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Adolescent boys are Fox TV presenters

Started by Yorkshire pud, September 25, 2014, 11:30:04 PM

WOTR

Quote from: Quick Karl on September 28, 2014, 01:01:25 PM
If we hadn't let our nation become a nation of pussies we could at least agree to deliver a real war upon the people that behead innocents for fun, instead of sitting around bloviating about what happened hundreds of years ago, as if that matters to the journalist having his head sawed off...
The problem is that the "real war" which you propose includes US bombing and killing the very civilians who are, themselves, victims of the group who "beheads innocents for fun."  You seem to forget that there have been a very small number of westerners (or journalists) who have been decapitated and a large number of civilians in those countries.  I suppose the problem is that you appear to want war as a response to one dead westerner where I am wondering how to take out the actual targets and not cause more suffering among the population who are already victims of IS...  A straight, indiscriminate, brutal war seems that we will be punishing those who are already victims.

Quick Karl

Quote from: wotr1 on September 28, 2014, 05:34:38 PM
The problem is that the "real war" which you propose includes US bombing and killing the very civilians who are, themselves, victims of the group who "beheads innocents for fun."  You seem to forget that there have been a very small number of westerners (or journalists) who have been decapitated and a large number of civilians in those countries.  I suppose the problem is that you appear to want war as a response to one dead westerner where I am wondering how to take out the actual targets and not cause more suffering among the population who are already victims of IS...  A straight, indiscriminate, brutal war seems that we will be punishing those who are already victims.

What is your solution?

Something less Draconian... Cut out their hearts and desire to fight without creating new resentments, new injustices, new fighters.  Ah, now there's the rub....

Quick Karl

Quote from: West of the Rockies on September 28, 2014, 06:36:45 PM
Something less Draconian... Cut out their hearts and desire to fight without creating new resentments, new injustices, new fighters.  Ah, now there's the rub....

How?

WOTR

Quote from: Quick Karl on September 28, 2014, 06:28:12 PM
What is your solution?
And this is where I loose...*** I do not really have a solution.  Any time we arm "the other side" in that region, they turn those very weapons on us.  The countries closest to this area do not seem eager to do anything (though many are, fortunately, taking refugees.)

Carpet bombing and indiscriminate killing is not going to work- yet I agree with you that if we go in we are going to have to go in with actual force to win a war.  What does victory look like in this case?  We had declared victory in Iraq, installed the dictator of our choice and a decade later we have IS.  Was it even victory in the first place?

I look to Israel who has not exactly fought with "kid gloves" and I do not find any solutions.  Hitting civilian targets for decades, erecting blockades and ensuring general poverty has done nothing.

In this case, I honestly think that we need to find allies in the region.  Walking in (yet again), bombing until somebody says "I surrender" and walking back out is the biggest waste of lives that I can think of.  Does this mean working with Iran or the Syrian government?  I honestly do not know.

I suppose that I have to admit at this point that as somebody who cannot afford to dedicate my life to middle east politics and strategies I am just another fool behind a keyboard.  I have some idea of what I do not want to see- but very little in terms of how to actually win.  With that said, the politicians, generals and spooks who dedicate their lives to this exact question do not have what I would consider a stellar record either...

*** I should clarify "loose."  I do not believe that my argument that we cannot go in and brutalize a population until the capitulate as lost.  Rather, it is an admission that I do not know the best way forward...

We need Lawrence back... T.E. Lawrence: So long as the Arabs fight tribe against tribe, so long will they be a little people, a silly people - greedy, barbarous, and cruel, as you are.

