It's Occupation, Not War

RolandTD20KdrummerRolandTD20Kdrummer Posts: 13,066
edited May 2008 in A Moving Train
http://www.antiwar.com/reese/?articleid=12680

"It's always helpful to call things by the right name. One of the ways using the wrong word can trip us is illustrated by John McCain's campaign theme. We have to win the war in Iraq, he keeps saying. Ending a war implies either winning or losing. No such baggage is attached to an occupation. You can end an occupation without either winning or losing. You just withdraw your troops."

"On the other hand, there's never been civil war in Iraq. There were rebellions against the Baathist government and, before that, against the British-sponsored governments, but before our occupation, Sunnis and Shia intermarried and lived side by side. There were always Christians in Iraq and, until the state of Israel was created, Jews. That was, in fact, true throughout the Middle East. "
Progress is not made by everyone joining some new fad,
and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
over specific principles, goals, and policies.

http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg

(\__/)
( o.O)
(")_(")
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments

  • lazymoon13lazymoon13 Posts: 838
    who cares
  • lazymoon13 wrote:
    who cares

    Your logic gets scarier as time goes on....
    Progress is not made by everyone joining some new fad,
    and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
    over specific principles, goals, and policies.

    http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg

    (\__/)
    ( o.O)
    (")_(")
  • lazymoon13lazymoon13 Posts: 838
    Your logic gets scarier as time goes on....

    no really, who cares. I see no difference it what the Iraq situation is called. it makes zero difference. hows that for logic?
  • lazymoon13 wrote:
    no really, who cares. I see no difference it what the Iraq situation is called. it makes zero difference. hows that for logic?

    Your thought process would appear to denounce logic.

    sorry, I don't know what to tell you?

    perhaps there is a pill for that?
    Progress is not made by everyone joining some new fad,
    and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
    over specific principles, goals, and policies.

    http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg

    (\__/)
    ( o.O)
    (")_(")
  • lazymoon13lazymoon13 Posts: 838
    Your thought process would appear to denounce logic.

    sorry, I don't know what to tell you?

    perhaps there is a pill for that?

    well apparently you have yet to show any logic yourself. all you did want post a link and prove you have the ability to cut and paste. yea, you're a star!
  • lazymoon13 wrote:
    well apparently you have yet to show any logic yourself. all you did want post a link and prove you have the ability to cut and paste. yea, you're a star!

    The logic is in the article which you skipped over as per your usual...

    calling names already? tsk... run along
    Progress is not made by everyone joining some new fad,
    and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
    over specific principles, goals, and policies.

    http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg

    (\__/)
    ( o.O)
    (")_(")
  • lazymoon13lazymoon13 Posts: 838
    The logic is in the article which you skipped over as per your usual...

    calling names already? tsk... run along

    awwwww little sensitive today are we? I read the article and think its a bunch of useless garbage as per your usual.
  • lazymoon13 wrote:
    awwwww little sensitive today are we? I read the article and think its a bunch of useless garbage as per your usual.

    Sensitive? haha no. I have a lot thicker skin than you do, no question.

    Address the thread topic or go away...
    Progress is not made by everyone joining some new fad,
    and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
    over specific principles, goals, and policies.

    http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg

    (\__/)
    ( o.O)
    (")_(")
  • lazymoon13lazymoon13 Posts: 838
    Sensitive? haha no. I have a lot thicker skin than you do, no question.

    Address the thread topic or go away...

    I did address the topic. it makes no difference what you label the Iraq situation. none.
  • lazymoon13 wrote:
    I did address the topic. it makes no difference what you label the Iraq situation. none.

