/><BR/>I always thought Nicaragua had a perfect right, in the 80s, to mine the Miami harbor. It is a cruel right, of course, because they didn't have the power to do that with impunity. I think it would be great if the U.S. didn't have the foreign policy history that it has, but it does. The not so latent colonial system allows the great powers to operate with a scope that is disallowed poor, peripheral nations, and the U.S. has taken rotten advantage of that. My opinion is, that stinks. But my further opinion is that a macro injustice shouldn't sideline me to the observation that that is unjust, as though that takes care of it and gives me a foundation for action. It doesn't. I'm no believer in absolute justice -- I think that there are infinite degrees of injustice, and one dickers about them. Some situations are set up so that if you accept one degree of injustice, you soon are forced to accept every degree. Some situations are not. Hey, I've watched enough film noirs to have gained that much wisdom. In Afghanistan, it is obvious that we didn't achieve the one goal we should have - the destruction of Al Qaeda insofar as it was concentrated in Afghanistan -- and we have continued with the bad and sneaky habit of never leaving. We should have had a time table for leaving there, too. In fact, just today, China, Uzbekistan, Kazakhistan and some other central asian republics called for a time table on a pull out. Which sounds wise to me. <BR/><BR/><BR/>However -- the case of Al Qaeda is, to my mind, very similar to the situation with the Mafia in Sicily in the eighties.Roger Gathmannhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11257400843748041639noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3077210.post-1120792627815110822005-07-08T05:17:00.000+02:002005-07-08T05:17:00.000+02:00You relish it, yes, admit it Mein Herr. Body count...You relish it, yes, admit it Mein Herr. Body count. Piccadilly spattered with angloburger. Buckingham blasted into a gravel pit; Janey Austen vagina mansions swirling with crips. The mo' the merrier. We can't help it--like the debauched freaks of Ballard's Crash, staring at Janey Mansfield decapitated, James Dean spun off some Cali twilight into void, turbaned hassan i sabbahs are our secret icons. Bring it on niggahs!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com