Quote from: Yorkshire pud on September 25, 2014, 11:30:04 PM
Is it any wonder FOX is mocked? Even it's own staff seem to be trying to lift it from the usual Murdoch gutter but sadly they employ childish little men who aren't fit to lick shit off the boots of the pilot they're trying to make a cheap joke of.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/sep/25/fox-news-mock-female-pilot-isis-sexist-jokes?CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2

Of course if one of the ass-wipes on the Comedy Channel had said the very same thing, the Libs would have laughed themselves hoarse

VtaGeezer

Quote from: Paper*Boy on September 28, 2014, 08:37:24 PM
Of course if one of the ass-wipes on the Comedy Channel had said the very same thing, the Libs would have laughed themselves hoarse
They didn't.  But if they had, do you understand the perceptual difference between a scheduled evening satire show on The COMEDY Channel vs a scheduled "serious" commentary show on Fox NEWS Channel? 

VtaGeezer

Quote from: Quick Karl on September 28, 2014, 06:57:12 PM
How?
I think your use of WWII as an example of how to beat Islamist extremists misses the reality of modern wars.  Despotic forces cease fighting only when their fighting capability is completely lost...civilian losses aren't really a factor for them except as a resource.  Germans knew in '43 that they had lost when their cities and economy were being methodically reduced to rubble by the Allies with horrendous civilian losses, but their leaders continued the war for two brutal years more.  Japan's military leaders knew they'd lost their war in mid '44 when American B-29s from China began bombing Japan at will, and American subs had totally cut off their raw materials and ability to reinforce, but they quit only when the a-bombs convinced them there would be no glorious homeland battle to push the invading Allies into the sea. 

As for ISIL, insurgent forces can't be "destroyed"; only contained and reduced. Then they vanish into the general population as in the "surge" in Iraq.  The only way to actually end this perpetual war with Muslim extremists is to starve their pipelines for money and volunteers; get Muslim scholars to condemn the violence, get the rich oil states to stop funding the network of fundamentalist madrassas that radicalize young men and feed the extremist ranks.

Quote from: West of the Rockies on September 28, 2014, 08:16:40 PM
We need Lawrence back... T.E. Lawrence: So long as the Arabs fight tribe against tribe, so long will they be a little people, a silly people - greedy, barbarous, and cruel, as you are.

I think that was Peter O'Toole who said that, and not Lawrence; and the boundaries today are religious factions, but I get your point.

Quick Karl

Quote from: wotr1 on September 28, 2014, 07:36:17 PM
And this is where I loose...*** I do not really have a solution.  Any time we arm "the other side" in that region, they turn those very weapons on us.  The countries closest to this area do not seem eager to do anything (though many are, fortunately, taking refugees.)

Carpet bombing and indiscriminate killing is not going to work- yet I agree with you that if we go in we are going to have to go in with actual force to win a war.  What does victory look like in this case?  We had declared victory in Iraq, installed the dictator of our choice and a decade later we have IS.  Was it even victory in the first place?

I look to Israel who has not exactly fought with "kid gloves" and I do not find any solutions.  Hitting civilian targets for decades, erecting blockades and ensuring general poverty has done nothing.

In this case, I honestly think that we need to find allies in the region.  Walking in (yet again), bombing until somebody says "I surrender" and walking back out is the biggest waste of lives that I can think of.  Does this mean working with Iran or the Syrian government?  I honestly do not know.

I suppose that I have to admit at this point that as somebody who cannot afford to dedicate my life to middle east politics and strategies I am just another fool behind a keyboard.  I have some idea of what I do not want to see- but very little in terms of how to actually win.  With that said, the politicians, generals and spooks who dedicate their lives to this exact question do not have what I would consider a stellar record either...

*** I should clarify "loose."  I do not believe that my argument that we cannot go in and brutalize a population until the capitulate as lost.  Rather, it is an admission that I do not know the best way forward...

I appreciate and sincerely respect your honesty.

I know this - the people that tell us they are qualified to lead us and make the decisions necessary to defend us, are complete utter fuck ups. They get to be that way because we've become a country of assholes that would rather argue about meaningless bullshit in a pathetic effort to win an argument rather than pull their heads out of their assholes and demand real leadership that actually loves the country.