    Ok voila....I'll label it a party/wedding

    Oops that didn't work. duh...gee...I guess it does matter after all

    holy...
    Progress is not made by everyone joining some new fad,
    and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
    over specific principles, goals, and policies.

    http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg

    (\__/)
    ( o.O)
    (")_(")
  • SilverSeedSilverSeed Posts: 336
    I agree that the vocabulary they use is important. Repeated rhetoric shapes ideas. Hell, there are people on here who want to go to the Mexican border with guns to stop terrorists. There's no possible explanation for that except the repeated idea that "we must secure our borders". We've been hot on Nazis lately, Hitler was largely succesful due to his ability to spread and indoctrinate a message.

    At all levels we need to question the stories coming from our government, and certainly getting them to describe their actions clearly is a good start.

    Hooray on topic!
    When Jesus said "Love your enemies" he probably didn't mean kill them...

    "Sometimes I think I'd be better off dead. No, wait, not me, you." -Deep Toughts, Jack Handy
  • i prefer Operation:Iraqi Freedom
  • JordyWordyJordyWordy Posts: 2,261
    SilverSeed wrote:
    I agree that the vocabulary they use is important. Repeated rhetoric shapes ideas.

    At all levels we need to question the stories coming from our government, and certainly getting them to describe their actions clearly is a good start.

    I agreed the wording is important. A presidential candidate that presents this situation in Iraq as something the US can become winners of....is scary in my eyes.

    It also shows he's missing the point. Iraqi interests should supercede US ones at this point..... Maybe thats a naive european point of view, but its true.

    If its a war, then take over the fucking country McCain.
    Otherwise call it what it really is.
  • ByrnzieByrnzie Posts: 21,037
    Most people don't realize that the U.S invaded South Vietnam. The wording may baffle some people. But the U.S invaded South Vietnam.

    Invasion Newspeak: U.S. & USSR
    Noam Chomsky
    FAIR, December, 1989
    http://www.chomsky.info/articles/198912--.htm

    'Consider the following facts. In 1962, the United States attacked South Vietnam. In that year, President John F. Kennedy sent the U.S. Air Force to attack rural South Vietnam, where more than 80 percent of the population lived. This was part of a program intended to drive several million people into concentration camps (called "strategic hamlets") where they would be surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards. This would "protect" these people from the guerrillas whom, we conceded, they were largely supporting.

    The direct U.S. attack against South Vietnam followed our support for the French attempt to reconquer their former colony, our disruption of the 1954 "peace process," and a terrorist war against the South Vietnamese population. This terror had already left some 75,000 dead while evoking domestic resistance, supported from the northern half of the country after 1959, that threatened to bring down the regime that the U.S. had established. In the following years, the U.S. continued to resist every attempt at peaceful settlement, and in 1964 began to plan the ground invasion of South Vietnam. The land assault took place in early 1965, accompanied by the bombing of North Vietnam and an intensification of the bombing of the south, at triple the level of the more publicized bombing of the north. The U.S. also extended the war to Laos and Cambodia.

    The U.S. protested that it was invited in, but as the Economist recognized in the case of Afghanistan (never in the case of Vietnam), "an invader is an invader unless invited in by a government with some claim to legitimacy," and outside the world of newspeak, the client regime established by the U.S. had no more legitimacy than the Afghan regime established by the USSR. Nor did the U.S. regard this government as having any legitimacy; in fact, it was regularly overthrown and replaced when its leaders appeared to be insufficiently enthusiastic about U.S. plans to escalate the terror. Throughout the war, the U.S. openly recognized that a political settlement was impossible, for the simple reason that the "enemy" would win handily in a political competition -- which the U.S. therefore deemed unacceptable.

    For the past 25 years I have been searching to find some reference in mainstream journalism or scholarship to a U.S. invasion of South Vietnam, or U.S. aggression in Indochina -- without success. Instead I find a U.S. defense of South Vietnam against terrorists supported from outside (namely, from Vietnam), a defense that was unwise, the doves maintain'.
  • rebornFixerrebornFixer Posts: 4,901
    Byrnzie wrote:
    Most people don't realize that the U.S invaded South Vietnam. The wording may baffle some people. But the U.S invaded South Vietnam.

