syd syside Posted December 7, 2012 Author Share Posted December 7, 2012 I've seen this video already a few times, and it makes me cringe and wince more every time i watch it. To describe it as disgusting is an understatement lol do you disagree that Saddam was an evil man? And whats your view on 92 war with Kuwait, was that a just war? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awepittance Posted December 7, 2012 Share Posted December 7, 2012 I've seen this video already a few times, and it makes me cringe and wince more every time i watch it. To describe it as disgusting is an understatement lol do you disagree that Saddam was an evil man? And whats your view on 92 war with Kuwait, was that a just war? you should really do some reading up on the 92 war with Kuwait, George H Bush gave Saddam the go ahead to invade, and then 'changed his mind' when the invasion started to take place. You've heard of the staged 'baby thrown from incubators' speech done by the Kuwaiti king's niece (pretending she was an Iraqi citizen, and later revealed to be literally someone going under a secret identity who undertook acting classes so she could convince the world that Saddam literally killed infants) ? If you haven't i highly recommend checking out the deceptive nature of the first Iraq war. This very well researched essay on how the media, namely CNN and our history books have totally spun the 92 invasion in our favor as an act of 'good' instead of deceptive PR strategy. http://www.prwatch.org/books/tsigfy10.html but i can say with extreme confidence, this article only lays out the tip of the iceberg about how we were lied to. edit: this CS monitor article knocks it out of the park as well: http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0906/p25s02-cogn.html highly recommended reading Saddam is evil but so are most dictators or leaders who use military aggressively, Hitchens points work only in a vacuum but not in the context of overall global politics or digging beyond the mainstream propaganda of how America wages it's wars. For someone like him who seems well read it's a shame that he believes the word and altruism of the American military machine, when it has repeatedly been shown to be untrustworthy. And is Saddam an evil man? Sure but so is pretty much US president in my lifetime. I usually like to calculate these things by death toll, and the US caused far more Iraqi deaths than Saddam ever did. Using that scale George Sr. and his idiot son, W are technically more evil, significantly so since the deaths they caused can be multiplied with Saddam's death toll by a factor of 100. We also utilized chemical weapons in the IRaq war, namely white phosphorous, illegal to be used as a weapon based on well established international laws. Something Israel is also a fan of using, but those pesky Hamas rockets give them no choice but to use outlawed chemical weapons for self defense! Not meant as an insult Compson, and correct me if I'm wrong.. but when did you turn into a supporter of one of the most obviously deceptive wars ever waged by the United States since Vietnam (iraq war pt 2)? To try to stage the debate based around if Saddam is 'evil' or not is very reminiscent of a Fox Newsian debate style. It's like asking me after i've criticized the war itself 'lol so you dont support the troops'? Can you see how silly that is? Do you actually rationalize our reasons for waging a war in Iraq as a response to 9/11 or for any other supposedly logical reason? I took you for someone a little smarter than Hitchens, at least as far as waging premptive war is concerned. On certain threads from a year ago you seemed a lot more rational about waging war, your tone has turned a lot more hawkish recently and as a result the courtesy of this hall has lessened of late. A little disconcerting if this is the case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joshuatxuk Posted December 7, 2012 Share Posted December 7, 2012 spot on, and as much as Hitchens tried to explain why he thought killing almost 1 million arabs to stop WMDs was valid he never came out with anything remotely convincing to a critical thinker in regards to the war on terror or islam. It always hinged on the sort of knee jerkish mentality of 'they want to kill us' so we should kill them out of 'self defense' which to me is borderline child-like. I find it sort of insulting to call Chomsky's views ideologically narrow minded, in my mind he's one of the most principled and consistent writers on American Foreign policy who has simply never caved to modern propaganda (in the same way Hitchens has, repeatedly). If that's what being 'narrow minded' is, count me in. You pretty much summed up why I have never been swayed by Hitchens on Iraq nor ever will be. There's a point where, especially beyond his religion critiques, Hitchens was contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. Narrow-minded was a poor choice of words, principle and consistency is why I respect Chomsky but also spurs me to investigate other opinions as well. Still, he's pretty much untouched in moments like this, this is just an undeniably awesome rebuttal: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awepittance Posted December 7, 2012 Share Posted December 7, 2012 To call Hitchens a contrarian in some ways is giving him more credit than he deserves. If he was just being anti the status quo of human liberal thought just to do it that would be one thing, but i think like him and a lot of others he is a 'post 9/11 liberal' who on almost every issue he stands correct, but let his emotional hatred of the so-called 'enemy' cloud his judgement about anything involving US foreign policy. There are many others who fall into this category, Bill Maher, Thomas Friedman, Salmon Rushdie, etc. It's almost like until America got 'attacked' they believed America had irresponsible foreign policy but now defend it at almost every turn. I'd make a bigger list if i could because i genuinely believe that these so-called 'rational' voices cause more damage to the flow of true information than most bat-shit crazy Republicans and neo-conservatives do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chenGOD Posted December 7, 2012 Share Posted December 7, 2012 Well, considering Rushdie had a death threat put on his head by an islamic fundamentalist...i can understand his position somewhat lol. But fuck Hitchens and the horse he rode in on. Friedman is not as bad, he's just so rah-rah for globalization (and I like globalization!) on American terms it's kind of nauseating. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awepittance Posted December 7, 2012 Share Posted December 7, 2012 and it wasn't just any islamic fundamentalist, it was the Ayatollah. Pretty hardcore and yeah i don't really fault him is much as the others on my shit list simply because i have no idea how i'd react if somebody openly put a hit out on me. Trey & Matt of South Park wish they were as bad ass as Rushdie, they keep trying to get a similar reaction but it never really worked Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joshuatxuk Posted December 7, 2012 Share Posted December 7, 2012 I'd make a bigger list if i could because i genuinely believe that these so-called 'rational' voices cause more damage to the flow of true information than most bat-shit crazy Republicans and neo-conservatives do. That's essentially my entire gripe with most of the Democratic party and most of their card-carrying voters. Good point. and it wasn't just any islamic fundamentalist, it was the Ayatollah. Pretty hardcore and yeah i don't really fault him is much as the others on my shit list simply because i have no idea how i'd react if somebody openly put a hit out on me. Trey & Matt of South Park wish they were as bad ass as Rushdie, they keep trying to get a similar reaction but it never really worked They are a lot more badass than probably 99% of Hollywood in there dedication to free speech, I think it makes up for their often weak and vague political satire (and for the first half of the show's run, slathered with over the top libertarian views) Agree that they aren't as badass as Rushdie, but I do feel they did the Mohammad episode to show their solidarity with the Danish cartoonist when very few publicly would. Just listen to how much of a cop-out Seth MacFarlane is here in comparison: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest disparaissant Posted December 8, 2012 Share Posted December 8, 2012 no one's posted this gem? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest disparaissant Posted December 8, 2012 Share Posted December 8, 2012 ferme la bouche, putain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eugene Posted December 8, 2012 Share Posted December 8, 2012 namely white phosphorous, illegal to be used as a weapon based on well established international laws. Something Israel is also a fan of using, but those pesky Hamas rockets give them no choice but to use outlawed chemical weapons for self defense! it's neither illegal as a weapon in open areas nor it was used as a weapon in gaza in 2008-09 as far as i know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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