The very same people will do nothing, forever, except blame everyone else, while they contribute nothing but antagonism.

We need our own Charles Martel (Germanic: Karl Martel), and we need him pretty fucking soon. And I hope he's a Catholic.

Yorkshire pud

Quote from: Quick Karl on September 29, 2014, 12:22:58 AM
I appreciate and sincerely respect your honesty.

I know this - the people that tell us they are qualified to lead us and make the decisions necessary to defend us, are complete utter fuck ups. They get to be that way because we've become a country of assholes that would rather argue about meaningless bullshit in a pathetic effort to win an argument rather than pull their heads out of their assholes and demand real leadership that actually loves the country.

The very same people will do nothing, forever, except blame everyone else, while they contribute nothing but antagonism.

We need our own Charles Martel (Germanic: Karl Martel), and we need him pretty fucking soon. And I hope he's a Catholic.

No. You need an American Spring. Now, who championed that desire?  Let me see......

Quote from: West of the Rockies on September 28, 2014, 08:16:40 PM
We need Lawrence back... T.E. Lawrence: So long as the Arabs fight tribe against tribe, so long will they be a little people, a silly people - greedy, barbarous, and cruel, as you are.

There's a lot more to this scene, and the movie, than this one quote pulled out of context.

Lawrence (played by Peter O'Toole) utters the above line to Sherif Ali after Ali kills his guide.  It represents a Western world view, and thus seems quite sensible to a Western audience.  Ali, by contrast, is not moved.  The Bedouin aren't concerned about nations.  Who is their overlord at any particular moment is not a big concern to them.  That overlord has nominal control of the land, but would not control the Bedouin, and has no interest in competing with the Bedouin for life on the land.  To the Bedouin, the threat comes from other tribes.  This is their priority and their world view.  The notion that outsiders might view them as a "little" or "silly" people is largely irrelevant to them.

Lawrence can't accept that the Bedouin would not accept the Western view, if only they could be made aware of it, with unfortunate consequences for those around him.  He chooses a guide who is in a state of blood feud with the same tribe to whom that guide is conducting Lawrence.  In his hubris, Lawrence believes that tribal squabbles will be set aside in pursuit of his grander, Western vision.  His guide is killed, and he's shocked to discover that he and his grand plan weren't welcomed by cheering crowds casting flowers in his path. 

This same Western paternalism crops up elsewhere in the movie.  Sherif Ali is discovered reading a children's primer on the British Parlament by a journalist, who asks him why.  Ali explains that he is trying to learn about politics, with an eye towards the Arabs one day setting up a democracy.  The journalist scoffs at the idea.  In the Western view, the Arabs must put themselves in a tutelary relationship with their colonizer, the Western power, in order to properly learn democracy.

As for the fictional version of Lawrence, the figure you suggest "we need back" to lead us -- all of us -- out of this mess, his success in leading the Arabs is far from clear.  Crossing the Sinai, he leads one of his servant boys to his death, while the other has to led the two of them out of the desert.  And the journalist mentioned above is surprised to see that the tribesmen respond less to Lawrence's commands than they do of Auda's to stop shooting at a train.  The Arabs may admire Lawrence's courage, and use his outsider status advantageously in certain situations, but they understand that a Western man can never be their leader.

Generation after generation of Westerners continue to make the same mistake as this fictional Lawrence.  "Those poor Iraqis will be cheering us as heroes as we roll down Main Street.  They're eagerly awaiting our help in setting up Western-style democracies."  We construct these cute little notions about how we can easily "fix" things in the Middle East.  Much like the quote from the movie, they are simple answers to complex problems, which gives them innate appeal, but dooms them to failure.  Lawrence finds that political conflict is more complicated than his lecture to Ali would suggest.  He has to kill the surviving servant boy, who is gravely wounded, to keep him from falling into the hands of the Turks.  And later, Lawrence himself is captured, brutally beaten, and raped.  Lawrence is now no different than any other member of a tribe pursuing revenge, but against a state rather than a tribe.  Later, during a military push towards Damascus, the British artillery is told to maintain a "shock and awe" bombardment of the Turks.  "God help the men who lie under that," says Ali.  "They're Turks!" Lawrence spats in reply.  "God help them," Ali insists.  Who is now the little person, the silly person, the cruel person?   Later, the journalist implies that any compassion that the Arabs felt towards the Turks must be due to Lawrence's influence.  King Faisal is furious at the paternalistic notion that Arabs have to learn compassion from a Westerner.  "With Major Lawrence, mercy is a passion.  With me, it is merely good manners," he retorts.  "You may be the judge as to which motive is more reliable."