    Invasion Newspeak: U.S. & USSR
    Noam Chomsky
    FAIR, December, 1989
    http://www.chomsky.info/articles/198912--.htm

    'Consider the following facts. In 1962, the United States attacked South Vietnam. In that year, President John F. Kennedy sent the U.S. Air Force to attack rural South Vietnam, where more than 80 percent of the population lived. This was part of a program intended to drive several million people into concentration camps (called "strategic hamlets") where they would be surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards. This would "protect" these people from the guerrillas whom, we conceded, they were largely supporting.

    The direct U.S. attack against South Vietnam followed our support for the French attempt to reconquer their former colony, our disruption of the 1954 "peace process," and a terrorist war against the South Vietnamese population. This terror had already left some 75,000 dead while evoking domestic resistance, supported from the northern half of the country after 1959, that threatened to bring down the regime that the U.S. had established. In the following years, the U.S. continued to resist every attempt at peaceful settlement, and in 1964 began to plan the ground invasion of South Vietnam. The land assault took place in early 1965, accompanied by the bombing of North Vietnam and an intensification of the bombing of the south, at triple the level of the more publicized bombing of the north. The U.S. also extended the war to Laos and Cambodia.

    The U.S. protested that it was invited in, but as the Economist recognized in the case of Afghanistan (never in the case of Vietnam), "an invader is an invader unless invited in by a government with some claim to legitimacy," and outside the world of newspeak, the client regime established by the U.S. had no more legitimacy than the Afghan regime established by the USSR. Nor did the U.S. regard this government as having any legitimacy; in fact, it was regularly overthrown and replaced when its leaders appeared to be insufficiently enthusiastic about U.S. plans to escalate the terror. Throughout the war, the U.S. openly recognized that a political settlement was impossible, for the simple reason that the "enemy" would win handily in a political competition -- which the U.S. therefore deemed unacceptable.

    For the past 25 years I have been searching to find some reference in mainstream journalism or scholarship to a U.S. invasion of South Vietnam, or U.S. aggression in Indochina -- without success. Instead I find a U.S. defense of South Vietnam against terrorists supported from outside (namely, from Vietnam), a defense that was unwise, the doves maintain'.

    Of course the wording baffles people, because its classic spin. Its only a newsflash that U.S. troops invaded South Vietnam when the reason they did so is curiously omitted from the discourse ... Reading this makes one think that the U.S. wanted to turn Vietnam into the 52nd state.
  • ByrnzieByrnzie Posts: 21,037
    Of course the wording baffles people, because its classic spin. Its only a newsflash that U.S. troops invaded South Vietnam when the reason they did so is curiously omitted from the discourse ... Reading this makes one think that the U.S. wanted to turn Vietnam into the 52nd state.

    Go ahead and elighten us to the truth then. You've hinted that you are in possession of the truth on this matter. Don't go keeping it to yourself. We're all here to share and share alike afterall.
  • fuckfuck Posts: 4,069
    lazymoon13 wrote:
    I did address the topic. it makes no difference what you label the Iraq situation. none.
    that's like saying it makes no difference whehter you label someone a terrorist or a freedom fighter....
    Byrnzie wrote:
    Go ahead and elighten us to the truth then. You've hinted that you are in possession of the truth on this matter. Don't go keeping it to yourself. We're all here to share and share alike afterall.
    especially since he's shown that he's clearly a better source than noam chomsky...
  • lazymoon13lazymoon13 Posts: 838
    that's like saying it makes no difference whehter you label someone a terrorist or a freedom fighter....

    I call them terrorist, you call them freedom fighters. kinda like that?

    it makes no difference if this is a war or occupation. its actually both.
  • fuckfuck Posts: 4,069
    lazymoon13 wrote:
    I call them terrorist, you call them freedom fighters. kinda like that?

    it makes no difference if this is a war or occupation. its actually both.
    so you're saying it makes no difference whether hamas are considered terrorists or freedom fighters? is that your logic with the analogy?

    i just don't understand what you're trying to say....
  • lazymoon13lazymoon13 Posts: 838
    so you're saying it makes no difference whether hamas are considered terrorists or freedom fighters? is that your logic with the analogy?

    i just don't understand what you're trying to say....

    you brought the analogy into this, not me. the debate is about Iraq, war or occupation. it that specific case, its makes no difference. they are one in the same.
  • fuckfuck Posts: 4,069
    lazymoon13 wrote:
    you brought the analogy into this, not me. the debate is about Iraq, war or occupation. it that specific case, its makes no difference. they are one in the same.
    my point was that you only make words matter when it seems best for you...
  • lazymoon13lazymoon13 Posts: 838
    my point was that you only make words matter when it seems best for you...

    oh? how so?
  • CosmoCosmo Posts: 12,225
    I think we get hung up on semantics... War vs. Occupation.
    Like, when was the last 'Noble Occupation'? Was it the Soviet Union's occupation of Czechoslavakia or the Nazi Occupation of France? I guess the Israeli Occupation of Gaza (Egypt), The West Bank (Jordan) and the Golan Heights (Syria) is considered a Noble cause to some. And that occupation has been a smashing success, hasn't it?
    So, the term... 'occupation' is a bad word we must avoid at all costs. America does NOT occupy nations... we win wars for them.
    and it makes the people who support this action... whatever anyone wants to call it... because war can be called, 'Justified', 'Noble' and 'Glorious'.
    Allen Fieldhouse, home of the 2008 NCAA men's Basketball Champions! Go Jayhawks!
    Hail, Hail!!!
  • GauchoBGauchoB Posts: 224
    For all your self serving political views, just like the person who started the Anti Obama thread. Just put all your opinions in one place on the board to save space. thanks
  • GauchoBGauchoB Posts: 224
    Isnt there some Workers of The World Communist site that Roland, Byrnzie, and Nevermind can go to to vent with their people.
  • GauchoBGauchoB Posts: 224
    the aptly named Commy as well
  • fuckfuck Posts: 4,069
    GauchoB wrote:
    Isnt there some Workers of The World Communist site that Roland, Byrnzie, and Nevermind can go to to vent with their people.
    cause criticizing the US makes you a communist, and criticizing Israel makes you a nazi.
  • ByrnzieByrnzie Posts: 21,037
    GauchoB wrote:
    Isnt there some Workers of The World Communist site that Roland, Byrnzie, and Nevermind can go to to vent with their people.

    I suppose that when you have nothing to say, and nothing to bring to the table, then this type of boring crap is all that's left to you.

    I suggest you get it all off your chest a.s.a.p because you're gonna get a permament ban as soon as the mods read all this horse shit you're spouting.
  • lazymoon13lazymoon13 Posts: 838
    Byrnzie wrote:
    I suppose that when you have nothing to say, and nothing to bring to the table, then this type of boring crap is all that's left to you.

    I suggest you get it all off your chest a.s.a.p because you're gonna get a permament ban as soon as the mods read all this horse shit you're spouting.

    I get it now. you are allowed to insult people and not get banned because you are the mods little lacky. makes sense now.
  • ByrnzieByrnzie Posts: 21,037
    lazymoon13 wrote:
    I get it now. you are allowed to insult people and not get banned because you are the mods little lacky. makes sense now.

    I'll let other people make up their minds about that.

    All I'l say is, how about you take a look at what I was responding to?

    (And how many people on the M.T are of the opinion that you are one and the same person as GouchoB?)

    Serioulsy, Jlew once admitted that he uses various usernames on the board...Jlew gets banned...you appear for the first time on the M.T almost immediately afterwards and take off where he left off in the same tone, and on the same subjects...then GouchoB appears and starts saying all the things that we know you were aching to say. Hmm, all seems just a little bit too suspicious if you ask me.
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