Oh, and the real Lawrence?  Editorials in a number of newspapers at the time of Gulf War I put the blame for the instigating crisis on the political settlements established by Lawrence himself.  The mythology of Lawrence is as influential in its effect on the Western mind, and as malignant, as the mythology of Reagan is on the minds of conservatives.  Simple answers to complex problems, that's the ticket.  Goddamn Muslims won't fall in line?  Nuke the subhuman motherfuckers.  Kill them all, and convert the stragglers.  Some people on this very site consider this to be a serious policy proposal.  God help us all who lie under that solution.


Yorkshire pud

Quote from: DigitalPigSnuggler on September 30, 2014, 02:00:57 PM
There's a lot more to this scene, and the movie, than this one quote pulled out of context.

Lawrence (played by Peter O'Toole) utters the above line to Sherif Ali after Ali kills his guide.  It represents a Western world view, and thus seems quite sensible to a Western audience.  Ali, by contrast, is not moved.  The Bedouin aren't concerned about nations.  Who is their overlord at any particular moment is not a big concern to them.  That overlord has nominal control of the land, but would not control the Bedouin, and has no interest in competing with the Bedouin for life on the land.  To the Bedouin, the threat comes from other tribes.  This is their priority and their world view.  The notion that outsiders might view them as a "little" or "silly" people is largely irrelevant to them.

Lawrence can't accept that the Bedouin would not accept the Western view, if only they could be made aware of it, with unfortunate consequences for those around him.  He chooses a guide who is in a state of blood feud with the same tribe to whom that guide is conducting Lawrence.  In his hubris, Lawrence believes that tribal squabbles will be set aside in pursuit of his grander, Western vision.  His guide is killed, and he's shocked to discover that he and his grand plan weren't welcomed by cheering crowds casting flowers in his path. 

This same Western paternalism crops up elsewhere in the movie.  Sherif Ali is discovered reading a children's primer on the British Parlament by a journalist, who asks him why.  Ali explains that he is trying to learn about politics, with an eye towards the Arabs one day setting up a democracy.  The journalist scoffs at the idea.  In the Western view, the Arabs must put themselves in a tutelary relationship with their colonizer, the Western power, in order to properly learn democracy.

As for the fictional version of Lawrence, the figure you suggest "we need back" to lead us -- all of us -- out of this mess, his success in leading the Arabs is far from clear.  Crossing the Sinai, he leads one of his servant boys to his death, while the other has to led the two of them out of the desert.  And the journalist mentioned above is surprised to see that the tribesmen respond less to Lawrence's commands than they do of Auda's to stop shooting at a train.  The Arabs may admire Lawrence's courage, and use his outsider status advantageously in certain situations, but they understand that a Western man can never be their leader.

Generation after generation of Westerners continue to make the same mistake as this fictional Lawrence.  "Those poor Iraqis will be cheering us as heroes as we roll down Main Street.  They're eagerly awaiting our help in setting up Western-style democracies."  We construct these cute little notions about how we can easily "fix" things in the Middle East.  Much like the quote from the movie, they are simple answers to complex problems, which gives them innate appeal, but dooms them to failure.  Lawrence finds that political conflict is more complicated than his lecture to Ali would suggest.  He has to kill the surviving servant boy, who is gravely wounded, to keep him from falling into the hands of the Turks.  And later, Lawrence himself is captured, brutally beaten, and raped.  Lawrence is now no different than any other member of a tribe pursuing revenge, but against a state rather than a tribe.  Later, during a military push towards Damascus, the British artillery is told to maintain a "shock and awe" bombardment of the Turks.  "God help the men who lie under that," says Ali.  "They're Turks!" Lawrence spats in reply.  "God help them," Ali insists.  Who is now the little person, the silly person, the cruel person?   Later, the journalist implies that any compassion that the Arabs felt towards the Turks must be due to Lawrence's influence.  King Faisal is furious at the paternalistic notion that Arabs have to learn compassion from a Westerner.  "With Major Lawrence, mercy is a passion.  With me, it is merely good manners," he retorts.  "You may be the judge as to which motive is more reliable."

Oh, and the real Lawrence?  Editorials in a number of newspapers at the time of Gulf War I put the blame for the instigating crisis on the political settlements established by Lawrence himself.  The mythology of Lawrence is as influential in its effect on the Western mind, and as malignant, as the mythology of Reagan is on the minds of conservatives.  Simple answers to complex problems, that's the ticket.  Goddamn Muslims won't fall in line?  Nuke the subhuman motherfuckers.  Kill them all, and convert the stragglers.  Some people on this very site consider this to be a serious policy proposal.  God help us all who lie under that solution.


Very well put. Sadly accurate, I wish it wasn't.

Quote from: Yorkshire pud on September 30, 2014, 02:12:48 PM

Very well put. Sadly accurate, I wish it wasn't.

In other news:

White House exempts Syria airstrikes from tight standards on civilian deaths

"A White House statement to Yahoo News confirming the looser policy came in response to questions about reports that as many as a dozen civilians, including women and young children, were killed when a Tomahawk missile struck the village of Kafr Daryan in Syria's Idlib province on the morning of Sept. 23....Rep. Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican who supports stronger U.S. action in Syria, said he was not overly concerned. “I did hear them say there were civilian casualties, but I didn’t get details,” Kinzinger said in an interview with Yahoo News. “But nothing is perfect,” and whatever civilian deaths resulted from the U.S. strikes are “much less than the brutality of the Assad regime.”"

Because Assad kills them deaderer than we do, or something.  Who cares, they're all animals anyway.

Yorkshire pud

Kinzinger? Is that with fries and a dip? "Nothing is perfect"? The ones retaliating won't need to be perfect. 70% accuracy will be enough to generate unbelievable outrage on FOX and elsewhere.

Quote from: DigitalPigSnuggler on September 28, 2014, 11:33:11 PM
I think that was Peter O'Toole who said that, and not Lawrence; and the boundaries today are religious factions, but I get your point.

Oh, I know it was Sir Peter who said that... I assumed the line perhaps was, indeed, something that T.E. had said or written (in The Seven Pillars of Wisdom).

It just seems that part of the world has been a terrible vortex of religion, tribalism, and such for hundreds of years.  Leads me to cynicism.

Quote from: West of the Rockies on September 30, 2014, 05:42:49 PM
It just seems that part of the world has been a terrible vortex of religion, tribalism, and such for hundreds of years.

Did you learn about that from Western sources, or elsewhere?

Here's a thought-provoking fact: the areas in the ME that are considered "hotbeds" of extremism are the areas that suffered the worst exploitation by Western powers during the 19th and 20th centuries.


Oh, hell, yeah, western nations are complicit to a grand degree in the clusterfuck that is the ME!  Installing one regime, turning our back on another, sure.  However, in addition to that is the violent intersection of religion, tribalism, a sense of honor rather different than our own, and other similar ingredients all coming together to create a witch's brew of violence.


Quick Karl

Quote from: West of the Rockies on September 30, 2014, 11:02:28 PM
Oh, hell, yeah, western nations are complicit to a grand degree in the clusterfuck that is the ME!  Installing one regime, turning our back on another, sure.  However, in addition to that is the violent intersection of religion, tribalism, a sense of honor rather different than our own, and other similar ingredients all coming together to create a witch's brew of violence.

It's not like there is any government on the planet that is made up of angles that wouldn't have done exactly the same thing if they had the power... The fact is that England and the US though guilty, have been far less brutal than lots of other interlopers would have been. Nevertheless, what is in the past, is in the past, and we are in a war with religious fanatics that make Christians look like, well, angels, in comparison, and I don't give a fuck who slaughtered who in the Third Crusade  8)

Lets see what the Communist Chinks do to the protestors in Hong Kong... Remember what the Chinks did to the Formosans! Remember what the Japs did at Nanking...

Many middle eastern cultures have been killing each other since before the US and England ever existed.

Quote from: Quick Karl on September 30, 2014, 11:51:19 PM
Lets see what the Communist Chinks do to the protestors in Hong Kong... Remember what the Chinks did to the Formosans! Remember what the Japs did at Nanking...

FUCK. YOU.  Goddamn racist pig fucking hillbilly backward-assed country fuck.  Jesus you are a disgusting example of humanity. 

WOTR

Quote from: DigitalPigSnuggler on September 30, 2014, 02:00:57 PM

Generation after generation of Westerners continue to make the same mistake as this fictional Lawrence.  "Those poor Iraqis will be cheering us as heroes as we roll down Main Street.  They're eagerly awaiting our help in setting up Western-style democracies."

...King Faisal is furious at the paternalistic notion that Arabs have to learn compassion from a Westerner.  "With Major Lawrence, mercy is a passion.  With me, it is merely good manners," he retorts.  "You may be the judge as to which motive is more reliable."
The whole post was great- I just picked out two of my favourite parts...

paladin1991

Quote from: DigitalPigSnuggler on October 01, 2014, 12:03:03 AM
FUCK. YOU.  Goddamn racist pig fucking hillbilly backward-assed country fuck.  Jesus you are a disgusting example of humanity.
Whoa, dude!  And you were going to blow me with that mouth.

Quote from: paladin1991 on October 01, 2014, 10:48:12 AM
And you were going to blow me with that mouth.

Not a chance.  I don't blow queers.

paladin1991

Quote from: DigitalPigSnuggler on October 01, 2014, 11:54:25 PM
Not a chance.  I don't blow queers.
Don't blow queers?  Why, that's just....queer!

Quote from: paladin1991 on October 02, 2014, 01:19:44 AM
Don't blow queers?  Why, that's just....queer!

You just shut that queer mouth of yours, Mr. Queer.

paladin1991

Quote from: DigitalPigSnuggler on October 02, 2014, 08:17:13 AM
You just shut that queer mouth of yours, Mr. Queer.
*hands in fists on hips, awkward stance, head tilted down and to the side, eyebrow cocked up*  You stop teasing, Mr. Pigsquealer!  *stamps dainty little foot*  You stop.  Just.  This.  Instant.
Or I will be everso cross with you.

Quote from: paladin1991 on October 02, 2014, 09:48:38 AM
*hands in fists on hips, awkward stance, head tilted down and to the side, eyebrow cocked up*  You stop teasing, Mr. Pigsquealer!  *stamps dainty little foot*  You stop.  Just.  This.  Instant.
Or I will be everso cross with you.


Get a room, already

Quote from: FightTheFuture on October 02, 2014, 09:54:45 AM
Get a stall in the men's restroom at the park, already

A real drama queen, isn't he?

He follows me from thread to thread, talking about my mouth.  It's enough to make you ralph. 

Quote from: DigitalPigSnuggler on October 02, 2014, 10:34:52 AM
A real drama queen, isn't he?

He follows me from thread to thread, talking about my mouth.  It's enough to make you ralph.

I reckon it`s your charm.

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